Efficiency

Hi. I’m Guy Manning, and I’m what you’d call a man’s man.

Despite what some people might tell you, I have a rich inner life. My personality contains multitudes. Like, for example, one aspect is yard, but another aspect is grill, and another aspect beyond those two is smoker.

Those are three distinct interests I possess!

Another interest? The big university. I didn’t go there, mind you, but they’re nearby enough, and they play football, and for that reason, I proudly wear a shirt with my state’s name on it when I go to the hardware store.

And when I leave the hardware store, it’s easy as hell to pull out.

Want to guess why?

Because I backed into my spot.

But you know what I love even more than yard or grill or smoker or university or efficient parking techniques?

The garage.

Backing my car into it. Doing projects in it. Just being in it. Listening to a baseball game on the radio in it. Drinking a domestic beer in it. Hanging out with a few of my friends in it and talking about stuff other than our feelings in it.

The longer I spend in the garage, the better I feel.

The only problem? At this point, I’ve got so many tools out there it can start to feel cluttered if I’m not careful. And I hate clutter. Just ask my teenage son, Guy Jr., how many times I have to tell him to clean his room every week!

Or, actually, on second thought, don’t ask him. Our relationship is even more strained than usual ever since he declared he’d rather play bass guitar than shortstop.

But enough about him. Back to the garage. I don’t like it to get cluttered, so luckily my wife got me a Hammacher Schlemmer Garage Tool Organizer for my birthday. It’s got spaces for my various drills and power tools, my screw drivers, my pliers, you name it. It even came with a power strip.

What a great gift, right? But don’t worry, I repaid it in kind on her birthday with a fifty-dollar gift certificate to HomeGoods and a promise to sit patiently in the car for up to forty-five minutes while she went in and spent it.

Anyway, it’s a real game-changer, this thing. In fact, I can’t wait to take a few tools off it later today, use them for projects I’m nominally qualified to do at best, and then find someone else to blame when my shoddy workmanship results in problems down the line.

So I better get to it.

Bye for now. Maybe I’ll see you in the garage later for a crisp American pilsner.