Free Dinner for Two by Mike Gayle Page B

I’m going to write about because she lives with the results – and says yes. By Friday lunch-time I finish my piece so I e-mail it to her.

    chocolate
    To:         [email protected]
    From:     [email protected]
    Subject: My very first male shot column.

    Dear Babe,
    Here is my very first Male Man column.
    The idea came to me when I was thinking about the time the bathroom radiator leaked all over the floor . . . Exactly. Bit of truth. Bit of fiction. But a cracking column all around I’m sure you’ll agree.

    Dave XXX

    Man About The House
    There’s one phrase I dread hearing more than any other in the English language. In my book it’s worse than such spine-chillers as: ‘It’s not you it’s me,’ ‘Is this your vehicle, sir?’ and ‘The bank has instructed me to cut your credit card in two.’ Only my wife has the power to utter the phrase I fear so much, and the only when some catastrophe has be fallen the house – like, for example, last Saturday when the kitchen radiator precipitated a scale version of Lake Windermere across the kitchen floor. Just as I began searching for the biscuit tin that constitutes my toolbox, my wife disappeared and returned, Yellow Pages in hand, and uttered the words I loathed so much: ‘I think we’d better get a man in.’
    I know that in this day and age, when Calvin Klein makes a unisex perfume, sexism is considered uncool by all but a few dinosaurs, and gender roles are no longer set in stone, such things shouldn’t matter, but I feel incredibly threatened by the thought of ‘getting a man in’. ‘I’m a man,’ I tell myself, ‘I don’t need to get a man in!’ The truth is, however, that fixing stuff appeals to the five-year-old that dwells within every bloke and I don’t see why I should pay someone to have all the fun.
    When I lived in rented accommodation, I wouldn’t even have changed a light-bulb without making a huge song and dance about it. Instead I’d be the first on the phone to the landlord. The minute my wife and I bought a place of our own, we drew up a long list of things that needed fixing. It suddenly dawned on me that, without a landlord, I’d have to take on the mantle of Mr Fix-it. The prospect of doing all the DIY things I’d watched my dad do when I was a kid had me so excited I literally didn’t know what to do.
    Received wisdom has it that home improvements – like football and Claudia Schiffer’s vital statistics – are something men know how to do instinctively. Unfortunately, somewhere in the mists of time, one of my ancestors must have suffered some sort of genetic amnesia because while I’m okay on Liverpool FC seasons ’82–’87, have a fondness for Mercedes soft tops and German supermodels, I know NOTHING AT ALL about HOME IMPROVEMENTS. This, however, doesn’t stop me having a go. And before I know it I’m lying on the floor, monkey wrench in hand, refusing assistance of any kind.
    My wife, much to her credit, is extremely patient and holds off with the Yellow Pages until I admit defeat or have made the situation so dangerous that she is in fear for our lives. Then, and only then, I make the call. That done, I sit and wait to be emasculated and curse the education system. What use is a degree in English when you’ve got a leaking radiator? My constant wish is that, one day, a man in overalls will call me up on a Saturday morning (double time) and ask me to come round and explain the works of Shakespeare to him in front of his despairing wife. It’ll never happen. Instead when The Man arrives, I compensate for my inadequacies by standing over him while he’s working to give him the impression that I understand the basic principles of central heating. When the humiliation is all but over, my wife will insist that I offer him a cup of tea and a biscuit while he charges me an exorbitant amount for ten minutes’ work, tells me my DIY skills made the situation worse and then, finally, adds, in a