A Man Needs To Tinker!

Ok, let’s just get straight to the nuts and bolts of the matter. I’m sure I’ll get hate mail on this. Men have a biological need to tinker. Sorry ladies, it’s part of the XY chromosome. There’s nothing we can do about it. I know some of you darlings out there understand perfectly and yet some of you fight this basic concept of evolution with more tenacity than trying to keep William Jennings Bryan away from the BBQ corn-on-the-cob. Frankly Mrs. MacGiver, don’t tell me your husband never tinkers and is happy. Bollocks! He’s suffering. And listen up Fabio and your “roommate," I know you two are a perfect match and take exception. But let me tell you, gardening, home decorating and sewing with leather still constitutes tinkering… of a sort.

Men must tinker to survive.

This is not a new concept. Heckers, Tim Allen built a whole career out of it. What do you think I had shipped here to Grand Cayman island before anything else? My power tools! Crickey, I don’t feel myself unless there’s the rush I get from the chance of hacking off a digit in some stupidly thought-out cutting process! Nope sorry, busted knuckles, flowing testosterone and some good old fashioned "F-ing and S-ing" are all required for stable male mental health. We all know it.

In my previous existence in Los Angeles I had my weekly trips down to the street to fix whatever was broken on my 1960 VW van. This was followed by the three-hour washing and… uh… detailing. Three pints of home brewed ale later (another form of tinkering), I could sleep happy. Now I’m not about to bring my baby to an island where the salty sea air will rust it away in six months. So what do I do? It’s a toughie. What I have is a Suzuki Dive Master Special Samurai jeep (DMS). That means it’s kind of like those $500 designer jeans you see all the time: pre-rusted, pre-dented, with fashionable rips in the upholstery. It’s not quite the same as the VW, but I wear it well.

Recently I had the pleasure of wandering around the house dripping with sweat from the heat in a stupor of lethargy for two whole days. Finally even I reached a limit of this falderal. Something had to be done. I HAD to tinker! I gathered plenty of “Tinkering Aids” (chilled beer) and called my buddy Dale. I told him I wanted to change the color of my hood. Thanks to hurricane Ivan, the hood of my DMS had been pounded severely with flying coconuts. Also thanks to Ivan I had procured a shiny, pristine hood from another hopelessly wrecked Suzuki Samurai — Do not question my procurement methods! Let’s just say I acquired it through a sort of modern day Caymanian cannibalism.

I had the hood. I had the tools. I cared not that the hood was a contrasting color to the rest of the vehicle. I had to tinker; and I had to tinker now! And you know what? After the hood change, fluids refilled — both the ones in the car and in my pint glass — I felt like a million bucks. I’m telling you, tinkering works better than Prozac!

So listen to me carefully ladies. Let your men tinker in whatever way they seem to enjoy. It’s a compulsion that we cannot deny. The more we try to repress it the more we turn into sniveling, frustrated mice or even weasels. So let the tinkering begin! We’ll be happier and so will you as a result.

For you fellow males, remember this. It takes a lot of patience for our women folk to tolerate us as it is. So keep the tinkering under control. Fixing things that make the house better are good. A couple hours on The Precious — that would be your car — a week is plenty. Don’t let it run rampant. I’ve seen grown men spend thousands of dollars and hours on silly hobbies. Not good. So please be careful! The bigger the toys, the bigger the tinkering can get out of control. Let’s face it, most of us are weak. I would hate to see some of the car geeks I’ve known with really cool toys at their disposal like, tanks, F-16s or even command of the United States Military! Holy Moly! God only knows what any of these good ol’ boys might do if their toy soldiers were real and they had the power to tinker with them! Boy that would be a hard temptation to resist for an immature spoiled brat. Somebody like that might actually go looking for an excuse to start a war and blow his playthings away. That wouldn’t be a good thing now would it?

Nevertheless, ladies, stupid will do as stupid does: let us tinker. And men, let’s keep focus on what’s really important at home. Okee Dokee? Ok, I got to get out there and detail that Dive Master Special Suzuki. It looks pretty cool in two tone.

Edited by Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers.