25 Skills Every Man Should Know - Popular Mechanics article
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Flip said:
Yeah, it's best not to go there on days you're bloated; best too, to keep out of the skirts then as well.
Let's see. I will come up with the girlie list. It'll be difficult for me. I assure you, I am a girl ... but I'm not very "girlie."
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Flip said:
Dude ... here's your remote:
Come up with the list for the girls, I think it'd be hilarious. I'll come up with a real list for the 25 things we women REALLY want to see in a man!! >
I guarantee that it'll differ greatly from the one below. 
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OK, I'm suicidal anyway, so, here, for the first time EVER,
MRP's "25 things every woman should know"
1. How to change a light bulb
2. How to barbeque
3. How to put on a french maid outfit
(4-24. Censored to to "family" rating of milnet.ca)
25. How to deal with chauvinistic rats who think they can come up with a list of 25 things they "ought" to know.
MRP's "25 things every woman should know"
1. How to change a light bulb
2. How to barbeque
3. How to put on a french maid outfit
(4-24. Censored to to "family" rating of milnet.ca)
25. How to deal with chauvinistic rats who think they can come up with a list of 25 things they "ought" to know.
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Mortarman Rockpainter said:OK, I'm suicidal anyway, so, here, for the first time EVER,
MRP's "25 things every woman should know"
1. How to change a light bulb
2. How to barbeque
3. How to put on a french maid outfit
(4-24. Censored to to "family" rating of milnet.ca)
25. How to deal with chauvinistic rats who think they can come up with a list of 25 things they "ought" to know.
Start over; I've got your list aced.
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DirtyDog said:
Excellent!
How about adding,
1.push starting your truck
2.patch welding
3.drive ANYTHING
4.shoot that deer
I'm sure we can figure out more later.
Women
1. How to re-set a circuit breaker
2. How to unclog a toilet
3. How to cut the dogs nails
4. How to work both a lawn mower and snow blower
Just a few things my wife had to do when I was galavanting around the world in various shitholes!
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Maybe it's just me ...
But are there really women out there (I mean the ones without the Maids -- although they may have aforementioned maid outfits) who can not do these things??
I guess, if that's the case, road tests prior to marriage should be mandatory. :-\
But are there really women out there (I mean the ones without the Maids -- although they may have aforementioned maid outfits) who can not do these things??
I guess, if that's the case, road tests prior to marriage should be mandatory. :-\
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ArmyVern said:
Vern I have met very few wives in the military who can do any of those four simple tasks, hubby always does it! It takes only a few minutes to teach family members (kids included) those simple things and yet I find wives who still can't do any.
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This topic reminds me of a column Margaret Wente of the G&M wrote recently.
MODERN MAINTENANCE
Mom and dad could've done it
Around the house, we're dumb bunny rabbits in the forest, easy marks for anyone with skills
MARGARET WENTE
July 21, 2007
My husband and I are typical urban homeowners - which is to say, at the mercy of our aging house. A while ago we got up one morning to discover a distinctly swampy odour emanating from our bathroom sink. I figure swampy odours are men's work, so I sent him down to the basement to take a look. Sure enough, our sewer had backed up.
Our dads would have known what to do. We didn't. Instead, we panicked. Four or five thousand dollars later, we had new sewer pipes and a new cement floor in the basement. We also had a notion that we'd probably been hosed. What should it really cost to fix our plumbing problem? We didn't have a clue. Like most homeowners today, we are at the mercy of anyone with expertise. We're dumb bunny rabbits in the forest, easy marks for anyone who wants to eat us for lunch.
Don't get me wrong. I married my husband for his congenial disposition and his shapely frontal lobes, not his skills with a hammer. Yet, I confess that deep down inside, I expect every man to be able to fix things, as our dads did, or at least to know how they ought to be fixed. My romantic fantasies generally do not include billionaires, athletes or handsome movie stars. I dream about Mike Holmes. I dream that he will one day show up in his tool belt at my door and say, "Hey, little missy, I hear you've got a leaky skylight."
Is this sexist? I guess so. But men are worried about the loss of these skills, too.
"We can't do one-quarter of the things our fathers can," one blogger says in a widely linked lament. Most younger men today, he notes, cannot operate a drill press, a band saw or an angle grinder. They're absolutely stuck when the air conditioner breaks down or the toilet backs up. They are also hopelessly at the mercy of more qualified personnel.
My dad wasn't unusually handy, for his time. But he could build a radio from a Heathkit, sand down, varnish and repaint a wooden boat, rewire a light switch, fix a furnace and hang a door. When we added a second story to our little house, he and my mother did all the finishing work and painting themselves. (Only rich people hired painters in those days.)
My father-in-law could bag a grouse and shoot and skin a deer. He was an exquisite woodworker, and made turned bowls and furniture. He once built a canoe. Both dads could make a fire in the rain and had a basic working knowledge of auto mechanics. Clogged toilets were nothing to them.
In other words, our dads were able to function competently in the world they lived in. Their skills were crucial to the daily operation of the family unit.
As we rely increasingly on cognitive skills to earn our living, our practical skills are dying off. When you can make more money manipulating symbols than you can manipulating tools, it's more efficient to call a plumber than to take apart the sink yourself. Still, an entire encyclopedia of common knowledge is being lost. As we become more and more affluent, we also become more and more helpless.
The disappearance of practical skills isn't just a guy thing. Cooking has pretty well died off, too, if, by "cooking," you include the menu planning and food prep necessary to produce three squares a day for an entire family, with no microwave ovens and no cheating with takeout. Our moms weren't exactly gourmet cooks. But the meals were always on the table -- meat, starch and vegetables, with the occasional homemade pie and cake, day in and day out. Few have the time or inclination for this type of work any more, unless they're getting paid for it. That's why the fastest-growing category of supermarket food is ready-made meals in a box.
The outsourcing of food prep is the greatest revolution in domestic life since indoor plumbing. You can track the steep decline of interest in cooking by the cookbooks on my shelf (the ones I never use, although I mean to). From the 1980s, there's the classic 60-Minute Gourmet. From the 1990s, there's The 30-Minute Dinner. This week, I printed out an invaluable piece from The New York Times called "101 Simple Meals You Can Make in 10 Minutes or Less." I plan to try out a few of them, when I have the time.
The trouble with not doing it yourself is that you eventually begin doubting your ability to do it at all. The less I cook, the less I feel I know how. I'd no more paint the house myself than I would try to make a dress (although each is theoretically doable).
I don't even trust myself to arrange my own furniture. Instead, I call my friend, the interior designer, who is, after all, an expert.
Sometimes, my husband and I wonder how we'd survive if, say, the entire power grid got knocked out for six months and there were suddenly no takeouts, no plumbers and no bank machines to get the money we use to pay for all the things we can't do ourselves. Here's our plan: We'll use our last tank of gas to drive up to the country and throw ourselves on the mercy of our neighbours - the ones with the Grade 8 education, the market garden, the shotgun and the beat-up pickup truck. Swampy odours never baffled them.
We hope they'll take us in, even though we're useless. ;D
mwente@globeandmail.com
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070721.COWENT21/TPStory/TPComment/?query=
MODERN MAINTENANCE
Mom and dad could've done it
Around the house, we're dumb bunny rabbits in the forest, easy marks for anyone with skills
MARGARET WENTE
July 21, 2007
My husband and I are typical urban homeowners - which is to say, at the mercy of our aging house. A while ago we got up one morning to discover a distinctly swampy odour emanating from our bathroom sink. I figure swampy odours are men's work, so I sent him down to the basement to take a look. Sure enough, our sewer had backed up.
Our dads would have known what to do. We didn't. Instead, we panicked. Four or five thousand dollars later, we had new sewer pipes and a new cement floor in the basement. We also had a notion that we'd probably been hosed. What should it really cost to fix our plumbing problem? We didn't have a clue. Like most homeowners today, we are at the mercy of anyone with expertise. We're dumb bunny rabbits in the forest, easy marks for anyone who wants to eat us for lunch.
Don't get me wrong. I married my husband for his congenial disposition and his shapely frontal lobes, not his skills with a hammer. Yet, I confess that deep down inside, I expect every man to be able to fix things, as our dads did, or at least to know how they ought to be fixed. My romantic fantasies generally do not include billionaires, athletes or handsome movie stars. I dream about Mike Holmes. I dream that he will one day show up in his tool belt at my door and say, "Hey, little missy, I hear you've got a leaky skylight."
Is this sexist? I guess so. But men are worried about the loss of these skills, too.
"We can't do one-quarter of the things our fathers can," one blogger says in a widely linked lament. Most younger men today, he notes, cannot operate a drill press, a band saw or an angle grinder. They're absolutely stuck when the air conditioner breaks down or the toilet backs up. They are also hopelessly at the mercy of more qualified personnel.
My dad wasn't unusually handy, for his time. But he could build a radio from a Heathkit, sand down, varnish and repaint a wooden boat, rewire a light switch, fix a furnace and hang a door. When we added a second story to our little house, he and my mother did all the finishing work and painting themselves. (Only rich people hired painters in those days.)
My father-in-law could bag a grouse and shoot and skin a deer. He was an exquisite woodworker, and made turned bowls and furniture. He once built a canoe. Both dads could make a fire in the rain and had a basic working knowledge of auto mechanics. Clogged toilets were nothing to them.
In other words, our dads were able to function competently in the world they lived in. Their skills were crucial to the daily operation of the family unit.
As we rely increasingly on cognitive skills to earn our living, our practical skills are dying off. When you can make more money manipulating symbols than you can manipulating tools, it's more efficient to call a plumber than to take apart the sink yourself. Still, an entire encyclopedia of common knowledge is being lost. As we become more and more affluent, we also become more and more helpless.
The disappearance of practical skills isn't just a guy thing. Cooking has pretty well died off, too, if, by "cooking," you include the menu planning and food prep necessary to produce three squares a day for an entire family, with no microwave ovens and no cheating with takeout. Our moms weren't exactly gourmet cooks. But the meals were always on the table -- meat, starch and vegetables, with the occasional homemade pie and cake, day in and day out. Few have the time or inclination for this type of work any more, unless they're getting paid for it. That's why the fastest-growing category of supermarket food is ready-made meals in a box.
The outsourcing of food prep is the greatest revolution in domestic life since indoor plumbing. You can track the steep decline of interest in cooking by the cookbooks on my shelf (the ones I never use, although I mean to). From the 1980s, there's the classic 60-Minute Gourmet. From the 1990s, there's The 30-Minute Dinner. This week, I printed out an invaluable piece from The New York Times called "101 Simple Meals You Can Make in 10 Minutes or Less." I plan to try out a few of them, when I have the time.
The trouble with not doing it yourself is that you eventually begin doubting your ability to do it at all. The less I cook, the less I feel I know how. I'd no more paint the house myself than I would try to make a dress (although each is theoretically doable).
I don't even trust myself to arrange my own furniture. Instead, I call my friend, the interior designer, who is, after all, an expert.
Sometimes, my husband and I wonder how we'd survive if, say, the entire power grid got knocked out for six months and there were suddenly no takeouts, no plumbers and no bank machines to get the money we use to pay for all the things we can't do ourselves. Here's our plan: We'll use our last tank of gas to drive up to the country and throw ourselves on the mercy of our neighbours - the ones with the Grade 8 education, the market garden, the shotgun and the beat-up pickup truck. Swampy odours never baffled them.
We hope they'll take us in, even though we're useless. ;D
mwente@globeandmail.com
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070721.COWENT21/TPStory/TPComment/?query=
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Shamrock said:
+1
J
Jacqueline
Guest
For the woman's list; include at least 1 chin up.
For the man's list; include know where to go for a good beer.
For the man's list; include know where to go for a good beer.
J
Jacqueline
Guest
Isn't that the recommended number for the CF?
I say one because most ladies aren't military, otherwise I say 6 ;D.
ushup:
I say one because most ladies aren't military, otherwise I say 6 ;D.
ushup:
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I confess... of the 25, I can only do 24... not entirely sure how to bleed a brake, but I can't imagine it's that hard... that's why god (Please don't let the mechanics know I refer to them as god) invented maintenence manuals... then again, I'm a terribly manly modern man... I realised this even more so after a conversation with a friend of mine, in which she discussed the merits of, and her preference for, skinny "emo" boys and I told her not to call me when she needed a tire changed (Ultimately, she did eventually call me when she needed to move, as none of said skinny emo boys were capable of lugging a dresser up a flight of stairs, and I, of course, being a truly manly manly-man was enough of a gentleman not to rub it in her face. Though I may have flexed and used an Austrian accent, but these things are to be expected).
I'm curious though... any man, modern, classic, manly, "metrosexual" or Elton John, enjoys tools... and I'm certain, with or without the knowledge of how to fix somthing would surely jump at the opportunity to at least attempt to appear as if he knew what he was doing... does no one invest in readers digest "do-it-yourself" manuals anymore? Fantastic things... everything from how to change a lightbulb to how to remove your own asbestos and still keep marauding wizards fromsetting your castle on fire...
I'm curious though... any man, modern, classic, manly, "metrosexual" or Elton John, enjoys tools... and I'm certain, with or without the knowledge of how to fix somthing would surely jump at the opportunity to at least attempt to appear as if he knew what he was doing... does no one invest in readers digest "do-it-yourself" manuals anymore? Fantastic things... everything from how to change a lightbulb to how to remove your own asbestos and still keep marauding wizards fromsetting your castle on fire...
J
Jacqueline
Guest
ArmyVern said:Could be...
I have higher priority skills on my "man" list though than the ones cited by Popular Mechanics.
Throwing their man parts well?
