Jesus, My Cement Paddle & Me
Protecting My Tools with Personification and Pink Spray Paint
So I’m pushing a pickup-height gurney loaded with leveling cement at the Home Depot over in Newburgh when I catch up to my carpenter, Jesus (yes, my carpenter is named Jesus — Jesus is My Carpenter, okay, let’s just keep it moving, here) who pulls a $13 mixing paddle (that you attach to a drill) off the wall. But I’ve got one in my basement in Beacon. And then the thought of using my paddle — which I purchased back in 2005, and have only used twice since — makes me enormously happy.
You may already know about my long-standing, committed relationship with my Milwaukee Sawzall; but that same love extends down the line, and my cement paddle — just a piece of forged aluminum on a rod — is still a player on my team, and I genuinely love and appreciate all of my players, despite the frequency of their contribution. In fact, I find greater satisfaction in calling up a player deep on the bench who is now needed for a specific job. Nevertheless, a therapist might find a meaty target in my personification:
“John, let’s consider how you relate to your tools. The protective bond you seem to form with them feels worth exploring, particularly as you’ve never been married or had children.”
Well! You know what I’d say to that imaginary, egg-head? I’ll TELL you what I’d say:
“You know, Doctor, you might have a point.”
I admit that how I think about my tools is a bit weird, but at least my weirdness is good for our landfills and resists disposable consumerism. Besides, maintaining a healthy and loving relationship with them was never a challenge until 2016 when I began managing the foundation-up new construction of my two-family house in Beacon. With so many guys flowing in and out, I got frustrated when my tape measure kept disappearing. It was never being stolen — just thoughtlessly appropriated by someone who needed one in the moment. Now, a tape measure might be the tool with which I form the weakest attachment, as they can only take so many dings before they break, but it was pissing me off that mine kept disappearing. But then I thought about my framing hammer. We’ve been through a lot together — partners in displays of brute force in Hoboken, Harlem, Kismet, Brooklyn, Beacon and now Newburgh.
We’re monogamous.
You know, mostly. I mean, sure, I’ve got a sledge I keep on the side. And a little ball-peen shorty for quick, little jobs. But those tools can do things that my framing hammer just can’t. Besides, that framing hammer knows, deep in its forged-steel core, that it’s my primary hammer and that we’ll stay together FOREVER. Because even if Home Depot handed out hammers like paint stirrers, I’d STILL want to keep using my hammer — at least until I’m dead, and maybe longer, if the grip holds up. For even under the indiscriminate wrath of Inflation, you can still buy a hammer at Home Depot for less than a craft beer. Which just disincentivizes anyone working around me from properly respecting or valuing my man-on-hammer love. Furthermore, when I considered my Makita circular saw, and how there were two identical models on site, I didn’t want mine mistakenly packed up among someone else’s tools.
That’s when I realized that there are times in a man’s life when he has to make gender-normative stereotypes work for him. And this was one of those times.
So I began spray-painting my tools sparkly pink.
This is one of the best ideas I’ve ever had. Because you know who was going to accidentally pick up my pink-sparkled tape measure?
NO ONE.
I kept the damn thing until the thumb stop gave up the ghost. And while the pink sparkles have since worn off, I’ve still got my framing hammer. And that makes me feel good. Because, to paraphrase the other Jesus, Whatsoever you do to the least of my tools, that you do unto me.
Anyway, back to my own, personal Jesus and our job over in Newburgh. While the original joists in my 1870 building remained intact, the second floor had slumped a few inches in the middle. So after marking heights with a laser level, we nailed down ¾” sheets of plywood in the lowest part, then transitioning to ½” and then ¼” and then pouring leveling cement over everything to arrive at a proper, level subfloor. Jesus was mixing one of the last bags of cement when he pulled out the paddle and I saw that one side of it had broken off. If you can imagine, this left me feeling utterly…
…content that it lived a full life.
I don’t care that it finally broke. I care that I kept it, and that it did its job until it died on the field. When I told Jesus I’d go pick up another one, he shrugged and said, “We can still use this.” He put the paddle back in the bucket and squeezed the trigger on the drill, locking his thick forearms against the wobble, mixing it with the one-sided paddle, like a pilot landing a plane with one engine, except the stakes couldn’t be lower, so it’s nothing like that at all, but STILL! I loved that he kept my broken paddle in the action, that it was playing hurt, and would finish its final game with a win.
By the end of the day, the subfloor was done, the cement was dry and Jesus went to get the broom. I picked up the drill and disconnected the broken, cement-crusted paddle.
I didn’t want to throw it out.
In fact, I felt an impulse to bury it. It was old and crusty enough that I wanted David Beckham to stand in line for twelve hours to pay his respects. Two seconds later, I was laughing at myself. Still, when Jesus returned with the push broom, part of me wanted HIM to feel something for the broken paddle. But Jesus works hard — every day except Sunday. He has a family, a crew, and other clients to manage and he doesn’t have the time or the ridiculous luxury of forming quasi-human relationships with his tools. Because you know what HE was doing while I was standing around, anthropomorphizing mine?
Jesus swept.
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