I get man-shamed in my house. I know in the current political climate my suffering may not qualify for top billing on any news site, fake or not, but the struggle is real. The reason I get man-shamed is I am incompetent and prone to sudden sparks of rage.
For instance, my wife bought an articulated mirror for the bathroom a few weeks back. It sat on the counter for days, staring at me, challenging me to install it correctly. To not f*ck it up. To not destroy the wall. On Super Bowl morning I took that challenge. When I found out the batteries for my drill were out, I went a more manual route. That route involved smashing incorrectly sized holes in the wall that ultimately lead to the drywall anchors facing and the entire mirror being wobbly. Accompanied by more than one profanity, I ripped it out of the wall, destroying more drywall. Did I mention it was Super Bowl morning? I may have had a beer in me.
You might be thinking ‘Well, that sounds like you’re just a loser and a d*ck. You probably deserve whatever frustration you’re whining about.’ True.
But the thing is, I’m pretty good at a number of other activities about the home. For instance, I can do laundry pretty well. And I cook and clean like the best of them (you may be asking who the ‘them’ is….don’t). If I were a single male and had help for any of those traditional domestic tasks, I wouldn’t be shamed at all. Yet there is something about these basic chores fixes – hanging stuff, fixing a leaking toilet, fixing a sink stopper – that society seems to say I need to do myself. And if I can’t do them, I’m a failure.
And I can’t. I can’t do them well. If I do get it done the work product sucks and I hate myself and it even more. I just sit there and stare at the uneven picture and want to blow up the moon.
I need a new service – kind of like task rabbit – but where someone comes to my house not only to do the job I need done, but also to reassure me that my time is clearly better spent on other activities and in no way is that a condemnation of my manhood. That soufflé won’t cook itself.
And He Says 