Monday, April 13, 2009

In which we encounter the thin end of the shoddy-carpentry wedge

One minute you're doing what you fondly imagined would be a half-hour cull of the underwear drawer and the next minute you're out in the garage, AKA the Heart of Darkess (the horror, the horror), distastefully removing festoons of ancient cobwebbery from your person while you scrabble about looking for the needle-nose pliers.

I fixed it, though. Not only that, but once I'd dumped the entire contents on the floor, pulled the drawer to bits, put it back together with better nails and straighter hammer strokes, picked up all the girlie stuff off the floor and sorted everything out, I found the black lace bra I've been looking for for months.

8 comments:

Ann ODyne said...

... a Melbourne visit can have that black-effect ...

Ampersand Duck said...

Doesn't it feel great to start something really mundane and -- let's face it -- girly, and then end up wielding a few tools and feeling really GOOD? All my housework tasks seem to end up like that, probably because I put them off for so long...

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

A. Duck, if them's your sentiments then you will be glad and possibly also envious to hear that I have just enrolled in a WEA course called Home Maintenance for Women, run by a legendary Adders builder and carpenter called Rose Squire.

Anonymous said...

Well I wish there was a course called Home Maintenance For Blokes Who Aren't Necessarily Big Boofy Blokes To Whom This All Comes Naturally.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Oh but there almost is, Anon. Except that it's called Beginners Home Maintenance, is being offered concurrently and taught by a bloke, and has exactly the same content. I assume that the demand, from both sexes, is high, especially now that the economy is down the toilet.

Anonymous said...

What about a course on secret home maintenance, for those partnered with perfectionist very handy persons who are, however, too otherwise occupied making other people's furniture, fixing fences, putting out fires etc to ahem, maintain, but are unimpressed by the sad attempts of resident klutz so to do...
Tyaakian

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Yeah, you're on a hiding to nothing there.

That was helpful, wasn't it?

Anonymous said...

I am reminded of a comment by an editor of mine married to a poet (who shall be nameless). She phoned me, and while we were discussing my grammar, she commented on the banging and thumping in the background. I said "We've got a leak and Julian's fixing the roof." Her reply was to riff on the advantages of polyandry, how wonderful it would be to have one spouse for conversation, another for fixing things etc etc. I didn't ask her which one she'd married...

Lucy Sussex