I posted on my Facebook page this morning that I want to clean out my closet today, but being Fall Break, I think my kids have something a little more fun in mind. One of my FB friends -- a guy, which is important to this story -- remarked, "Like cleaning out the garage."
What is it with men and the garage? I swear, I think that the priority of thoughts men have running through their heads at all times looks like this:
- Sex.
- Food.
- Garage.
But back to the garage thing. Why is it that men seem to spend so much time thinking about this dirty, greasy space?
Often, we can have a house full of chaos and mess and Mike's first thought is to clean out the garage. As if the mysteries of the universe are contained out there. And I know I'm not alone. Other wives have told me their husbands are the same way.
Perhaps cleaning out the garage is to a man what organizing the scrapbooking or craft supplies is to a woman. Activity that looks like work, but actually is an escape from the real work that needs to be done.
Maybe it's that the garage is the man's domain. Maybe it's not so much the call of the garage, but distancing themselves from the nagging wife and the whiny kids on the other side of the door? I don't have any desire to spend more time there than I have to. There are mice out there. Or at least there were at one time and I'm not about to go find out if that's still true.
Can you tell much about a person by the way he keeps his garage? My neighbor's garage is immaculate. He epoxy'd the floor and put in an awesome heater. Some might say this points to his industrious and fastidious character (he is both). I think it's more that his wife let him do this so if he ever peeves her bad enough she can make him sleep in the garage without feeling too bad about doing so.
Men, shed a little light for us. What is it about the garage that is so appealing? Women, am I in the minority here? Or do the men in your lives have a thing for the garage, too?
11 comments:
I hate the garage. And I am not allowed to clean it...cuz my idea of cleaning it is emptying it of everything I don't recognize the value of...so it's full of crap I could live without, but Mr Wonderful holds onto for dear life.
And it's always in disarray b/c my son and his friends are always in there too. Ugh. I slowly toss things out when noone is looking...one day I WILL have a clean garage...mwahhaahahah
DH decided that yesterday and last night were good times to work on cleaning out the garage - you know, when we are watching the neighbor's child after school while I still have work (you know the kind you get paid for and pay the mortgage with)to do, then last night after we went and picked up Papa Murphy's pizza that still has to bake and the girls still have homework, and the girls don't have their word hats done, and the timer is going off for the pizza and the girls have revolted and are running around naked and that they don't want to do their homework, then while JB is getting help from me EB is screaming (yes screaming) that all I do is pay attention to JB because I always help JB with her homework and never help EB, and the pizza is still not out of the oven and is getting ready to burn - and DH saunters in and asks if I want to see what he has done. Do think this whole scenario would be a valid defense for murder?
I suppose you could say that our garage is an apt analogy about how I see our marriage. While there are parts that could be a little cleaner and more straightened, I personally feel comfortable in all of its corners at any time and I don't worry about what might possibly be there on rare occasions.
When you say its cold, I'll do what I can to warm it up. If you are scared something or someone is out there, I will go and check it out.
When it is snowing, raining or bitter cold outside you don't have to worry because your car is always in the garage and closest to the door.
If the garage door is blocked by stuff you moved out of your trunk and onto the garage floor - I am the one to take it back in the house to redistribute it.
Perhaps wives should stop trying to figure out what men do out there and actually thank them for the things they have already been doing.
@MikeMagan - Whoa! Thanks for taking down the mood of a light-hearted post. And for dealing with the mice.
I had to laugh out loud when I read this post because, YES, it must be a man thing! I can't tell you how many times Jason has walked over clothes laying on the bedroom floor, passed the sink overflowing with dirty dishes and through the laundry room with piles of clothes to be washed, to get to the garage that he "has" to organize and clean...for the 5th time that month.
I figured out this week (as I was hauling stuff out of the garage to give away) that our garage is BgKahuna's closet. Not the clothes closet, but that closet with all the randomness life on this planet contains. Because I've taken all the closets INSIDE. Ha!
We live in the historic district of our city, where garages are few and far between. Those garages started out as stables and buggy houses and lucky are the few that still have them. Because, you know, they can put all their junk out there and park their cars in their alley parking spaces.
The former owner tore down our buggy house, which had fallen into sad disrepair. He spread around a bunch of gravel and made plenty of room for a turn-around. It's also great when we have company. But we have nowhere to put all our junk, except for the basement. And for some reason, my husband doesn't seem to feel that cleaning out the basement has quite the cachet of cleaning out the garage.
@Gotchababy - Do you know it was BgKahuna who inspired this post? And btw, he claims he's not a garage man. True?
@lighthousegal - You'd get my vote if I were on that jury!
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