If avoided a reproductive dip in the gene pool, you’ve probably never heard of the Toilet Paper Fairy.  Late at night, when the house is quiet and dark, the Toilet Paper Fairy emerges from under the stairs and checks the thickness of each installed roll.  Deficient rolls are replaced from the Strategic Toilet Paper Reserves which are stashed in an undisclosed location known only to the Toilet Paper Fairy and Vice President Cheney.

At least that’s what my children think.

More than once I have shown them the complicated procedure which involves going to the basement and fetching up a new roll.  This seems to tax their intellectual gifts which is odd because they’ve both made the honor roll more than once.  Evidently changing toilet paper isn’t on the curriculum in your modern progressive high schools.

Neither is washing their own clothes, closing cereal boxes, rolling the top down on potato chip bags, or emptying the dishwasher.  These tasks are handled (respectively) by the Laundry Bunny, the Cereal Box Wizard, the Potato Chip Leprechaun and Larry the Dishwasher Gnome.  Just ask my kids.

It’s our own fault, really.  When they were little we encouraged their sense of childlike wonder.  Every day was a new adventure in a magical world.  Is it any surprise they believe they now live in an enchanted realm where invisible servants take care of all of the menial and degrading tasks?  Or, could it be that the kids have been on to us all along and they’ve played the “sense of wonder” card to avoid doing work.

Despite my lack of success with Toilet Paper lessons, my wife set out to teach the children the art of laundering clothes.  Adolescent boys are, as a class, suspicious of soap.  Asking them to do laundry is like inviting Superman to spend a cheerful afternoon working on the Kryptonite rock pile down in the prison yard.

My wife is a hopeless optimist.

She started her lesson by carefully explaining the necessity of sorting out the dirty clothes.  They stared back blankly; hadn’t the Laundry Bunny always done that in the past?  A little applied psychology – she threatened to feature their video game console into a performance art piece entitled “Enraged Mom Smashing Expensive Electronics” – got the boys motivated to sort.

The motivation lasted all the way through steps eighteen to twenty-one inclusive – moving the clean (but wet) clothes into the dryer, closing the door, setting the timer, and pressing start.  Then they vanished.  Not the clothes – they rattled and rumbled in their mystery trip through the world of electrically-heated moisture removal – it was the kids who disappeared.  For the remainder of the day our children were but a memory.  In time my wife gave in and took over the Laundry Bunny’s chore of laundry folding.

I adore my wife for trying.  It’s vital that the kids learn these skills.  Besides, the sooner we get them “doing for themselves” the sooner we’re off the hook as their servants.  We are just a day coat and black skirt away from being domestics in our own home.  Sometimes I have nightmares where I’m standing beside my TV-mesmerized sons holding out a silver charger with bottles of Mountain Dew (“the yellowish soda for kids who aren’t naturally hyper”) and asking if that will be all.  With a distracted wave one of them gives me leave to go so long as I polish his skateboard before knocking off for the evening.

I really feel for the young women my sons will eventually marry.  Sometime after the honeymoon, I fully expect a call from an irritated bride demanding an accounting for my son’s belief in Larry the Dishwasher Gnome and asking just who (or what) is the Potato Chip Leprechaun?

I’d never admit to having held these beliefs myself, but I must have.  Most of the arguments during our first year of marriage centered around the distribution of labor.  My wife felt that the Laundry Bunny wasn’t doing his share.  Only she had confused me with the Laundry Bunny and kept suggesting that if I were any lazier I’d risk being diagnosed with catatonia.
I was very cross with the Laundry Bunny.  The only reason I didn’t drag Larry into it was that our tiny basement apartment didn’t have a dishwasher.  It barely had room for the bathtub I occasionally used to clean the pots and pans.

It was a sad day when I realized that the Laundry Bunny wasn’t coming any more.  My sorrow was tempered slightly when I failed at sorting and turned my best white shirt pink.  My beloved declared me hopeless at laundry and took the task back.  In exchange, I agreed to never sort clothes again.  This is a trick that I’ve never mentioned to my children for obvious reasons.

Besides, they’re natural sorters and (with the exception of the whole folding clean clothes thing) have given up believing in the Laundry Bunny.  With concerted effort I’ve convinced them that Larry has moved and the Dishwasher is their responsibility.  Cereal boxes and potato chips remain unsealed, but I’ve made my peace with that.  The matter of the Toilet Paper Fairy remains undecided.

I’ve tried threats, but I’m not as good with them as my wife — I’d miss the video game system if it got trashed.  I’ve tried intensive training, but all I get are blank looks.  The only thing that consistently works it acting as the Toilet Paper Fairy’s proxy.

I might as well get used to it.  The kids are growing up and will move out one day.  Once they’re gone, when the chores go undone, I’ll literally have no one to blame but myself.

When it comes to home repairs I am the very model of unskilled labor.

This isn’t an inherited trait.  Given any domestic mechanical problem, my father can work miracles.  With a ball of foil, a Dixie cup, a skein of yarn and twenty-five grams of uranium 232, he could whip up a nuclear reactor capable of powering Cleveland for a month.  The McGuyver gene must skip a generation because given the same materials the best I’d manage would be a piece of non-representational sculpture that glowed slightly and caused cancer with prolonged exposure.

Yet still I try.  Every few months I look around the house and say, “What can I wreck today?”

Actually, I say, “What can I fix today?”  The outcome is the same though, and if I just settled for taking a sledge hammer to the house I’d be done in about a tenth of the time and half the expense.  Somewhere in the Charlie Brown part of my brain, I believe that this will be the time I get to kick the football; this will be the shining moment when I actually fix something.

The first step is identifying the problem.  One memorable year this turned out to be the leaky faucet in the kitchen sink.  It had been made in Bulgaria by disgruntled Communist workers in the early eighties.  Not only were parts no longer available, but the current government disavowed any knowledge of the original production facility.  Replacement was my only option.

This was okay by me because it meant I could make an improvement.  Nothing feels as good as those few moments of a project when I can bask in the vision of anticipated perfection.  Thus intoxicated, I dashed off to purchase supplies.

At this point nothing is too good for my project.  The kind folks at my local hardware store recognized the manic gleam in my eye and did everything they could to take advantage of it.  I asked about the sturdy, reliable Home Standard ’56 faucet.

“Well,” they said.  “that’d do if you don’t mind replacing it in a few years.  The TrendSetter 2009 is better and it comes in gleaming ChromLiteUltraShine instead of plain old chrome plating.”

I was hooked.

“While you’re under the sink anyway,” they suggested, “maybe you ought to think about changing your garbage disposal.  It’ll barely add ten minutes to the project and this new disposal can grind a whole bucket of golf balls!”

Sure.

“What about the sink itself?  Porcelain is so last year.  The new sinks are all brushed UltraSteel.”

I had to draw the line somewhere and I did … after buying a new sink, tile to replace the Formica, matching back splashes for the sink and stove, and five gallons of paint to change the look of the cabinets.  When they suggested I should also buy a new UltraAluminum paper towel rack, I refused.  Did they really think I was that gullible?

They waved as I left, knowing that I’d be back because it is completely impossible to finish any home improvement project with only one trip to the hardware store.

That isn’t quite true.  History records that Avery Johnson accomplished it back in the ’60s in Minnesota, but all he was doing was changing the bulb in his night light.

As it turns out, the disgruntled Bulgarian workers were better at their jobs than I thought and the removal of the old faucet eventually involved the use of a hacksaw and the application of my entire vocabulary of profanities.

Pulling out the old disposal was slightly less hard, but I think that was because it had been made in America and was designed to fall out so that I’d have to buy a new one.
The sink itself came loose with a soft sigh that sounded like resignation.  In just over an hour I’d gone from having a functional (if slightly dripping) sink to a gutted kitchen which appeared to have been redecorated by lunatics with power tools.

Getting the hole cut and fitting in the new sink took the next four hours.  I’d tell you about it, except that my family and I have agreed to never speak of it again.  We also don’t speak of the two additional trips to the hardware store or the eventual visit from Al’s Friendly Home Repair – We Fix What You Fixed.

Next came the faucet.  A simple process which involved dropping the the faucet through the hole in the sink and then reaching beneath to fasten the lock nut in place.  Simple…if you have arms six feet long or can fold yourself entirely under the sink while your partner repeatedly bonks you on the top of your head by poking through with the faucet.  More dirty words, but a moral victory because I avoided going to the hardware store for more parts.

It’s true that the hot and cold are reversed on the faucet, but I chose to see that as “charming” rather than annoying.  Besides, it matched all of the upside-down light switches and the reversed thermostat dial.

Which brings me to the disposal.  That part of the project involved my two cardinal failings – plumbing and electrical work.  Before I finished I’d been shocked (mildly), banged my head (severely), and splattered with water and half-ground goop (completely).  It might have been the concussion talking, though, but I was proud when I was done.

Visitors to the house often comment on the job I did, expressing their disbelief at what I’d accomplished.  The more sympathetic among them offer monetary donations to hire someone to come in and rebuild the kitchen.  Turns out to be a good racket.  I’ve made enough to have the kitchen redone and to paint the living room.  I’m thinking I’ll replace the bathtub soon.  I could use the money.
&nbsp

It’s not the contents of the fridge which terrify me.  Sure, the fuzz on the cheese may be old enough to vote in some states and has achieved a low level of sentience normally associated with Political Strategists and the guy who designed the shrink-wrap packing on CDs.  There’s also the vast array of unidentifiable foodstuffs which have been carefully preserved in individual containers.  The margarine tub is particularly problematic because we’re no longer certain if it contains non-dairy spread or applesauce.

None of that is as terrifying as the thought of cleaning the outside of the fridge.

I’m not certain our fridge has an outside anymore.  The sales brochure went on at great length about the textured, enameled surface; praising it with the kind of lyricism that used to be reserved for war heroes and scenes of exceptional beauty.

In all the world you’ll find no finer surface than the exterior of your Whirlwind Food Companion.  Easy to clean and attractive, you may come to know that this appliance is more appealing than any other object in your house, including your mate and (if you have one) your Van Gogh.

I wasn’t that enamored with the fridge.  I still find my wife more attractive — although it is harder to get magnets to stick to her.  Which is probably why the outside of the refrigerator is covered with random pieces of paper and my wife isn’t.

The magnets themselves are a clue to the people we’ve been and the places we’ve seen.

Years ago, when our children were small and we were concerned that they might not be ready for college by the time they entered kindergarten, we bought a big bucket of magnetic letters.  We assumed that the kids would see the letters on the fridge and spontaneously start spelling words.  This theory failed when our oldest (then three) pushed the letters around and formed the words “crentyd bxds”.  His younger brother did slightly better with “iopd”.  (Clearly ahead of his time, he very nearly spelled iPod.)

A few years back the letters started disappearing.  I suspect they fell off and the cat batted them under the nearest appliance.  I’m afraid that if I ever move the stove, beneath it I’ll find a frightened collection of letters spelling out “Save Us”.

Now we’re down to two letters – Q and a broken A that looks like a crooked 4.  There’s no good way to spell a message with those.

We’ve been replacing the letters with souvenir magnets from the places we’ve visited – Yellowstone, Zion’s National Park, Bryce Canyon, Hoover Dam, Mars, and Oz.  To be honest I don’t remember touring those last two, but the magnets wouldn’t lie.

Another side of the fridge is covered with promotional magnets for plumbing services, carpet cleaning services, pizza delivery services, drain cleaning services and towing companies.  It looks like we just tore out a random section of the yellow pages and stuck it up as a decoration.

The magnets aren’t just there to look nice, though.  They serve the vital function of keeping a forest’s-worth of random paper in place.

A quick survey of the fridge gives you some idea of what’s going on in our life.  One whole section is devoted to keeping track of the kids’ work school.  Papers, projects, awards and other bits of random educational effluvia are posted in layers.  Digging through them is a stroll down memory lane.

The top layer might be a pre-calculus quiz or an essay on Antigone or some other academic challenge which makes me glad I’m not in high school anymore.  Below that are pages from a fifth-grade report about New Jersey (Embarrassed to Be Martha Stewart’s Home State, But Okay With The Whole Sopranos Thing!)  At the bottom are faded crayon drawings featuring figures that might be our family or the prototype drawings for the Burning Man festival.

Higher on the fridge, over the freezer, we keep expired coupons that we clipped with good intentions, but never used.  Some of them date from previous presidential administrations and at least one from another geologic era.  Yet we keep them, as if they are some kind of talisman that protects the food in the fridge from evil spirits.

Nearby is a collection of faded cartoons clipped from the newspaper and various magazines.  Time hasn’t been kind to these; the paper has yellowed and the ink has faded turning the characters into Dorian Grey-like parodies of themselves.  Dennis the Menace appears to be morphing into Mr. Wilson and the Foxtrot kids all look like creepy sideshow midgets.  Oddly, Blondie and Dagwood don’t seem that changed by the ordeal.

Newspaper articles have faded as well.  According to one that I found at the bottom of a stack of outdated fast food coupons, our youngest son took top honors at the science fair … or was given a Nobel prize.  The letters are a little unclear.  Either way, the clipping is a treasured memory.

Which is the whole reason the fridge looks the way it does and why I’m incapable of actually cleaning it off.  Every piece of paper triggers some memory and I can’t possibly throw it out.  So I examine it, place it back reverently and look for a bigger magnet to hold it in place.  Does anyone know where I can get a good deal on one of those electromagnets like they use in junk yards?

Attacks of IDS are triggered by things in the environment which frustrate or annoy dads.  For example, someone — let’s pick a hypothetical person at random, say an adolescent male — might put a milk jug back in the refrigerator with a scant sixteenth-of-an-inch of liquid remaining.  Technically speaking, this isn’t really a quantity of milk as much as it is a film of milk!  If it spilled there’d be no need to cry over it because the whole mess could be easily cleaned up with a medium-sized cotton ball.  Now why would anyone do something like that?  Why not drink the rest of the milk?  Why entomb it like a Holy Relic? WHY! TELL ME WHY!

Sorry.  I got a little carried away there.

Virtually all high-level IDS attacks are preceded by low-level incidents of FDS (Frustrated Dad Syndrome) or ADS (Annoyed Dad Syndrome).   These incidents aren’t hard to predict and follow regular, established patterns.  A typical case might involve the unexpected absence of toilet paper in the bathroom.  Dad’s sitting there, when he suddenly realizes that the current roll of toilet paper is a single layer of tissue wrapped around a crumpled paper tube.  Not yet panicked, Dad checks the strategic toilet-paper reserves in the bathroom and finds them empty.  Why would anyone do that to Dad?  How many times have I … I mean “he” … said “When you put the last roll on the holder bring up more toilet paper from the basement?”  Is that so hard?  It’s not like ROCKET SCIENCE FOR CRYIN’ OUT LOUD.  I MEAN…

Sorry.

Got carried away again.

Some attacks of IDS are quite sudden.  There is little or no warning…

COULD SOMEONE PLEASE CLOSE THAT DOOR?  I’M NOT PAYING TO AIR-CONDITION THE WHOLE STATE!

Oops.

Sorry about that.  It won’t happen again.  I promise.

IDS isn’t a particularly new condition.  In fact, anyone who has a dad has probably witnessed it.  Dad will be going along doing his thing – say using a snowblower, or fixing the transmission on a ’79 Camero, or negotiating a peace settlement between warring nations.  Some part of the process will veer off in an unexpected direction.

The snowblower dies with a dramatic cough worthy of any Academy Award winning actor and then just sits, immobile and unresponsive.  The transmission falls out, right in front of Dad’s unbelieving eyes, and spontaneously converts itself into a pile of useless junk.  One of the warring nations launches a sneak attack on Dad’s country.

Then – BANG – Dad experiences IDS.

Often IDS manifests itself in the use of language which is normally associated with sea folk or members of particularly disreputable motorcycle gangs.  This may be the first time that Dad’s children are exposed to the full extent of his vocabulary.  Given that these same children will grow up to be teenagers, it’s certainly not the last.

Dad may also begin to ask rhetorical questions.  He’ll do this even if he’s alone at the time of the attack.  Researchers aren’t certain as to the reasoning behind these questions, but they feel that understanding and answering these questions may be the key to cracking the IDS riddle.

My own personal experience with IDS goes back to childhood when my father seemed to be obsessed with the location of his tools.  If I borrowed something – a hammer, a screwdriver, a table-mounted reciprocating saw – he expected me to put it back exactly where it came from.  And I mean exactly.  Across the garage wasn’t good enough for him.  If it came out of the toolbox, he wanted it back in the toolbox.  If it came off the peg-board on the wall, he wanted it put back right on top of its spray-painted silhouette.  He failed to see the humor when I traded the rubber mallet and the sledge hammer.

“Do you think tools put themselves away?” he asked, locked full in the grip of an IDS attack.

Well no, I thought, but it’d be cool if they did.

On days that I felt like testing the limits of his vocabulary, I’d say something like that.  Most of the time I kept my mouth shut.

And I started to put the tools back just the way he wanted.

Fortunately, my early exposure to IDS has inoculated me and I’m not a sufferer.  I don’t get frustrated or annoyed by…

WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE SHUT THAT DOOR!  THIS IS THE SECOND TIME I’VE ASKED.  IS IT TOO MUCH TO EXPECT A LITTLE HELP FROM ANYONE AROUND THIS HOUSE?  MIGHT IT BE POSSIBLE FOR ONE OF YOU TO SHOW SOME INITIATIVE AND CLOSE THE &*#$%^$# DOOR!

Sorry.  Sorry.  Just a momentary lapse.  I won’t let it happen again.

There is no cure for IDS.  However, there are effective treatments.  Removing the possible triggers from Dad’s environment has been shown to be very effective.  If people would just be a little considerate around here, things would go a lot better.  Have you looked in the microwave lately?  It looks like something exploded in there!  What were you doing, nuking a critter made of pizza?  What is this dripping from the top?  Cheese?  Cheese stalagmites?  That’s disgusting…whaddya mean stalactites?  Don’t get smart with me!  Just clean the darn microwave when you use it!  Do you think other people want to see that mess? HOW CAN YOU EVEN EAT FOOD THAT CAME OUT OF THERE?

Sorry.

Sadly there’s no real hope for suffers of IDS.  Which means – even more sadly – there’s no hope for the rest of you either.

People from more temperate climes might think that going from one season to another is a breeze. Ha! Utah was founded by hardy pioneers who knew they’d never survive the harsh winter months unless they were properly prepared.

Which, in my case, means mowing the lawn for the last time. This year, I’ve mowed for the last time six times.

Really.

While it’s true that Utah has definite seasonal weather, this weather isn’t particularly good about sticking to a timetable. Some years we get snow in August and some years it’s January. It all depends on the El Nino, which political party is in power, and whether or not the stores have snow shovels in stock. There’s an old pioneer saying, “No shovels in stores means snow soon will be yours.”

Edging the lawn along the driveway is very difficult once it’s under a foot of snow, so I try to give the lawn a good pre-blizzard trim. This year I trimmed it for the last time in mid-September when the forecasters teased me with the promise of a storm. A week later — after the storm veered off randomly toward Canada like a deer frightened by an oncoming semi — I mowed for the last time … again. And the week after that. And the week after that.

Finally I gave up and let the lawn grow. After all, under all of the snow, who’s going to know whether or not it’s creeping up the flag stones around the garden? Besides, I had other pre-Winter duties.

Like draining the sprinkling system. (Aside: Perhaps if I had turned off the sprinkling system sooner I wouldn’t have had to mow as often.)

When meteorologists call Utah arid it’s a polite way of saying that I live in a desert; much the same as when a blind date is described as looking plain, or a house is a handyman’s dream, or a political candidate is anxious to hear the concerns of the voters. The only way to have a lush green lawn is to pump gallons of water onto it from April (lawn mower repair season) through October (Indian Summer.) An automatic, in-ground sprinkling system is an absolute must for all homeowners who don’t wish to spend seven months of the year moving hoses from around the yard like the world’s busiest fireman.

In the Winter the ground freezes and homeowners who fail to drain their sprinkling systems in the Fall get to dig them up and repair them in the Spring. My particular sprinkler system was installed by the previous homeowner who appears to have learned about plumbing from books on non-Euclidean geometry. None of the pipes join at right angles and there’s no clear relationship between the valves and the various sprinkler heads. Still, keeping it running is easier than replacing it so I dutifully drain it every Fall in a ritual which involves turning a series of valves ‘just so’ and praying the everything will work again in the Spring.

Another of the fun Fall chores is cutting back the rose bushes by the bay window. When we moved into the house sixteen years ago we planted roses as a low-tech security measure. A determined thief could get through them and enter the windows, but he’d leave plenty of DNA evidence on the floors, walls and ceiling from the inevitable thorn-induced arterial bleeding. Tracking him down would be easy; he’d be the pale guy who appeared to have lost a fight with an alley cat.

A good theory, but in practice we’ve never had a thief and the roses are desperate to prove they are capable of doing the job right. When I trim them, they fight back. Cutting them is an exercise in mortal combat which leaves me shaken, pale, and looking like I lost a fight with an alley cat.

Which doesn’t leave me in very good shape for the final pre-winter job of preparing the wood-burning stove. This is a necessity because the electricity at my house is very afraid of snow storms. Sometimes, during blizzards, the electricity hides in the wires and refuses to come out. In a sympathy strike, the gas furnace refuses to turn on until the electricity comes back. During the middle of the cold season this can be a problem if we want the water in our pipes and toilet to stay liquid.

Prepping the stove involves cleaning the chimney. I could hire a professional chimney sweep, but they charge money and it’s really not much different from cleaning out a drinking glass … except you have to use a special brush and most of the work takes place on the roof. So I’m very, very careful when I’m up there. I don’t ever want to experience extended hospital stay season.

Once I was married, my wife explained that house cleaning was less an event and more a regular occurrence. In her view, the entire house needed a good cleaning at least once a week and parts of it required daily attention. I tried to negotiate a longer, more reasonable schedule — something resembling a Congressional session or the length of an Ingmar Bergen film — but she stood firm.

So now I spend more time cleaning each week than I do reading the morning paper. I may not be well-informed, but at least I live in a tidy house.

In truth, I don’t mind cleaning … the first time. There’s a certain savage joy in assaulting the dirt and debris like a new sheriff who’s been sent to clean up the town. Okay, so an Electrolux triple-bag easy-glide vac with turbo-suction and a self-emptying dust bag isn’t the same as a pair of pearl-handled six-shooters, but when I fire it up the dust-bunnies quake in fear. A few quick swipes of the built-in extension wand and I’ve made the house fit for decent folk once more.

Trouble is, just like Marshall Dillon in Dodge City, I find that the place never stays clean for long. A day or two at most and there’s some new trouble cropping up. And, like Marshall Dillon, I find the villains don’t change much from week to week.

Cleaning the house means arming myself with a variety of tools and technologies. From the mechanical might of the vacuum cleaner, to the soft finesse of the duster, to the harsh chemicals I use in the bathroom, I have a weapon for every different kind of dirt. In fact, when it comes to the bathroom, I’m spoiled for choice. I can pick products that clean soap scum, eliminate mildew on contact, or cut through hard water deposits. They come in foams, streams, and sprays of various types and all of them have warnings that wouldn’t look out of place on a chemical weapons depot. The warnings clearly state that it’s violation of Federal law to use these products in a manner inconsistent with the instructions and strongly hint that it’s not really a good idea to use them at all. Of course, like Marshall Dillon, I’m more focused on cleaning up Dodge than I am on my own safety.

Not that I really stand a chance; the house itself has turned against me. Like every good villain, my house revels in dirt. It likes to invite in dust and mud and the occasional mystery carpet stain. It has drawn the pets and children into its circle of evil and convinced them that my floors are really just an extenstion of the trash.

For the pets, this is second nature. They’re like the hired thugs that hang around a ne’er-do-well rancher. The minute my back is turned the bird tosses seed husks from his dish onto the carpet. The cat plucks tufts of hair and leaves them scattered around the house like some kind of weird voodoo warning that my hair might be next. Once I finish cleaning up after them, I know I have about twenty minutes to enjoy it before these two revert to their villainous ways.

My sons prefer to drop things that jam the vacuum cleaner (car keys, biology texts, backpacks that cost seventy dollars and rarely last more than a week in the rough-and-tumble environment of a school), things with sharp edges (car keys, small Lego pieces, and even smaller Lego pieces) or both (car keys, large Lego pieces and half-completed Lego projects). Years of experience have taught me to recognize objects by the distinctive sound they make as they travel through the vacuum’s hose and filter; there’s the panicked flutter of a piece of paper, the gentle rattle of a paper-clip, and the solid, vacuum-destroying thunk! of a car key.

I’d get mad at them, but the truth is that in the battle against dirt I’m actually a double-agent. The mess I clean up may be my own.

Except in the yard. Like the inside of the house, keeping the outside tidy is a never-ending chore. Instead of battling my pets and my sons, though, I’m up against the formidable powers of Mother Nature.

During the summer I work hard to keep my lawn neat and trimmed; I have to because my grass grows aggressively. At night, if I leave the window open, I can hear the blades groaning as they stretch and try to get an extra inch or two. That eerie sound is punctuated by the occasional soft pop! as dandelions explode up through the ground and fire off starbursts of fresh seeds; spreading their malign influence to other parts of the yard.

If the inside of my house is Dodge City, the yard is the true wild west. It’s all I can do to keep up with it. When I leave for work in the morning the last thing I see as I pull away is the lawn taunting me … by growing. The house chuckles too, knowing that when I do mow a certain portion of the grass clippings will get tracked inside where they’ll become one more thing I’ve got to clean up.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately and I blame Mother Nature. She’s decided that she doesn’t want anyone living in my part of the country any more, so she’s taken a page from the Slum Lord play book and is trying to run us all out by making the area uninhabitable. Slum Lords generally try underhanded tactics like turning off the heat or electricity so the building is cold and dark. Mother Nature has pummeled us with several thousand tons of snow so the state is cold and dark.

Less hardy souls might be tempted to move, but not me. I’ve decided to stay and fight. If you’d like to simulate my experience of living in a winter wonderland, try this simple experiment.

Go to the store and buy the biggest box of instant mashed potato flakes you can find. Dump the entire box into a tea cup. Clean up the mess using a sugar spoon while somebody periodically pours crushed ice down the back of your shirt. When you’re almost done, send your friend to the store for two or three more big boxes of potato flakes.

Really.

Cynics might think I’m exaggerating. To them I say, “Come see for yourself…and please bring a shovel…and a thermos of hot cocoa…and maybe a snowblower if you have one.”

A snowblower is the best offensive weapon in the war on winter; it combines a noisy gas-powered motor with dangerous moving parts and makes it easy to transport large quantities of snow from one place to another. The rear-wheel drive propels it forward at a stately quarter-inch-per-millenium while the spinning-blades-of-doom scoop snow off the sidewalk and spray it out the chute in a fine power that instantly sticks to the operator’s clothes. Transferring the snow to a new location (such as a foyer, hallway, or garage) simply requires the operator to disrobe in the appropriate place. (Note: An extensive mop-up operation — using a real mop — will be required once the clothing melts.)

In the past week, I’ve spent approximately two-thousand hours trudging along behind a snowblower, with nothing but the ear-rattling buzz of the motor for company. As I said, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately.

Mostly I’ve been thinking about the stick-figure guy who is featured so prominently in the safety illustrations posted all over the machine. In one, he’s pictured standing next to a cutaway drawing of the snowblower. For some reason (one presumes comic effect) he is reaching down the snow chute and jamming his arm into the mechanism. His hand has come free and waiving happily while it tumbles among the blades like a lost sock in a dryer. Electric-bolt pain lines radiate from his stump to communicate the idea that a traumatic amputation would be painful and unpleasant. Just to make sure that slow-witted snowblower operators don’t interpret this image as something they should do, the whole thing is overlaid with a big red circle-and-slash; the international symbol for bad idea. In another image, the stick-figure guy is jamming his booted foot into the front of the machine with equally hilarious results.

Despite the best efforts of stick-figure guy, approximately three-thousand Americans wind up seeking emergency medical treatment for snowblower-related injuries every year. Interestingly, although stick-figure guy turns up in all sorts of unsafe situations, he never seems to need actual medical treatment. He never even seems particularly upset at his injuries.

It’s as if he’s saying, “Oh. Darn. Injured again.”

Stick-figure guy is like one of those character actors who always turn up on TV shows and die before the first commercial break to show that the main characters are in real danger. Or maybe a politician who is constantly in hot-water with the electorate, but never gets voted out of office. There’s just no keeping stick-figure guy down.

I think stick-figure guy got his start as a celebrity on the doors of restrooms. He’d appear on the men’s room door while his good friend, stick-figure woman, did the same on the ladies. Her career stalled out and she’s stuck making endless personal appearances on bathroom doors. Meanwhile stick-figure guy has gone on to international super-stardom as a professional risk-taker.

Over the years (and around the world) he’s been crushed, mangled, torn, folded, spindled and mutilated. Signs have featured him getting bitten by snakes, tumbling off cliffs, being flattend under various falling loads, getting hit by cars while crossing the street illegally, losing assorted appendages to a frightening array of power equipment, and being repeatedly attacked by untamed bolts of electric current. What’s most impressive, is that he does his own stunts.

The implied script for these little scenes is always the same. Stick-figure guy shows up and immediately does something foolish and dangerous; sort of like Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplain, but without the rinky-tink piano music.

After all of this time, I think stick-figure guy must be tired of playing the clown and might want to stretch his acting muscles in new directions. Perhaps he could expand into other kinds of warning signs.

For example, instead of just rating movies, maybe the Motion Picture Association of America should give stick-figure guy a few featured roles to warn film-goers about the actual content of the movie. Imagine a picture of stick figure guy with his head drooping forward and a string of comic z’s floating from his mouth to indicate a flick filled to the brim with subtext and tedious character development. (Of course, this could also indicate a Congressional hearing, a University lecture, or virtually any work-related meeting.) Stick-figure guy with a box of tissues and hilariously-large teardrops surrounding his head would warn you against a weeper (or perhaps caution you that it’s allergy season.) For an action film stick-figure guy could be shown … well … losing a limb or being blown up or something … which would bring him right back to the kind of work that built his career.

After more than two decades of marriage I know better than to give her a straight answer to a question like that. So I said, “I don’t know. My commitment papers?”

“No. I keep those in the fire safe for when I really need them. What came today was a coupon to the home improvement store. If we spend fifty dollars, we get ten dollars off! It’s to get us started on a project.”

By us she meant me and by project she meant some-ill-conceived-poorly-executed-attempt-at-home-improvement-that-will-result-in-thousands-of-dollars-of-unplanned-repairs-and-marital-therapy. I answered the only way I could, the way guys have answered for years, the one-size-fits-all of evasive answers; “I’m too busy right now.”

This might have been more convincing if I hadn’t been pushing past her to get the to TV remote when I said it.

Some people might call this laziness, but I look at it as proactive catastrophe avoidance. In my experience, no project stays “just a project” for long. Like alligators from roadside stalls, tiger cubs, and human infants, they start out tiny and cute. Before you know it, they’ve grown to monstrous proportions and they try to chew off your legs, rip out your heart, or empty your wallet. While a tiger, alligator or child will only do one or two of these things, a home improvement project will go for the triefecta. Attempting to make your house a better place is likely to leave you broke, heartless and without a leg to stand on.

It’s just better for everyone if you don’t get started in the first place.

Take a perfectly simple task like replacing a cracked light switch cover. It’s a beige plastic plate with two screws. How tough could it be to change it?

Well, to start with, you’ll have to decide if you want to replace it with another beige cover or something fancier. Due to a Congressional mandate which specifies that home improvement stores should be as intimidating as possible so as to scare homeowners into hiring professionals for every job, you’ll find approximately seventy-billion different variants on the light switch cover. In addition to beige you’ll find designer colors like teal, beryl, cobalt, azure, ultramarine and white. Assuming you’re a traditionalist, you’ll go for the beige which, once you get it on the wall, actually looks pretty good.

Really.

Except for the fact that the new switch plate is clean and now the wall around it looks sort of dingy and unpleasant. Funny that you hadn’t noticed that before. You hadn’t noticed because the dinginess is just nature’s way of letting you know the project is growing up on you.

So you try to clean the wall, only to discover that the paint wasn’t really very colorfast and … what’s that showing through underneath? Wallpaper? You never knew there’d been wallpaper here. What idiot just painted over that. Well you’ll just … peeling! It can’t be peeling! Why is it peeling?

For the affordable cost of a two-dollar switch cover and a few minutes’ effort with a screwdriver, you too can turn your living room into a certified disaster area with all the charm of a tar-paper shack and the understated elegance of a nineteenth-century outhouse.

Your first impulse will be to sell the place and start over on new ground swept clean, but of course you’d have to get your place in shape to sell it which sort of defeats the purpose of actually selling it. You’re stuck with an albatross of a house around your neck and you have only yourself to blame.

Which is why — and I can’t say this often enough — I never choose to start a home improvement project.

Sometimes, though, the projects choose me. Like when the disposal failed catastrophically and began spraying foul, brown wastewater under the sink like the devil’s own lawn sprinkler. There was no way to turn my back on that one … I didn’t dare if you know what I mean.

So I went to the hardware store and considered my options for buying a new disposal. After weighing all of the various important factors such as horse power, grinding ability, and exciting product names — The Grater, The Grinder, The Disposinator – I opted for the model with the words “EASY INSTALLATION” written in the largest font.

Aided by my seventeen-year-old (on the premise that he might learn something), I ventured into the swamp beneath the sink and manfully removed the corpse of the old disposal. This involved scraped knuckles, a strained shoulder, and a surprising amount of profanity. See? My son did learn something … he increased his vocabulary.

With the space cleared and the worst of the water mopped up, I set about installing the new disposal which involved additional scraping, straining, and swearing. Things got really ugly, though, when the old plastic pipe broke while I was trying to reconnect it. This necessitated another trip to the hardware store followed by more scraping, straining and swearing. The pipes I’d bought were the wrong length, diameter and configuration.

I couldn’t go back to the same hardware store again, though. They’d know I’d screwed up. So, like an addict getting prescriptions filled at a variety of pharmacies, I drove to an entirely different hardware store for the next set of pipes. And a different one after that. And a different one after that.

I am now familiar with all of the hardware stores in a three county area. The FBI has flagged me for behaving suspiciously; I have a permanent tail and all of my communications are bugged.

Which is why I don’t want to voluntarily start any new projects. I can’t afford the gas…or the lawyers.

The answer is simple.

A small army of production personnel including three professional designers and an uptight director known in the television industry as “Hansel the Fussy”.  Before the cameras are even permitted on the property, the house is completely remade from top to bottom.

You’ll never have that, of course, but with a little thought and effort you too can have a well-run, tidy and attractive house.  All you have to do is follow my example and …

What?

Pardon me a moment.  There’s something here I need to take care of.

A screwdriver?  In the junk drawer, I think.  What do you need it for?  No.  Leave the vent cover alone.  I’m sure that whatever is stuck in there can wait until I’m done with this.

I apologize.  Now, where was I?  Oh.  Yes.  A well-run and efficient household.

The first thing to realize is that a household isn’t much different from a business.  You simply need to set the objectives for your household and get all of your family (sometimes called your team) coordinated in their efforts.  It’s just a matter of …

What now?

Pardon me again, this won’t take a second.

Stuck how?  Uh-huh.  Where?  I see.  What made you think the cat wanted to play in the vent?  Well, how did his ball get in there?  No.  You’re most likely right.  I probably wouldn’t believe you.  Alright, get the nonstick spray and use it – carefully – around the edges.

Again, I apologize.  Although, in a way, I’m glad that happened.  It’s a perfect illustration of the fact that dealing with the little trials and challenges of day-to-day living doesn’t need to be unduly stressful if you simply take a deep breath and …

What?  Well of course he’s meowing, he’s stuck and he’s probably not too happy about it.  Just make sure he’s got enough air to breathe.  We wouldn’t want him suffocating up there.

What?  His head is out?  Good, then he’s free and …  Not free?  Why not?  Because it wasn’t the head-end that was stuck?  Would you mind explaining how he came to have his back-end stuck in the vent?

He climbed up from the main floor and only got stuck coming out?  Is the spray helping?  Well go get it now!

Other homeowners might crumble under the stress of such a situation, but I’m made of sterner stuff than that.  Like all good leaders I have a vision of the future; a vision of a beautiful TV-worthy house which is well-kept and …

Can’t you give me five minutes?  That’s all I’m asking!

I really do apologize.  I don’t know what they’d do without me around here, but sometimes it just drives me to distraction!

I don’t know what all goes into non-stick cooking spray, but we eat it so it can’t be too bad for us.  Why?  What paint?  The bathroom wall!  The one I repainted last week!  No!  Stop and I’ll be there in a minute!

Well is he hurt?  You don’t think so.  Okay, then he can wait.  I just need to finish this one thing and then I’ll be up.

You see what I mean?  Try to spend a few minutes trying to enlighten people about how to live their lives and all of a sudden everything conspires against you.

Now, where was I?

Oh yes.  The key to success in life is organization and teamwork and dedication and having the right people by your side.

WHAT?

Pardon me again.

The spray is working?  That’s good, but I thought I said …

What do you mean ‘too well’?  Grab his front legs!  Don’t let him fall!  Because it’s about twelve feet down!  Do you want me to grease you up and drop you … what the heck was that?

Is he okay?

Well run downstairs and check!

Seems to be?  Good.  Now go get the screwdriver, take off the vent … oh.  That was the one you took off the first time.  Okay.  Keep him calm and I’ll be there in a minute.

Aside from a clear vision, the key leadership role in household management is the ability to inspire your employees … ummm … family members to follow you.  Demonstrate a deep, personal commitment toward these individuals and show them how much you appreciate their unique strengths and they’ll gladly …

What?

Well, moving is a good thing.  It means he’s okay.

Okay. If it’s too late, it’s too late.  We’ll figure something out in a minute.  I don’t know … maybe he’ll come if we put out some tuna.  Just give me a minute longer.

Of all of these skills, however, the single most important is the ability to prioritize and to recognize when your team needs you.  Part of being a good leader means you have to do everything you can to make the people beneath you…

I’m coming for crying out loud!

What?

Don’t cry … I’m sure we’ll get him out somehow.

We need to repaint because the original color – the color we’ve lived with for the last fourteen years – is the exact same shade of yellow as a fading bruise. In the mirror, our reflections have the jaundiced look of recent face-lift patients; all we lack is a row of stitches in front of each ear.

Fortunately, the inadequate illumination over the vanity keeps us from getting a good view of ourselves. Even with four 100 watt bulbs, the mid-seventies industrial grade frosted-glass fixture slows the rushing flow of light to a barely visible trickle and filters out all of best colors. What remains shrouds our faces, casting dark shadows under our eyes and adding to the post-Beverly-Hills-doctor’s-visit ambiance.

So long as we’re going to repaint, it makes sense to re-grout the tub as well. Disturbing patches of black mildew blotch the formerly white grout. Against the yellow bath tile, they give the whole tub area the appearance of a crime scene surrounded by striped police tape. When I step from the bath, I always expect to leave a chalk outline instead of a bathtub ring.

Friday, 8:14 a.m.

I’ve allowed my wife to undertake the relatively easy task of removing and replacing the grout, while opted for the much more complicated challenge of prepping the rest of the room. This involves removing everything not nailed down (and a few things that are) and taping off the things we don’t want to paint. My wife muttered when I told her the good news that she’d be doing the grout. Some people just can’t appreciate the value of a plum assignment.

Actually, as I’m going along I’ve started to think that a) I’ve picked the wrong task and b) I’ve grossly underestimated the size of the bathroom. I swear it’s growing like things do in one of those dreams when you’re running toward the finish line and it keeps getting farther away; sort of like looking at your investment portfolio to figure out when you can retire.

Just behind the toilet, I’ve found out that the valve is leaking onto the linoleum. Not a problem.

Friday 8:38 a.m.

I told my wife I had to run to the hardware store and that I’d be right back. She barely grunted as I left. I wonder what’s gotten into her.

Friday, 9:37 a.m.

The guy at the hardware store helped me pick out a new valve.

“Are you sure this is it?” I asked. “It looks different.”

He gave me a look that indicated that if I was so smart, I’d be the one wearing the red vest and name badge and said, “They’re all standardized. This is what you need.”

Only it isn’t. It isn’t even close. For one thing, I’m the proud owner of a male valve that’s supposed to connect to a male pipe. Without some radical alterations on one or the other, this isn’t going to work.

Meanwhile, my wife appears to have lost the power of speech and only grunts in response to my questions. Perhaps the grout mildew has toxic spores.

Friday 11:18 a.m.

The hardware guy wasn’t in the store, but this time I had the foresight to bring the old valve. Found the right replacement. Brought it home. Installed it. Leak didn’t stop.
I officially loath this project now!

My wife is speechless in her sympathy and communicates her concern for me by way of a glare. There is definitely something toxic in the grout. I’m concerned because she still has more than half the job ahead of her.

Friday 1:22 p.m.

Trips to two different hardware stores and conversations with people wearing both red and orange vests left me with twelve different theories on what might be wrong with the valve and two hundred dollars worth of replacement parts. By late afternoon I had the leak stopped and my wife had the new grout in the tub.

At last we can begin painting.

Except we have to hurry because I’ve taken out the light fixture and we have to have the base coat up before we lose the natural light.

When I cheerfully pointed out that we’d better get a move on, my wife used a screwdriver to open the paint can in what I can only describe as a particularly threatening manner. I am deeply concerned about the effect the grout has had on her brain.

Saturday, 8:48 a.m.

In the cold light of morning, the base coat looks surprisingly good. Much better than you’d expect for paint applied by two exhausted, frustrated homeowners who had worked past sundown by the light of a desk lamp and a battery-hungry flashlight.

Neither of us has the energy to speak as we set about applying the color coat with all the enthusiasm of gravediggers working in a downpour. The only sound my wife makes comes when I accidentally paint over her hand with a roller.

Saturday, 3:56 p.m.

The color coat is a darker blue than we had expected. A brief discussion about whether or not to try again ended quickly when we both realized that we had developed a severe emotional reaction to the sight of painting supplies and that further efforts in that direction would likely result in a complete mental breakdown for one or both of us.

The new light fixture are so bright that every time I turn it on, I feel the need to confess a crime.

I guess it’ll take some getting used to.

Thursday, 6:32 p.m.

After living with it a few days we love the new bathroom and I wonder why we waited so long to redecorate it. I think maybe we’ll we do the kitchen next; there’s not as much grout in there.