Routine Maintenence

I have always taken pride in my ability to enjoy things that are not typically male. I love to cook, iron and I’m a laundry genius until some someone mixes up my cleaning agents! Okay, I don’t read labels any better than I read directions. I love female authors, and while I don’t exactly read romance novels, often my favorite books are pretty close to exactly that. I don’t necessarily enjoy putting the hammer down (in the middle of adding a room on my house) to cook supper, but I’ve done it many times. I don’t consider myself exceptional; I just have a problem with gender assigned roles.

I understand that this is not always a good thing, and I feel sure that my wife and daughter would agree. I have worked them both like hired help during construction projects and we have all gone to bed mad more than once suffering from the backlash caused by my “unrealistic” expectations. I won’t say that I’m proud of this, but if I’m going to be your mother at dinner time, you can be my man while the work is going on!

But there is one instance where I know that I am all male. Please remember that this is a G-rated post as your mind begins to wander. Welcome back. The time that it is most obvious that I am all male is anytime a doctor is involved. My man’s version of needing a doctor involves wrapping a severed body part in a wet towel for safe and healthy re-attachment. Anything less is like taking a perfectly good car to a mechanic, leaving a blank check, and asking him to find something to fix! Not really, but when I went this week to be checked for a suspicious spot on my face and the doctor told me to take of my shirt…let’s just say I wasn’t surprised. “We’ll find something to remove!”

Understand that I mean everything I’ve previously said about doctors as a joke. I want to be better at this and luckily I am about to have my wish. Anything that sits in the sun for fifty years has (if not an expiration date) a definite need of maintenance. I will do better. I love my family and I plan to live long enough to thoroughly annoy my daughter. Luckily the doctor made an appointment for me to come back in six months to be checked again. We’ll call this something that every real man understands; routine maintenance! Take the whole family and we’ll call it fleet maintenance! Ahh oomp! But I really did like the doctor, he was a nice guy. Maybe I’ll take him a batch of homemade yeast rolls on my next visit!