I’m not saying I’m feminist, or men-ist, or anything-ist, but…I don’t like it when my wife does all the DIY around the house. Not that I’m scared for her safety, because she grew up with a father who was an aircraft pilot and a mother who still works on a farm, so she knows how to do pretty much everything by herself. It’s just that…well, my parents were acrobats. If it’s not mending a trapeze, there’s not much I can do around the place.

That’s why I’m interested in a DIY course. There’s a nice place just around the corner that teaches you how to do real tradie stuff, like how to fit roof racks and bars, change a tire, stock a toolbox, choose a toolbox…and then there are a few weeks on all that stuff you do around the house. I should ace the class on changing a bulb, because I just taught myself how to do that tonight. And not one of the little screw ones either. No…this was a real snap-in deal. Or at least, I think it was. I really hope that’s how it’s supposed to go in…I should ask Casey.

She’s really great about it. Never brags about how I can’t change a plug, never goes off and tells all her girlfriends how her husband is completely incompetent. I like to imagine that she also goes tool shopping in the down times so not many people see her and get the wrong impression. Casey has never complained about having to do everything herself, but it’s just that I’d love to be able to help. We’re setting a bad precedent for our one-year-old son, and at this rate he’s going to grow up watching his parents in a completely unbalanced household. Except that I do most of the cooking, because Casey never really learned with her parents’ jobs being so busy. And then there’s the cleaning, which…again, I do. I just have Fridays off, so it makes sense.

Are we a backwards household?? Or maybe forwards? Time will tell, after I get my own aluminium toolbox and fill it with whatever they tell me in the course. I really have no idea what’s supposed to go in there.

-Morgan