RIVER CITY JOURNAL: IT'S A GOOD THING MEN HAVE BENES TO BLAME THINGS ON

You think men fantasize about nekkid women? Look for the power-tool catalog hidden inside the girlie magazine.

As a male of the species, I'll confess I have my share of bad habits.

But not all of them.

I don't spit much.

I don't eat junk food in my recliner very often. Whole meals, yes. But not snacks.

I don't kick the cat.

I don't teach the grandkids how to belch at the dinner table.

OK. Those last two are easy. After more than 30 years under feline rule, our family no longer has a cat.

Ditto for grandchildren. Not that we haven't dropped enough hints to our sons that they are of marrying age and we are prepared to travel anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat for a decent wedding reception.

Young men don't listen to the ticking of their biological clocks. Instead, like Odysseus, they hear voices beckoning them to pursue adventure and danger and tests of endurance.

Our sons have traveled around the world in places so remote they make Kelo Valley, where I was raised in the Ozarks, look like a center of population and commerce. What I don't understand is how they find their way on foot across vast stretches of African savanna or by kayak around islands in the Indian Ocean without stopping at least once in a while to ask directions. How can an adventurous young man assert his maleness in areas that are so remote there are no filling stations to stride past or paddle around?

But, as I admitted at the outset, I have my faults.

For example, I am a sucker for power tools.

Of any kind.

Whether I need them or not.

Whoa! What am I saying? Of course I NEED them. It's just that sometimes it's harder to explain why.

I've got a whole shed full of things that rely on gasoline and electricity. My wife could refer to this as Exhibit A whenever I start to whine about a reciprocating saw or a commercial floor sander -- two of the few things I don't possess.

What, you might ask, would I do with a reciprocating saw or floor sander?

Obviously, you're missing the whole point.

Or you're not a male of the species.

Or both.

My most recent obsession has been a cordless drill. Do I have a lot of reasons to drill holes in things that are so far away from an extension cord?

You're not paying attention again.

I'd go to hardware stores and home centers looking for more duct tape or some screws and wind up spending an hour looking at the cordless drills.

It got so my wife was embarrassed to go anywhere with me where power tools might be on display. I'd drool so much that the front of my shirt would be sopping wet. And what woman in her right mind wants to be seen in public with a wrinkled blouse or a drooling man?

So she took matters into her own hands. We were at a home center where we were supposed to get some light bulbs. On the way out, there was a special display of power tools. On sale. That day only. With a special one-day rebate.

What I'm saying here is that a special one-day-only discount (with rebate) on power tools is the same as telling the female of the species that there's a 70-percent-off sale at any factory-outlet store selling women's apparel.

Get the message?

Rather than watch me slobber any longer, my wife did the most prudent thing she could think of: She bought me the cordless drill.

My wife is so wise. And loving.

Not even a week had gone by before I discovered my yard blower/vac had died, apparently of natural causes, sometime over the winter. I had used it, with the proper attachment, to blow leaves out of the gutters. Until I discovered that plastic stuff you put over your gutters to keep out leaves.

Hey, it was right there in the middle of the aisle in a special display. What was I supposed to do?

All my neighbors use their blowers, day and night, to move leaves, dirt and other debris from here to there. So why shouldn't I?

I went to the store and immediately got confused by all the models of blowers. And prices. A friendly salesman sidled over and helped me through the selection process. We looked at weight, power and ease of conversion from blower to vac as our primary guides. Finally I selected the one that promised something like 6,000-mph wind gusts. It was called the Tornado model.

I finally got to use the blower this week. I opened the box, put the blower nozzle on, unwound the extension cord and pushed the "on" button.

I'll swear if I had wings I'd be doing barrel rolls over the greater Cape Girardeau metropolitan area right now.

I started in one corner of the patio. The waterlogged welcome mat went sailing over the hedge. I saw small animals airborne before they came down in the yard near the street. The potted geraniums held on to each other, bracing for the blast.

All of this happened in about two seconds as I tried to figure out how to turn the blower off. It occurred to me when the whirlwind died down that we make teen-agers get learning permits before they get behind the wheel of a car, but the male of the species is licensed from birth to operate power tools.

This may not be the very best thing for humanity.

Oh. Did I mention I've had my eye on a backhoe?

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.