...when he will find himself standing in a hardware store confronted with a wall of bird feeding accessories. This is, I'm told, some kind of twisted coming of age thing. Up until now you've thought about two, maybe three birds in your entire life. Tops. But then, bang: Suddenly the topic of a bird feeder is vitally important. It's serious business.
There's a snag, though.
"What about this?" She'll ask. "It's so cute, like a little tiny house. And it's only $14.97!" It's not even sold yet and you can see it's already falling apart. The wood's split, and clearly nobody taught the children in that sweatshop how a square works. Or a clamp. There's a gold sticker on the bottom, half peeling off. It says 'Made In China.'
"Come on, I could make that in about 10 minutes with crap I have lying around my workshop."
"Yes, dear," your wife will say, while patting your arm.
This is what 300,000 years of evolution has brought us. Countless generations worth of genetic fine-tuning, passed down through mitochondrial DNA, veritably ensured the delivery of that precise response. The woman has watched you rebuild transmissions, heft Labrador sized rocks over your head, and replaster the entire house. But this, this thing consisting of no more than five ratty planks of wood, elicits a sarcastic "yes, dear."
This is it, isn't it? Men, Mars. Women, Venus. Every single one of those dumbass 1950's stand-up routines, distilled. It turns out it was all true. Well, part of it, anyway.
But some things are a matter of principle.
This is a bird feed suet cake holder I literally made out of offcuts and random crap I had lying around on my workbench, in ten minutes. Using nothing -- nothing, I say -- other than my compound miter saw and cordless drill. And a spot of wood filler, because there was a gnarly knot hole on the plank I wound up using on the top. It's held together with Spax screws and you could probably also use it as a jack stand for a bus.
Parameters drafted: Zero. Measurements made: Zero. Components purchased: Zero. And spending $14.97 on a ramshackle piece of shit? Studiously avoided.
