Men and Stuff

About 2 weeks ago, a new tenant moved into the house next door. He appeared to be in his 40’s, sporting a baseball cap and visible paunch. He also seemed to be the quintessential example of the amount of (or rather lack of) stuff men seem to need in their lives. The small moving van was unloaded at a very leisurely pace; something I would know nothing about since I'm always in a hurry to save money during a move. But that’s a story for another time.

Items going into the house were: big screen TV, smaller TV, large, dark, non-descript sofa and chair, stereo system, bulky, non-descript chest of drawers and equally non-descript bed frame, mattress and box (queen size), 2 Ikea type sawhorses and top for a desk, 2 surprisingly decent looking chairs for the covered front porch; though I have yet to see him occupy them. Me? I’d be all over that; I would love to have a covered porch! I was amazed and yes, I need to get a life but that's for another post. Surprisingly there were a lot of what looked like framed things wrapped in pads. Following that were about 12 or so large, blue Rubbermaid containers; possibly canned goods, utensils, dishes and so forth? That was it! I was dumbfounded. But really, should I have been?

Since then a few peeks into the just how much of a stereotypical guy (my version) he is have emerged. Last Saturday I heard him greet a guy friend who came over with “come on in, I’ve got cartoons on”. Then, a few days later he and a woman walked by alongside the house to the back where he proclaimed, “there’s my baaad boy” which turned out to be a black and silver mountain bike.
There’s also a grill in the backyard. Some nights I have to close the tiny bathroom window due to the noxious smell of lighter fluid wafting into the house. To me, this is so typical of a guy; they want to eat and can’t wait for the fire to build properly, which is slowly. So they soak the coals to death and toss in a match. Poof! Bonfire! Dinner will be going on the grill very shortly. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the best part. It’s when the coals “seem” to be going out, they give it a massive squirt of lighter fluid, causing another bonfire. As many times as I’ve seen men do this, I’m amazed that the flames don’t just whoosh up the stream to the can and set the guy on fire. I’m always surprised.

Another interesting item of note is what men think is important to their looks, apparently a paunch is no big deal, but balding is.  Which explains the baseball hat whenever someone’s around.  He can be outside sans hat and if he spots a woman walking by, poof, out of nowhere the hat appears! And yes, I’m perfect.