I like to think I’m a decent enough guy, but my wife doesn’t call me the sultan of sloth for nothing. My history of drawn out, delayed, and down right ignored projects has reached legendary proportions (if only more people knew about it). So today Cheryl had a baby shower. Like many things in my life, it wasn’t exactly timely, but it’s the thought that counts. Who knew Adam would be a month early? So some of our friends bought us a changing table; a nice changing table, a nice changing table that required assembly. They brought it by before the shower, which was cool because it was a big box, and who needs anther big box to move around. Anyway, sometime between the box being dropped off and Cheryl leaving for the shower, she somehow learned that other people who had purchased this same table had some trouble putting it together – and they recommended an extra set of hands. I didn’t ask her how she knew this, I just took it on faith. Then she said the words that would shape fifteen minutes of my evening, “John, Butch said that he would help you put it together, so I think you had better give him a call.”
Was she just calling me out? Am I crazy, or was she just questioning my manhood? Since before man migrated from the plains of Africa, settled the rivers of Mesopotamia, and perfected those cardboard sleeves that make your pizza crispy when you nuke it, man has distinguished itself from lower beasts by manipulating tools. Am I to believe my wife was reducing me to the level of lower primates? Just say it, I need help because I’m a bumbling boob. I SHOWERED AND SHAVED THIS MORNING, SO GIMME A LITTLE CREDIT!
I resolved right then and there to put that thing together. I’ll show her! I’ll put that thing together before she gets back from the shower! That’ll put her back in her place!
So I did it. It took me less than fifteen minutes. I felt vindicated. Then Cheryl got home; saw it was put together, and let slip a sly little smile.
Our hero had been had.