Sometimes, my job just isn't manly enough

I'm beginning to think I'm in the wrong line of work.  And not just because this is, from an economic standpoint, the worst time to be a writer since that first semi-literate Neanderthal hammered out a primitive hieroglyph on the rough-hewn wall of his cave.*  Being a writer has never been a lucrative profession unless your last name is Koontz or King.  My own last name doesn't seem to generate quite that much buzz at the Barnes & Noble checkout counter.

But that's OK.  Like I said, most writers, myself included, aren't really in this for the big paycheck.  At one time I was in it for the girls, but that was back in college, when any guy who could put two sentences together and knew what "iambic pentameter" meant was thought by most coeds to be "sensitive" and "soulful."  In truth, writers are no more soulful or sensitive than your average plumber; we're just better at faking it.

That goes double for poets.

Don't get me wrong, I like writing just fine.  And from time to time, it even pays the bills.

But every so often I hear something, some errant comment, that makes me think I might be happier in some other profession.  This happened the other night while SweetAnnie and I were having burgers and beer at Grattan Irish Pub.

It was the first time we'd been there and I was really digging the authentic pub atmosphere, the pint and the burger.  As usual, Annie and I had our Scrabble tiles laid out in front of us.  She was an English major and we both like word games with our beer and burgers.

Annie was sporting a pale, pink cardigan and I had on my corduroy blazer, khakis and old brown loafers.  In short, we couldn't have looked more like a couple ex-academic word nerds if we'd tried.  Happily, the pub is a friendly place where tool-and-die workers don't threaten to kick your butt just because you'd rather play Scrabble than watch Nascar, which is what everyone else in the joint was doing.

I was halfway through my burger and losing badly at Scrabble (as I so often do), when it happened.  A few guys sitting at the bar had been griping about their respective jobs when one said, "I bid on the steel, but didn't get it."

I'm not sure what that even means, exactly, but it sounded incredibly manly.

I bid on the steel.  I bid on the steel.  I bid on the steel.

I've never said anything that cool in my entire life!  That one statement conjures up images of beefy dudes in plaid shirts riding construction elevators to the tops of girder-strewn construction sites, dented lunch-boxes gripped tightly in calloused hands.  It speaks of fresh air, of welding sparks tinged with the electric perfume of ozone, of catcalls aimed at passing secretaries, of red-faced foremen and worn, leather gloves.

"I bid on the steel" is a siren call to male office rats everywhere!  A call to vacate the cubicle, grab a hammer, put on some steel-toed boots!

But here I sit in my basement office writing about it instead.  (This is a family newspaper, so if you'd like to read the expletive I'm thinking of here, you'll have to write it in yourself.)

Sigh.

Think I'll go sort out my toolbox and see if there's anything around the house that needs a nail pounded into it.

*And yes, I know Neanderthal man never used hieroglyphs on his cave wall or anywhere else. I'm just using artistic license here.  OK, so maybe I'm too lazy to research the thing. What can I say?  I was on deadline.

Mike Taylor's new book, Looking at the Pint Half Full, is available in both paperback and eBook version at mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com, amazon.com.  The eBook version also is available from Barnes & Noble Booksellers.  Email Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.