Love, Love, Love It!: Boy Stuff vs. Girl Stuff

Growing up, I felt like there was stuff that boys knew how to do, and stuff that girls knew how to do. I’m not sure why I thought this (TV?). My own parents broke the very model I was thinking of; my mom is not really a cooker or a cleaner and my dad doesn’t give a crap about technology. (I would say “Sorry, Mom and Dad!” but I am 99% sure they don’t read this.) Regardless of their example, I thought that when I found the man I planned to marry, he would be the in-house expert on cars, tools, and all computer-type devices. Wrong. Dead wrong. The last time I had a car issue, JP told me to take a picture of it with my phone and send it to his friend with the message: “What should I do about this?” Also, despite the fact he works in tech support, I’m pretty sure we have the exact same level of computer-y knowledge, i.e., we’ll try to restart and if that doesn’t work, our next step is the Genius Bar.

It’s cool, though. Other than his proclivity for ladders, John Paul is actually kind of a neat freak. And while I do all the in-house cooking, he’s the only one who can work the grill (although I think part of why he won’t teach me is so I’ll keep him around). This all came up, though, because I think it’s really neat when people can do basic carpentry projects for their homes (too many eps of Trading Spaces, I’m sure), and I’d really like John Paul to get into carpentry so he can build us some bookshelves or something. I kept hassling him to add tools to our wedding registry, thinking that if he had the tools, maybe he would just be able to teach himself. But I finally realized that if I want some homemade book shelves, I’m just going to have to figure out how to build them myself. Let’s be honest, I’m going to look like a BAMF when I finally manage to properly wield a power saw. It will be more BA, of course, if I manage to properly maintain my fingers in the process.