Dads are expected to know everything
"Jiminy $*%& @#$%^ Googly."
I dropped the hammer onto the grass and grabbed my thumb. The Craftsman landed close enough to my foot to cause a split-second of Three Stooges mayhem as I hopped to my left and ran into a 4x4 I'd just planted into the ground. Yep, the swing set had claimed its first victim - me.
American society has forced a job upon a father that's far removed from our Pleistocene duties we'd all like to think we could have handled, like fending off cave bears and slaughtering Ice Age mammals to extinction. We're expected to accomplish great feats of Giza Plateau architecture with no previous experience.
Was I qualified to construct a swing set out of a pile of lumber and a sack of nails? Sure, just like I was qualified to negotiate a human rights treaty between the U.S. and North Korea through a mouthful of sunflower seeds.
Reading the swing set instructions may have helped, but society has also pounded into the male skull that instructions are for sissies and pacifists and leave you open for wedgies on the playground. If I couldn't figure out the swing set on my own I was just going to leave it piled in the back yard to kill the grass ... and that'd be OK with me.
I braved a look at my thumb. No blood, no mashed bits and no galvanized nail where it shouldn't be, although the thumbnail was starting to look a little blue. I put a can of beer in my left hand, hoping the good people at Anheuser-Busch would help keep the swelling down.
Our culture has forced the American dad into an unfair situation. We're expected to be adept carpenters not because of any formal training or demonstrated skill, but just because we're men. We can't complain about it either, because our dads raised us to be stoic.
That's great, but a little Wood Shop 101 would have been nice, too, Dad.
"Are you OK, honey?" my wife asked, probably figuring something was wrong when I stopped cussing.
"I'm fine," I lied, trying to hide the fact that I didn't know what I was doing.
She frowned because she knew I was lying.
"Are you sure?"
"How would I not know I'm fine?" I said, wincing in pain. "I'm fine."
Why have men accepted this role? I don't know anything about cars, electricity, concrete or World War I, but who does my family turn to when the Kaiser's at the door? Me.
"OK, if you're sure," she said, and walked inside.
No matter how advanced a culture, there are always rites of passage. If you fail in the wild, you're dinner. If you fail in a primitive tribe, you're ostracized. If you fail in America, you're a wienie. No matter how old men get, we just don't want to be those guys we made fun of in high school.
After about three beers I figured my thumb was numb enough I could probably hit it again and be OK. I finished the swing set and didn't whine about my thumb. Nope. Not once.
