Richard Branson: check me out. · Posted May 16, 12:25 PM by Todd Babiak
Last week, I returned from Toronto to discover my brother and an old friend, Shannon, rebuilding my front steps. We are moving to France in August, and I do not want the fine women renting our house to, you know, fall through a rotten two-by-four and die grisly deaths.
I was wearing a suit. I always wear suits on airplanes, as I harbor a vain hope that someday a ticket agent will see me, admire the suit, and put me in business class. If not, perhaps I will meet someone in an airport lounge, Richard Branson maybe, and he’ll say: “You know what, I like you in a suit. Here’s $1.5 million.”
For some years, as “writer boy,” I enjoyed not wearing a suit. I was free. Free to be me! Then, one afternoon, I decided “writer boy” and “suit boy” were actually the same boy. Slowly, my jeans and ironical T-shirts have been bagged up and sent off to Goodwill. Now all I seem to have are suits. Oh, and a couple of pants that are too tight and will surely seem ridiculously out of style in one to three years.
So I arrived, in my suit, and asked if I could help. My brother laughed.
“What? I can help.”
“Go get me that brad nailer.”
I could tell he had made this up, in order to humiliate me. There is surely no such thing as a brad nailer. What a dumb name for a thing! “Yeah right,” I said. “Brad nailer.”
They both seemed so busy, bradding nails and measuring things. The old steps lay in a pile on the front lawn, with nails sticking out. My daughters like to run around, on grass, so I decided to put the scrap wood in a pile. The first two-by-four I grabbed had a nail in it. The nail plunged into my thumb, as nails are wont to do. I dropped the wood and screamed, manfully.
My brother laughed. “Tetanus.”
“Lockjaw,” said Shannon, who is a man.
I showed my brother the nail. Was he serious? Is it rusty? How long did it take for blood poisoning to set in? He sent me off to buy some Diet Coke and Canada Dry. They wanted fountain pop, but there wasn’t any at my local. So I bought cans.
“Jesus,” my brother said, when I returned.
My wife was inside the house, worried that my brother and Shannon had bought pressure treated wood. Pressure treated wood causes brain damage, or something, in young children. “How could you let this happen?” she said.
“I was in Toronto.”
“Still!”
“Sorry, I have to go power up the brad nailer,” I said.
Eventually, I was able to help. Or pretend to help. A heavy thing had to be lifted, so I volunteered to lift with Kirk, my brother. Kirk’s arms are approximately the size of my thighs, so I didn’t have to do much lifting. But I looked pretty fly, in my suit. I imagined Richard Branson walking by, as I lifted.
“You know what, I like you lifting heavy things in a suit. Here’s $1.5 million.”
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Dude,
I love brad nailers!!! I had a Dewalt brad nailer in the house(only borrowed)for a month and I brad nailed walls and baseboards and trim…I did NOT want to give it back, but alas…it’s gone now.
I often do things inside my wife’s dreams for which I am held accountable…I am still trying to figure out what women want…
— Thomas May 21, 03:42 PM #
Women want money, mostly. And love too, I guess. Brad nailers are neither here nor there. I’m happier when they’re there.
— Kat May 22, 09:01 AM #