Your party footprint

All the talk these days centers on carbon footprints -- how much pollution we generate and energy we consume. But party footprints are important, too, and more immediate. You might have trouble calculating your carbon footprint, but your party footprint can easily be tallied by counting the number of food stains on your shirt.

My personal party footprint is huge. I’m a big guy, so I take up a lot of space. I eat and drink more than my share. I spill. I tend to get effusive (especially when I’ve had a few) and talk with my hands. Anyone crowded too close is in real danger of losing an eye.

I suspect that the size of my party footprint inhibits our social life. When people make party plans, they say: “We can’t invite the Brewers. She’s OK, but we simply don’t have room for HIM.”

Men typically have bigger party footprints than women. We’re louder, larger, hairier, hungrier, thirstier. We tend to forget social niceties, especially as the evening wears on (see “thirstier”). Women at holiday parties are like bright birds, twittering demurely and picking at the food. Men, as we’re frequently reminded, are pigs from Mars.

(Yes, I’m speaking in generalities, but that is my native language.)

Let’s look at the different ways the genders approach parties:

Women enjoy parties for the conversation and companionship. Men like that stuff, too, but it’s difficult to keep a scintillating conversation going while eating with both hands.

When hosting a party, women want to make sure that all the guests feel good. Men want to make themselves feel good. Yes, this is similar to sex. (Hah, beat you to it.)

Women enjoy planning a party and getting everything ready. You can count on men to buy ice.

For women, fancy parties offer an opportunity to dress up. For men, parties are a reason to wear pants, at least at first.

Parties give women a chance to be artistic (décor, fancy food). Men are more interested in the mechanical (BBQ grills, proper keg flow).

At dinner parties, women compliment the chef by oohing over the food and asking for recipes. Men compliment the chef by groaning and asking for more.

Women politely offer to help the hosts serve food and drink. Men sometimes clean up their own spills.

Some parties include dancing, which many women enjoy. Men prefer a challenging game of drunken Twister.

Holiday gatherings let women bask in the warm glow of family and friends. Men prefer the warm glow of televised football.

At family events, women think of the children and the fond memories that are being made. Men say to the kids, “Don’t stand in front of the TV.”

Women like to make an entrance. Men prefer to make a memorable exit.

Women always remember to thank the hosts. Men often remember to apologize to the hosts.

Women like to engage in post-party analysis. Men are happy if they can find the car.

These differences don’t necessarily mean that women are superior to men, but it does mean women have smaller party footprints and often make better hosts/guests. Lucky for us guys, the women have to drag us along or face a lot of embarrassing questions.

Ladies, don’t feel you must apologize for your men’s enormous party footprints. Just say, “I’m with Sasquatch.” Everyone will understand.

Hazardous duty

To: All home-based workers
From: The federal Work-at-Home Occupations Administration (WHOA)

It has come to our attention here at WHOA that a growing number of Americans are working at home, partly because high gasoline prices discourage commuting and partly because workers are tired of getting dressed in the morning.

WHOA warns all Americans that home offices have their dangers, same as other workplaces. Hazards often are overlooked because there is no direct management supervision. While this may make workers “happy,” it also means there’s no one to enforce safety regulations or say “put that down before you hurt yourself.”

People who work at home may not practice proper “ergonomics” (from the Latin for “hunchback”). They use desks and/or chairs purchased at rummage sales and slapped together any old which-way rather than government-approved, adjustable office furniture designed to enforce proper posture. This can result in long-term health issues and bad vibes.

Research has shown that these are the Top 10 injuries suffered by at-home workers:

1) Carpal tunnel syndrome is a severe nerve problem in the wrists caused by improper computer “keyboarding” and mouse usage. Make sure your chair and computer are properly aligned so that you maintain a “wide stance.” Repetitive motions, such as those that result from playing Guitar Hero, should be avoided.

2) Eating and drinking at your desk is hazardous, particularly if hot coffee is involved. Not only can injury result, but studies have found that eating chips-and-salsa over your keyboard can result in computer failure.

3) Paper cuts are common and can be quite painful, especially if you get salt and/or salsa in the wounds. Workers should always wear gloves.

4) Bruises result from inadvertently whamming knees and elbows into your desk or into other immovable objects in the home office. Safety tip: Sit still.

5) Many at-home workers fall afoul of fasteners such as staples, paper clips and thumbtacks. These metal objects will pierce the skin, and infection can result. Scotch tape is recommended for all applications.

6) Rubber bands, placed under too much strain, can snap and give the user painful “hickeys.”

7) Beware the paper shredder.

8) Many home-office accidents result from workers standing on swivel chairs or other inappropriate places in attempts to reach high shelves or change light bulbs. This behavior should be avoided. Keep office supplies and other items on the down-low to avoid overreaching.

9) Most home offices are equipped with many electrical gizmos, including, but not limited to: Computers, monitors, scanners, printers, shredders, fans, lamps, phones, coffeemakers, stereos and assorted power tools. Do not plug all of these items into the same outlet, surge protector or power strip. You could start a fire and/or electrocute yourself, which could prevent you from making your production quotas.

10) Madness is a common ailment among those who work at home. Combining your office workload with the many demands of home, spouse and children can push you right over the edge. Most health insurance plans do not cover deadline madness, gibbering insanity or “the jumps.” On the other hand, if you’re at home all day, nobody will witness you talking to yourself or behaving strangely. (Other than family members, and they’re probably used to it by now.)

Many at-home workers are self-employed or freelance, which means they have little or no health insurance and no Washington lobbyists on their payrolls. It’s especially important for these workers to avoid injury and/or death.

Contact our agency for further information. We’re here to help. When you think of working at home, think WHOA.

Taxed by life's spills

To: Commissioner B. Gordon Hufshutz
Internal Revenue Service
Washington, D.C.

Dear Sir:

I write seeking an extension on the filing deadline on my family’s personal income taxes. I had every intention of getting our tax return done on time, but Life interfered, and I’m afraid meeting the deadline is now impossible.

I had the best of intentions. I set aside a day, well ahead of April 15, to do the IRS paperwork for my home-based business. I woke early that day, put on my workout togs and prepared to get pumped up for a day of tax preparation. I paused in the kitchen for coffee, and was stricken by a series of calamitous events that distracted me from my taxpayer duties and ruined my whole morning.

It went like this:

I filled my giant thermal cup with coffee, then lifted the sleek Art Deco sugar canister to bring it closer so I could dump in my usual embarrassing amount of sugar. Some idiot (me, I think, after my previous cup) had left the screw-on lid loose, and the glass canister slipped from my hand. I tried to catch it, but the lid had come off in my hand, so my hand was full. Instead of catching the sugar canister, I clubbed it through the air. A plume of sugar flew across the room before the clear canister hit the tile floor and shattered into an estimated 4,703 shards of sugar-frosted glass.

Meanwhile, my elbow was busy knocking over my giant thermal mug.

Coffee cascaded along the countertop and off into the floor, where it mingled with the spilled sugar and instantly formed a slick glaze studded with broken glass.

I am ashamed to say that I screamed curse words at this point in the sequence of events, but a man can only take so much.

My wife came to my rescue. We moved electrical appliances out of harm’s way and began to clean up the coffee and the sugar and the glass. It was a big job. Getting sugar-glaze wet simply spreads it around. The floor gets stickier and stickier, until it’s like flypaper. It took half a roll of paper towels, two sweepings, several swabbings, one domestic dispute and 14 moppings, but after a mere four hours, the extremely clean floor was no longer hazardous to bare feet. Also, you could walk across it without squeaking.

After such a harrowing event, there was no way I could concentrate on tax paperwork. I’d already lost half a workday, and I spent the other half on the sofa, recovering from the trauma with doses of chocolate and Sportscenter.

My work schedule never recovered, and I remain behind on my business and household paperwork to this day. A six-month extension should give me time to locate all my receipts and file my tax return, assuming there isn’t another major spill around here.

Coffee and sugar and broken glass, all at the same time. Surely, Mr. Commissioner, such a “perfect storm” of spillage qualifies as an Act of God and should excuse my family from the April 15 deadline for tax filing.

I blame the sugar canister, which was destroyed in the incident and thereby duly punished. But please do not penalize us.

Thank you for understanding.

Sincerely,
Steve

Washtub abs

Most of us like to believe that we’re physically fit, or at least fit enough to get through our everyday lives without serious injury.

It’s easy to maintain that belief when everyday life involves nothing more strenuous than oozing off the sofa and going to the kitchen for more pork rinds. But once in a while, we’re required to actually do something physical -- such as lifting luggage into an overhead bin or tying our shoes -- and the resulting aches and pains prove that we’re kidding ourselves.

I exercise almost every day, walking miles on our Dreadmill and lifting tiny dumbbells (by their ears). But if I try something physically demanding, such as yardwork, I quickly find that I’m not fit at all.

My wife and I moved a seven-foot-tall palm tree from one area of our property to another. It took a couple of hours of surprisingly hard work, including a lot of shoveling and squatting and cursing. I expected to be fine after recovering from the initial heatstroke and mud bath, but hahaha on that. The next morning, every muscle between knees and chest, including some I didn’t know I had, rose up in revolt. For days after, I shuffled around the house like a geriatric German shepherd with bad hips. Even my fat hurt.

Clearly, my time on the Dreadmill hadn’t prepared me for actual physical labor. I might be fit enough to walk a couple of miles without keeling over, but I was unprepared for digging and crouching and yanking on stubborn tree roots.

Which brings us to a recent study by the American Council on Exercise. The ACE study encourages older folks to do “functional” exercise that emphasizes moving muscles and joints together in ways that mimic real-life needs, rather than just lifting weights or walking, which use the same isolated muscles over and over.

(Anybody else think it’s more than a coincidence that ACE is also the name of a brand of bandages? Maybe that’s just me.)

The study, done at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, used 48 volunteers between the ages of 58 and 78. All already participated in a fitness program because of various health problems related to cheese consumption. (Note to Wisconsin readers: Just kidding about the cheese!)

The researchers randomly assigned participants to a group doing functional exercises or to a control group that stuck with “a traditional exercise program of walking and aerobic dance,” according to an ACE press release. The 12 functional exercises, performed three times a week, included moves such as “wall push-ups, lunge and chop, and squat with diagonal reach.”

At the end of the month-long study, the researchers found that those who went through the functional fitness program showed greater improvements in lower-body strength, upper-body strength, cardio-respiratory endurance, agility, balance and shoulder flexibility than the control group.

Participants in the functional exercise group celebrated their gains by beating up the aerobic dancers. (Kidding again!)

ACE said it was hoped that the study would encourage people to incorporate functional strength training into their workout programs so they can “safely and effectively perform their various activities of daily living.”

Good advice. I plan to try some of these functional exercises to see if they help strengthen my muscles and increase my flexibility. Perhaps they’ll even prepare me to do physical labor, assuming the occasion ever arises again.

For sure, the next time my wife suggests that we transplant a tree, I’m doing the “lunge and chop.”

What a tool

I recently repaired a dripping drainpipe under a bathroom sink. This is remarkable for several reasons:

1) I usually can’t fix anything.
2) Plumbing problems typically make me weep while reaching for the phone and the checkbook.
3) I actually sought, heeded and understood advice from the expert at the hardware store.
4) I didn’t make the problem worse, trying to fix it.
5) The job required no new tools. Or duct tape.

The leak was caused by a simple cracked washer. I replaced the beveled washer, put the drain back together and -- surprise! -- the leak stopped. Since the drain consists of plastic pipes, screwed together by hand, no tools were necessary.

It’s this last item that made the job most unusual. Household repairs generally require knowledge and/or use of tools. For those of us who are unhandy and/or idiots, this often is the sticking point.

Way down in the fine print of Murphy’s Laws, you’ll find this: No matter what household repair you attempt, it will require a specialized tool that you do not own.

We unhandy idiots react to this in different ways. We give up immediately and call a professional who owns the applicable tools and knows how to use them. Or, we try to force the issue, using the wrong tool, which often results in a much higher eventual repair bill. Or, we make yet another trip to the hardware store for the correct tool.

Having the right tool for the job doesn’t necessarily mean the repair will be a snap, of course. It’s still possible to make things much, much worse, particularly if running water is involved. Trust me. But with the proper tool, the home handyman has a fighting chance of success.

He also has a new tool. One that (and I’m pretty sure Murphy covers this somewhere, too) he will never, ever need again.

In this way, long-time homeowners accumulate a vast collection of esoteric tools. Not to mention fasteners and washers and assorted stray parts.

We keep them forever. Because you never know. We might one day need that socket/mallet/jigsaw/crowbar/drill bit/screw extender/stud finder/butt hinge/torque wrench/detonator. And wouldn’t we hate to make yet another trip to the hardware store?

Unless you’re one of those neat freaks who keeps all his tools “organized,” possessing these specialized tools means that every home repair becomes a museum tour through the garage. You go to fetch a simple hammer and find yourself, an hour later, pondering a reverse butterfly ratcheting nut-driver. You probably can’t remember how you use that gizmo. Probably can’t recall why you bought it in the first place. But there it is, among the tools, taking up space, in the way.

This phenomenon isn’t limited to tools, of course. Home offices also accumulate assorted widgets and electronics that seemed absolutely necessary at one time, but now are good only for paperweights.

Go take a look in your kitchen. If it’s like ours, it’s full of specialized choppers, strainers, scrapers, graters and gravy boats that rarely get dusted off. Not to mention foods and spices purchased for particular recipes, then rarely used again. How else to explain shelves overflowing with little jars of fennel seed, cumin and turmeric?

And let’s not even mention the medicine cabinet, crammed full of outdated pills, outmoded cosmetics and dried-out tubes of mystery ointment.

It’s enough to make me hit myself in the head in despair. If I could only find the hammer.

Chair razing

Let's say you have some rickety patio furniture, and you'd really like to get rid of it and get something nicer, but you can't bring yourself to throw it out.

Here's what you should do: Invite me over for a barbecue.

For a modest fee of bratwurst and beer, I will gladly sit in your patio chairs and render them into kindling. Then we'll have a good laugh, clean up the mess and you can go shopping with a clean conscience.

How can I offer such a service? I am Brewer, Slayer of Chairs, Destroyer of Sitting Places, and Grand High Master of Splintery.

I achieved this lofty position by building my reputation over a lifelong career in chair smashing. I hate to brag, but it's well-known among my friends and acquaintances that you save the sturdiest chair for me. I'm six-foot-five and weigh over 250 pounds, many of them concentrated in the sitting region, and standard chairs don't stand a chance.

As with so many professional chair demolishers, I got my start in college. Horsing around, rocking back on two legs, buying the cheapest aluminum lawn chairs, all those things your mother warned you against.

The day I saw that I real potential to become an All-World Annihilator of Chairs came 30 years ago. I leaned a bentwood back onto two legs, only to have it crack and nearly pitch me out a second-story window. I barely caught myself in time. How's that for degree of difficulty?

As I grew older and ever heavier, more and more chairs fell beneath my destructive powers. Flimsy lawn chairs folded sideways. Pool lounges collapsed. Picnic benches splintered. Kitchen chairs splayed.

We owned a couple of antique armchairs with ornately carved front legs. They lived more than a century before they got to our house, where they were soon reduced to wreckage. Sometimes, while looking at family photo albums, I'll run across those chairs, and I'll feel a twinge of regret. But I swiftly push such feelings aside. No time for sentimentality; there's a whole world full of chairs to destroy.

I even broke a sofa once. Years ago, we bought a Duncan Phyfe-style sofa from a friend and had it refurbished by a roving Italian upholsterer who might've been lacking something in the green card area. The finished product was a beautiful, mustache-shaped sofa with graceful carved legs.

The very next Christmas, my family gathered around the tree in our bathrobes, passing out gifts and laughing. Full of joy. I had my gluteus maximus planted on one end of the redone sofa, and -- crack! -- a graceful leg snapped off. How's that for a Christmas surprise? Ho, ho, ho, pick yourself up off the floor and fix the couch.

My crowning achievement as Devastator of All Seating came a few summers ago, when I managed to kill not one, but two, heavy-duty lawn chairs at the same three-hour outdoor concert.

Granted, they were aged chairs, and they'd stood up to a lot of weighty abuse over the years. Their plastic arms were riddled with tiny stress fractures that were bound to give way eventually. But both chairs the same day? Some combination of sodden lawn and enormous man and beer worked its magic that day. Snap! Crack! Two chairs, straight to the dumper.

So, if you want to get rid of some chairs, stoke up the grill and give me a call. I'm in the Yellow Pages under "Chairs, Demolition." Ask for Destructor.

Dain bramage

Last night, I whammed my head so hard that I went reeling, bounced off my van and fell to the pavement. I was stepping up onto a sidewalk at a little shopping center and cracked my head against a thick wooden sign that jutted down from the eaves. Completely dark, of course, so I didn't even know the sign was there and was caught totally unawares.

It was so sudden. I fell backward off the curb onto the hood of my van, clutching my head. Then, because I apparently wasn't hurt enough, I hurled myself to the gritty asphalt so I could collect strawberries on my knees.

I'm okay today, I think, though my wife keeps shining flashlights in my eyes. I've got a knot on my head and a sore neck and that all-over shocky-stiff feeling you get the day after a car wreck.

I'd just been telling my mom earlier in the day how I'd whipped the last of my niggling health complaints (three successive colds, wrenched back, wrenched knee, pulled tooth), and was feeling great for a change. So, naturally, I go out and walk headfirst into some lumber.

Things I used to do

This time of year, many folks feel bad because they're "falling off the wagon" of their New Year's resolutions.

They pledged to swear off certain vices, but soon found temptation too strong. Or, they promised themselves they'd attain certain goals, such as daily exercise, only to find that televised playoffs restricted them to the sofa.

Here's the problem: They set their sights too high. It's better to set realistic goals. Swear off things you don't really like anyway. Or, vow to establish a habit you already have.

Remember when President George Bush the First announced he would no longer eat broccoli? He didn't like it, and no one could make him eat it. There followed a huge uproar, mostly from dietitians and broccoli farmers, who said no one should rule out a healthy vegetable just because he didn't like the taste.

That argument is a load of, well, steamed broccoli. Why else would you rule out eating something, if not for taste? We eat certain foods because we like them and for no other reason -- certainly not because they're healthy, and I'm thinking here of bacon cheeseburgers. We absolutely should be allowed to ban particular foods from our diets because they taste and/or smell bad.

As I've gotten older, I've followed the former president's example, and now have an entire list of foods I've sworn off. I happen to like broccoli, and I'll even eat cauliflower in small doses, but if you're serving snails, liver, rhubarb, beets, mussels or tripe, please cross me off your guest list.

My sworn-off list isn't limited to food. I've reached the advanced age where I consider many other behaviors too risky, disgusting or annoying to pursue.

For example, I refuse to participate in any activity that requires me to attach objects to my feet. (Other than shoes, and I'm not crazy about shoes.) Skis, skates, snowboards, skateboards, surfboards, snowshoes -- all of those are out. I can hurt myself just trying to walk around in a normal fashion. I don't need the added risk of strapping wheels or six-foot-long slats of wood to my feet.

The same goes for bicycles. Yes, yes, cycling is a very healthy activity. Until you go flying over the handlebars. Or get mowed down by a truck. I'd rather be the one driving the truck. Just in case.

I swore off neckties 11 years ago after quitting a regular job at a newspaper -- the Daily Noose. Once in a while, some occasion arises where I'm supposed to dress up, but I'm never tempted to break my necktie rule. That's why God created black turtlenecks.

The list of Things I Don't Do Anymore remains fluid, depending on my age and changing tastes. A recent addition is TV shows with annoying laugh tracks. I just can't stand them. If my sons are watching "That 70's Show," I have to go to a different room.

However, my long-time ban on dancing apparently has been lifted. My wife and I and several glasses of wine danced the night away at a holiday party a few years ago. So dancing's no longer on the sworn-off list, though I'm still no good at it. I'm a large, clumsy man, and I always felt people on the dance floor were staring at me. Now I know they were just frightened. Turns out they learn quickly to get out of my way.

So, dancing's no longer a forbidden activity. As long as there's nothing more challenging than shoes on my feet.

Roller disco remains out.

Losing my grip

How come when I'm having back problems, and it hurts to bend over, I spend all day dropping stuff? Seems like all I do is creak over and pick up whatever gravity has snatched from my grasp. Is it just a matter of me noticing it more? Do I go around picking up stuff all day long when my back isn't hurting? No wonder I have back problems.

Lesson learned

If you need more variety and excitement in your life, you should rearrange the furniture in your home. For even more excitement, try walking around in the dark after you've rearranged the furniture.

A world too small for such a man

My mantra for middle age: Every day, in every way, I am getting fatter and fatter.

I diet (sort of). I exercise (a lot). Every day, I step onto the bathroom scales and groan.

I am not what doctors call "morbidly obese." More like pathetically obese. It's just sad the way fat accumulates on the body of a middle-aged man who gave up smoking a few years ago and took up Oreos instead.

One look in the mirror raises a number of questions: When did my hips become wider than my shoulders? When did my waist measurement leave my inseam in the dust? Where did my belt go? Oh, there it is, hiding under my paunch. Sneaky devil.

I know I'm not alone. News reports regularly scream that America's the fattest country on earth, that we're killing ourselves with our own mouths. We're all so concerned about obesity and health, we can find solace only in another snack.

"Middle age" apparently refers to body location rather than simple chronology. You pass 40, and your middle shows its age by ballooning up as it never has before. This so-called "spread" is the curse of adulthood.

("Middle-Age Spread" sounds like a ranch, one that extends from Armpit Valley to Bad Knee Junction, passing the mustard-stained slopes of Mount Belly and Lardbutt Heights along the way. Yee-haw. Git along, lil hoagies!)

I was already a large man before I became a large, pear-shaped man. I'm six-foot-five, and rarely a day goes by that I don't hit my head on something, which may explain my many mental "issues."

Because of my height, I already bought my clothes at "Big-and-Tall" shops. I used to shop in the "Tall" section. Now, in middle age, I need the "Big" part, too.

With this widening has come more frequent painful encounters with the door jambs and sharp edges of my everyday world. A few years ago, I only worried about hitting my head. Now, I worry about snagging a hip on a cabinet corner. I tuck my elbows against my sides when I go through doors. I'm usually sporting a bruise somewhere.

The world isn't designed for the big and tall. Countertops and light switches and sinks always are the wrong height. Beds are too short. Doorways are too narrow. Bucket seats? Don't make me laugh.

Worst, of course, are airplanes, which are designed by elfin workers at Boeing who get their revenge on the world by torturing us big guys. (You might not know this, but "Economy" comes from the Latin words for "pinch my fat with your armrest.")

Recently, I rode in one of those small, turboprop planes formally known as "puddle-jumpers," and was forced by dire need to squeeze my very large self into its very small bathroom.

I got in there all right, facing the correct direction, etc., but when it came time to emerge, I had a problem. I was wedged so tightly, I couldn't move my arms. Which meant I couldn’t release the door latch. Which raised the very real possibility that I would remain in that fiberglass coffin until someone got me out with a blowtorch. By exhaling and pivoting just right, I managed to get free, but there were a few panicky seconds when a headline flashed before my eyes:

Middle-Aged Fatty Trapped in Airplane Loo

God, the humiliation. Only one way to beat that rap -- blame someone else. So I pictured this headline instead:

Trapped Fatty Sues Airline; Nabisco Named as Co-Defendant

Ah, that's better. Let's eat!

Out with the old (back)

Yesterday was the day after our holiday company went home, so we put away the Christmas stuff and rearranged all the furniture. I threw my back out pushing a table around, so our sons did most of the heavy lifting. When you need furniture moved, it's nice to have a couple of well-muscled young men hanging around your house. You just have to catch them during the 45 minutes a day when they're both home and awake.

Speaking of back pain, guess who's planning a quiet New Year's Eve?

Another dumb list

I read an article recently called "Dumb Money Moves People Make," which listed stupid things you can do to wreck your home finances.

Most of the "dumb moves" centered on being careless with personal identification numbers or other financial information, leaving one susceptible to identity theft. Very good advice, but that wasn't what grabbed me.

As a writer, I was more interested in the way the article was put together. "Dumb Money Moves" is a pretty catchy way to get the reader's attention, and most people love lists. It's a construction you see all the time:

"Top 10 Dieting Mistakes"
"Twelve Ways Smart Women Sabotage Relationships"
"The 15 Worst Mistakes You Can Make on the Job"
"Twenty Errors to Avoid When Invading a Country in the Middle East"
"Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover"
"Eighty-Seven Stupid Things Guys Say in Bars"

Such lists appeal because they allow us to laugh at the foibles of others while secretly checking our own behavior to see whether we've made any "dumb moves" lately.

Never one to pass up an easy format, I decided to write my own list, pegged to my usual territory: housework and home repairs and working from a home office.

Here, then, are the:

TOP 20 DUMB MOVES YOU CAN MAKE AROUND THE HOUSE

1. Try to "do it yourself," particularly if the job involves electric current and/or power tools. Before you know it, you'll have fewer digits than when you started and/or a hairdo like boxing promoter Don King.

2. Play with fire. Yes, fire is warm and pretty, but one minor slip near the drapes and -- poof! -- you're homeless.

3. Adjust the TV antenna or satellite dish during a lightning storm. Better reception soon will be the least of your worries.

4. Start the wrong kind of home-based business. Some pursuits -- fish storage, fireworks assembly, telemarketing -- are too hazardous for the home, and may violate zoning laws.

5. Any chore involving ladders.

6. Invite over friends who knew you before you were married and who want to regale your spouse with "fun" stories about your wild and crazy dating days. (See "Play with fire" above.)

7. Gullibly believe decorating magazines when they say home improvement projects are "easy" or "fast" or "cheap."

8. Phone sex. Your spouse will find those credit-card bills. Guaranteed.

9. Plant a "cash crop" in your back yard. Your neighbors will rat you out to the proper authorities.

10. Ignore the warnings on powerful cleaning products. Skip the rubber gloves, and your friends soon will call you "Lobster Boy."

11. Allow teen-age boys to live under your roof. The only faster way to bring down property values is to house a randy tomcat.

12. Two words: Indoor trampoline.

13. Carefully file each and every piece of paper in your home office. That's just asking for a tornado.

14. Take out a home equity loan to pay for luxuries or vacations. That little gift to yourself will turn out to be the "gift that keeps on giving" for the next 30 years.

15. Answer the phone when you're in the middle of an argument with your spouse.

16. Answer the door to accept delivery of a subpoena.

17. Answer the door in your underwear.

18. Mow the lawn in your underwear.

19. Run over metal sprinkler heads with the lawn mower. Trust me on this.

20. Start a home business as a "writer."

Spillage, people

When you work alone at home, something as trifling as a spill can derail your whole day.

I was having one of those bumbling days recently, where I spill and drop things and walk into door jambs. Sometimes the gravity field feels screwed up around here. Not my fault that we live on the Cul de Sac of Gravitation Variation.

While mopping up a small lake of coffee, I felt the fizzle of my morning ambition. Another workday shot. A long comatose afternoon of ceiling-staring and CNN opened before me.

I know I'm crying over spilled milk here, and that many of you would give your eyeteeth to work at home all day and spill stuff on your pajamas. But this work-at-home lifestyle has its hazards: It's easy to get sidetracked when nobody's watching. Whole days can vanish. You spill a little coffee after breakfast; next thing you know, the family's home, wanting dinner. Poof.

When you work alone, a spill is an event. It bites half an hour out of the meat of your day. More if the spill results in emergency laundry. Much more if you manage to soak a deskful of invoices ready to go into the mail. (Allow bonus time for cursing and dancing in place.)

Because you can't just leave it there, can you? A spill must be remedied immediately. You must swab it up and get every little speck so it doesn't leave sticky freckles on the floor. Then you discard the paper towels and/or rinse and wring out the mop. Put everything away. Deep breathing to calm yourself, then back to your desk, where you were working on what, again? Plus, you still don't have any coffee. Which means another trip to the spill zone in the kitchen--

If you work in a regular office, with colleagues, a spill becomes a group event. But, generally, it's over quickly and everybody can have a nice chuckle and, whew, catch our breaths and go back to work.

In a small office, your workmates may help you clean up the mess or, at least, offer their sympathy -- "Oh, (insert your name here), you poor, clumsy thing!"

At a bigger company, you make a token effort to throw paper towels on the spill, then call the janitor.

Higher up the food chain, you have your secretary call the janitor. Then you square your shoulders and stand staring out the window until the mess is removed.

After a spill at a big corporation, you pick up the phone and have all the carpet replaced on the fourteenth floor immediately. Then you claim a tax write-off for hurricane damage.

When you work alone, there's no way to turn a spill into a moneymaker for the company. Just the opposite. You lose man-hours, productivity, concentration, the flow.

You may curse the interruption, but it's important to keep a spill in perspective. Don't give yourself a heart attack. After all, it's not the Exxon Valdez. It's a minor spill, a blip on the radar of your day. No big deal.

Even if you spilled the coffee in your lap, how hot was it, really? It had been cooling on your desk for minutes. You'll survive. A bigger cleanup, maybe a dry cleaning bill, but hey these things happen. Hardly worth mentioning to your spouse at the end of the day.

But if you spilled on those invoices . . .

Oh, you poor, clumsy thing!

Springtime for hardware

Spring is a time of renewal, a time of reawakening after the long, dark winter. And we all know what that means. It's time to tackle those home-repair projects we are not qualified to do.

We're not talking spring-cleaning here. That's a given. As warm weather arrives, many of us (mostly female) feel the urge to refresh and renew, to scrub off the grime, the muddy bootprints, the road salt and dessicated leaves. The rest of us (mostly male) play along, sweeping and scouring, getting the house ready for the onslaught of our children's summer vacation.

Our topic today goes beyond simple cleaning. We're talking about all those home maintenance projects that we put off because it was too cold. We burrowed in through the winter, hibernating like bears, but now warm weather has arrived and it's time to throw open the windows, assemble our tools and hurt ourselves in new and inventive ways.

For instance, my wife and I stripped some horrendous wallpaper in our bedroom and then painted the entire room. The results are splendid and we feel virtuous because we did the job ourselves rather than hiring professionals. And, we'll no longer have nightmares because of that hallucinatory wallpaper.

But -- there's always a "but," isn't there? -- I made a few mistakes. I didn't wear a respiratory mask while scraping and sanding the walls and I paid the price over the next week as I tried to chisel hardened plaster from my sinuses. All the repetitive stretching and bending served as a harsh reminder that I'm aging. And, naturally, I had to make many trips to the hardware store for items I'd overlooked, such as mineral spirits. (I still don't know what mineral spirits are, but we have plenty now.)

Before tackling your springtime home improvements, you should remember some basic rules. These will help simplify your projects and you'll be better prepared. And, if you follow these rules carefully, you'll soon see that you're better off watching TV.

1. Ignore home-decorating and handyman magazines.

Those beautiful remodeling projects pictured in magazines can inspire you to attempt ambitious projects better left unimagined. Refinishing those hardwood floors sounds great, until the power sander leaps out of your hands and climbs the nearest wall. A new deck seems like a good idea until the ninth time you hit your thumb with a hammer.

2. There's a correct tool for every job.

You will not own this tool. Make another trip to the hardware store.

3. Paint can cover up many errors.

It can also cover your carpet when it spills.

4. Wallpaper is the work of the devil. Avoid it at all costs.

5. The use of basic tools can result in injury. But if you really want to spend some time in the hospital, step up to power tools.

6. Solvents, pesticides, herbicides, cleaning solutions, paints, root killers, roofing tar and many other home-improvement compounds are toxic and should be handled with extreme care.
Might as well just kill yourself and get it over with.

7. Avoid ladders.

Falling is scary, and that sudden stop can hurt. Plus, getting 10 or 12 feet off the ground gives you a new perspective on your house. You'll spot more chores to do.

8. Wear gloves.

Those of us who usually sit at computers all day do not have the proper buildup of calluses to protect us from blisters and splinters. Of course, gloves won't help if you insist on hitting your thumb with the hammer.

9. Fasteners -- nails, screws, bolts, etc... -- must be the proper size to do the job.

Make another trip to the hardware store.

10. If something is supposed to move and it won't, spray it liberally with WD-40.

11. If something is not supposed to move and it does, secure it with duct tape.

Those last two rules come from my in-laws -- hardy, self-reliant ranch folk who live 100 miles from the nearest home-improvement superstore. They're forced to do it themselves, and they know the simplest solutions usually are best. Here's one more from them, which has become the byword for all home repair projects in our family:

12. Get a bigger hammer.

Freedom to assemble

Want to chill the typical American male to his very toes? Then utter these three simple words: "Some assembly required."

Furniture and bicycles, toys and stereos, computers and exercise equipment all arrive at our homes these days requiring final assembly. And the average male gets out his tools and muddles through the "instructions" and proceeds to break whatever item he's supposed to be assembling.

This average male is thinking the whole time: "Don't they have someone more qualified to do this? Isn't there someone at the factory who knows how to do the final assembly?" Sure, the furniture (or other item) needs to fold flat for shipping, but wouldn't we all be happy to pay higher shipping costs to get the item in its finished form?

I'm sure some guys love the challenge of "ready-to-assemble" furniture and color-coded computer cables and toys in which the battery compartment is hermetically sealed, but I'm not one of them. And I think most guys fall into my category: Irredeemable klutzes who have no business assembling anything.

We klutzes know who we are. We'd never attempt to, say, create a piece of furniture from scratch. We know we're not gifted with the innate ability to handle tools properly. We stay away from power saws because we don't want the nickname "Stumpy."

But give us a piece of furniture compacted into a three-inch-thick box, and we're gung-ho. After all, the parts are all there, right? The holes are pre-drilled. The box contains instructions written in some semblance of English. Why, any fool could put it together!

Soon, though, we find that we're not just any fool. We're the fools who can't do anything right, the ones for whom "some assembly required" might as well read, "Forget about it, you idiot."

To be fair, it's not entirely our fault. Ready-to-assemble items rarely are truly ready to assemble. If there were truth in advertising, they'd be labeled: "Random assortment of parts that may or may not fit together. You're on your own."

Murphy's Law is hardly adequate to describe the pain and suffering faced by a guy who's trying to "insert tab 'A' into slot 'B' at a 45-degree angle." Here, then, are Brewer's Laws for Ready-to-Assemble Items:

--Tab "A" never fits into slot "B." There's always a ragged piece of plastic that prevents them from sliding together smoothly. Remove that excess plastic, and the tab will wiggle loosely in its slot. Forever.

--Instructions are written in pidgin English by someone from a foreign land, even if the item is labeled "Made in the USA." The foreign land that produces such writers is "Venus."

--Illustrations in the instructions will be so tiny, you won't be able to tell which part goes where without a microscope.

--No matter how carefully you handle the plastic bag full of nuts, bolts, screws and washers, you'll lose at least one of them. The missing hardware will be the one piece of that holds everything else together.

--Missing screws, etc., will be some oddball size they don't carry at American hardware stores.

--Yes, ready-to-assemble furniture comes with pre-drilled holes to make it easier to line up the pieces, but one of the holes will be in the wrong place. It won't be off by much; just enough to make you slowly go insane.

--If tools such as Allen wrenches are included with the hardware, they'll be made of flimsy metal that just begs to be broken. And, they'll be too small to use with your actual hands. If you try to use real tools in their place, the tools will not fit. The next sound you hear will be the stripping of a bolt.

--When pieces don't fit, you'll eventually get mad and try to force them. This will result in permanent damage, both to the item and to your fingers.

--If you succeed in assembling the item, there always will be a few screws, etc., left over. These parts should be discarded immediately before your wife sees them.

Remember these rules when faced with "some assembly required." They won't make it any easier, but they'll remind you that someone, somewhere, is getting a good laugh at your expense.
My money's on those Venusians.

Duckwalking through emergency rooms

The other day, I sliced my finger while opening a jar of pickles. You might have trouble picturing anything less sharp than a jar of pickles, but this one had some little rough spot and it snagged my middle finger as it twisted past and gave me a bright inch-long gash.

No big deal, right? Didn't even hurt much, though it bled as if I'd run it through a jigsaw. It was, however, a reminder of the dangers of working around the house.

They don't tell you this when you sign on to do the housework. You think, sure, there'll be a lot more to do if I work at home -- carpools and cooking and cleaning and laundry -- but "bleeding" isn't part of the job description. You don't expect that your new fashion accessory will be the Band-Aid.

Homes, our cozy nests, are dangerous places. They're full of knives and power tools and wet tiles and electric wires. Plus, they're designed for people of a certain size. I'm about 20 percent larger than that size in every direction, so I bump into all the sharp corners.

Working around the house, it's possible for a klutz to get hurt most every day. The day after I started sporting a Band-Aid for the pickle slice, I pinched my pinkie in a TV antenna, peeling back a sweet little butterfly of epidermis. Another Band-Aid, same hand. I was starting to look like an offensive lineman -- tape on every finger.

The wrist of the same hand is nearly healed from an incident a few days earlier. I was teaching our giant puppy to play fetch and he forgot the whole "throwing the ball" portion of the program and tried to snatch it out of my hand with his teeth. Maybe he didn't want to be the only one in the family without an opposable thumb.

So that's the story on one hand up to the wrist. Usually, the rest of the body bears a similar spattering of cuts and scrapes and bruises, proving that life is perilous, even for house hermits.

I should've known it would be this way. My past performance in any sort of household labor has shown a predilection toward injury.

Years ago, when I was a bachelor, I was cleaning up the aftermath of a party, my hand down a garbage disposal to fish out a beer bottle cap, when my then-girlfriend flipped on the "light" to help me see. The disposal didn't actually cut off any of my fingers, but it sure made them wish they'd been elsewhere. The relationship with the girlfriend went south soon after. And I've been flinchy about garbage disposals ever since.

Every plumbing job I've ever attempted has resulted in barked knuckles or worse. I can't handle a hot skillet without touching it somewhere. "Some assembly required" should be the slogan scrolled on the door of the emergency room.

Even something as fluffy as laundry can hurt. Inside the door of the dryer? There's that sharp little latch . . .

And these are just the external injuries. Inside the body, all those muscles and tendons and ligaments are just begging to be stretched, strained, severed, spindled and mutilated. I once walked like Quasimodo for a week because I bent over awkwardly to pick up a book off the floor. Recently, I squatted over a broken sprinkler head so long that my legs seized up. I thought for a moment I'd have to do the Chuck Berry duckwalk everywhere I went.

OK, now you're thinking: Quit your quacking, you big Baby Huey. Most working stiffs would gladly risk the injuries to stay home all day. You're right, of course. Working at home -- without several layers of bosses lining up to breathe down my neck -- is worth the hazards. I wear my Band-Aids with pride.

At least now that my kids are older, the Band-Aids are the "flesh-tone" variety. It was hard to impress the fellas down at the hardware store, to show them I'm a man's man who troubleshoots his own household repairs, when I wore Barney the Dinosaur on every finger.