The Marriage Files

Time and again I have found myself using—or more often repairing—some poorly-made object, only to reflect in disgust, "only a man could have designed something this badly." Call me a sexist (I am), call me a Miss Smarty Pants know-it-all (I'm that too), but men should stick to their biological destiny as the sexual playthings of the real brains in this species. I will now share with you some of the not-very-impressive hallmarks of the man-designed world.

First, a man-designed object must use fossil fuel, and the more, the better. Second, it must produce a cloud of noxious exhaust, preferably even when it's not running. Third, the part of the object that logically can be expected to fail before anything else because it's the part that gets turned, pressed, or otherwise used most frequently (and not coincidentally is made from obscenely inadequate materials) must be molded to the chassis so that its replacement is impossible without disassembly of the entire device and purchase of a part having roughly 5,000 times the size and value of the actual broken piece. Fourth, it must make an ungodly racket. Fifth, it must have a trigger or trigger-like device on it somewhere, even if only for aesthetic reasons.

There are other less-than-sterling qualities that identify a man-designed object—such as a suspiciously short warranty or, in lieu of all other design requirements, simply not functioning at all—but let's not get petty.

The ability of men to utterly destroy the charm (and often, the actual utility) of objects with "improved" designs is astounding. For instance, at dinner this evening, my inventor-mann K— began expounding on the potential for improving—and I kid you not—candle design. He had bought this enormous, hand-made decorative pillar candle whose only drawback is that it doesn't actually burn very well. (I guess that's the point—that is, that you don't burn a decorative candle, you just look at it—but I happen to know that this candle was made by a man, so of course it doesn't burn.) The problem, as he sees it, is that the melted wax doesn't flow away from the wick quickly enough because it cools and solidifies before it can traverse the excessive diameter of the candle. He came up with several very creative approaches to solving this pressing problem, all of which, frankly, escape me right now. When he paused, I offered my solution: the electric candle, complete with heated rings at strategic intervals to remelt the wax and keep it flowing all the way down to the base. For portability, there'd be a gas-powered version, and for long camping trips in remote places, the nuclear candle. That brought the conversation to a grinding halt right quick.

I wouldn't have been so sarcastic if not for my recent introduction to the wonderful world of power washers, a man-conceived object if there ever was one. Our deck needed to have a five-year accumulation of moss removed. We had the opportunity to borrow a power washer for free. I'm as lazy as the next person—I grabbed the chance.

The conclusion I came to after several power-washing sessions is that a power washer is—surprise, surprise!—an elaborate mechanism that basically amounts to putting a trigger on a bucket. It takes a fundamentally simple, tedious and time-consuming job that doesn't expend a lot of resources (a few gallons of water, a scrub brush and maybe one jug of bleach) and turns it into a simple, tedious and time-consuming job that requires enough water to turn the entire Sahara into a verdant oasis while polluting the air with the byproducts of internal combustion and making a racket almost (but not quite) loud enough to simply dislodge the moss. Add to this the fact that if we actually owned the power washer we'd also have to spend time and materials doing things like winterizing it. Meanwhile, I can winterize my 5-gallon bucket by—hey, doing absolutely nothing!

I actually timed how long it took to clean a given number of deck boards both ways: with the power washer and with a scrub brush and elbow grease. Elbow grease won—by a slim margin, but with the added benefit of no splintered wood to rediscover next summer when I walk across the deck sans shoes.

Another excellent example of ruining the perfect tool with an overly elaborate design is the leaf blower. Never mind that it doesn't do the job any faster than a rake. Never mind that it removes the benefit of physical exercise from the job of cleaning up fallen leaves while actually causing spinal and hearing damage. Never mind that one can't hear the pleasing crunch of autumn leaves over the 130-decibel banshee whine of this machine from hell. No, it has at least four of the requisite five characteristics for a man-designed gadget: it guzzles fuel, belches exhaust, I suspect it was the inspiration for Kate Bush's song about "a sound that could kill from a distance," and it's got a trigger. (When someone fires up a leaf blower, it's the neighbors who need the triggers, but on a different device.) I wouldn't know about the impossible-part-replacement design requirement of leaf blowers, however, because you'll never catch me using one long enough to break it. Dropping one from a second-story window long enough to break it, yes, but not using one.

Back to the candle guy for a second. While it's true that his candles fit the strict requirements of a man-designed object by simply not burning, I think he could at least sell more of them if he made them more attractive to other men. Strap a small engine to the side and put a trigger on it, man, and you'll be a millionaire!

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