He just didn't go there now, did he?
I was listening to the kitchen contractor try to explain to me why the steel rack he built not only was way too big for the space it was designed for, but why it didn't come with any shelves either. "Kahoy lang yan (All it takes is wood)," he said in his attempt to soothe my seething spirit. I tried to stay calm. So now I need to pay someone else to finish up this monstrosity because when this idiot was paid to build a kitchen rack he thought that somehow shelves were optional?
I'd given this man the benefit of the doubt; after all, he hadn't discussed the work to be done with me. But really -- no shelves for a kitchen rack that was supposed to hold and store things? No motor for the kitchen exhaust hood meant to suck in smoke and grease vapor? You mean, just like his head that was supposed to contain a brain but didn't?
And then. "You don't understand how simple this really is because you're a girl," he said with a wide grin.
I wanted to grab my power drill, stick a masonry bit in it and shove it up his ass. The problem was that I'd never heard anyone say something so overtly chauvinistic to me before -- and so I was thrown, completely shocked and stupefied. Sure, I've always been aware whenever certain men might have been thinking that I couldn't do something because of my gender -- like when I go to just about any auto repair shop and the mechanic's trying to convince me that I need new brakes when I know for a fact that the ones in my car haven't slowed down flexing their muscles.
I'm aware that I'm a girly-girl who will foolishly wear four-inch heels to the airport while dragging around a 30-pound hand carry bag containing nothing but makeup. Yes, I can't dribble a basketball across a court (who am I kidding? I can't dribble one in place for more than three bounces) or fly a motorcycle through the air. But it's not because I'm a girl -- it's because I'm a person with near-zero sense of coordination. Same reason I can't ride a bicycle and why I was voted The Worst Bowler during my former company's management holiday party.
But I am freakishly strong -- and I know how to lift with my legs, not with my back. I can get on top of a ladder, unlock the bathroom door using a screwdriver whenever someone accidentally locks it, put together furniture on my own even when the instructions aren't in English, use a level to hang up a picture on the wall, and I also have the sense to look for the wall studs when I'm trying to mount a heavy object. And, yes, I know how to use a power drill (comes in handy when I need to put drainage holes in pots when I want to plant pretty flowers).
I moved out on my own in my early 20s and had to figure out how to get things done because I was alone and poor. But that's not the reason I have the sense to understand that hiring a carpenter to build shelves will cost me more money than I planned on spending in the first place. Being a girl, however, just might be the reason I didn't grab his puny head and bang it on the steel frame that's simply too big and ugly for me to keep around in my condo. But it won't stop me from imagining shredding his bloodied head through the non-existent motor that I still need to buy. After I swipe my lips with a bit of shimmery gloss so I look good doing the deed, of course.
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