Manly Mamma vs. The Hardware Store

Yes, I have done a few manly things in my day. Skied a double black diamond, rock-climbed, fell off a horse, acquired two concussions, wrestled a 150lb dog into the back of our car…. The problem is that all of this was accomplished with wimpy sissy flair. Yes I skied the double black diamond…you know praying and crying and clutching at my poles. And my concussions, I fell of a tiny little pony and the second time landed in a creek upside down while skiing then decided to take a nap until help arrived. Ok…so the dog thing was pretty manly, but there is a chance that the other day at the hardware store I may have accomplished a task to cancell out my history of irreversable sissyness.

Now I have managed to buy paint before, but this time I was charged with acquiring all the necessary hardware and lumber for a full fledged “Dangerous Book for Boys” tree-house. I wandered the isles for awhile and did find four big eye-bolt thingys but that was all. Who knew there were so many different kinds of wood screws? And when I begged for help, they said that there was no such thing as a box-head screw with square washers. What! But the book says… After some help from Google, we realized that what I wanted were hex head screws, galvanized…and stuff. I followed the guys in the blue vests like a quacking little duckling saying things like: “um…what’s galvanized…how do you calculate board feet…is this fir by chance actually pine…” But 2 hours and 45 min. later I left the store successful. Almost having procured everything that was required for a tree-house strong enough to last through the zombie apocalypse. Ok, so I got 8′ boards instead of 7’…but that won’t make that much of a difference, right? And despite my many foibles and blondish utterings among the hardware experts, when I drove home with that truck full of lumber and toolish things, I felt manly, very very manly.