Ever notice that when things break around the house, men and women
take entirely different positions on how they should be fixed? For
example, someone drops a teacup. Women want to take the damaged
piece to some professional to repair or use this as an excuse to
buy an entire new set of china, which is (1) costly and (2)
unnecessary as men can easily repair anything with glue.
Go to the neighborhood hardware superstore. I’ll bet you a dollar to
a donut that if you look in the glue section, you will never see
anyone in this section but men. Men are fascinated with glue. We
will try to glue anything. I bet I’ve bought just about every kind
of glue on the market at one time or another. Men are suckers for
glue displays. Put up a display where you have joined something like
a coke bottle to a steel beam and I guarantee you they will sell out
of this stuff within 24 hours. Why anyone would want to glue a steel
beam to a coke bottle is beyond the comprehension of most men, but
we fall for it every time.
We stand in awe in front of these displays and secretly lust after
trying to bond unnatural objects together. If we could find the
right glue, we’d attempt to glue things that have no business being
stuck together just to see if it could be done. I’ve always wanted
to glue a baseball to a chicken for some reason. Just kidding. We
will break things on purpose just to have the chance to glue them
back together again. Most men (including myself) truthfully believe
that there is a glue for everything under the sun. We are most
challenged by things that need gluing underwater. I’ve seen grown,
sensible men actually trying to glue something two feet underwater
in their swimming pool. We buy wood glue, plastic glue, metal glue,
rubber glue, you name it and we’ve bought it at one time or another.
It becomes sort of an ongoing experiment in our lives. What can we
find that has been broken that could be glued back together so no
one will notice?
Glue also has the capacity to produce psychological scarring if not
done properly. For example, when I was a kid, my airplane models
were not works of art. I was a sloppy gluer. As a result of constant
teasing and taunting about my gluing prowess, I was determined to
refine my craft in order that I might glue and repair something that
no one but me even knew was broken in the first place. For me it was
a quest. Thus, I have become somewhat of a midnight repair person.
If something is broken in our house, I’ll mentally set my clock for
early morning and then get up to glue the broken piece without
anyone knowing anything about it. Then I’ll go to bed with the
satisfaction that I have done something good for the benefit of the
entire family.
Most men that I have spoken with believe that super glue came from
heaven. When this stuff appeared on the retail scene a lot of men
got into the habit of carrying the tiny tubes in their pockets just
in case they were ever needed or required for some sort of emergency
repairs. Of course, you only had to have one of these rupture on you
(especially if you were wearing polyester) and you were broke of
this habit forever.
Trust me, super glue is not for amateurs; you must have years of
experience behind you before you attempt to take on a project
utilizing this amazing invention. Small children or any person that
is adhesive challenged should never be allowed to come into contact
with super glue. If you follow changes in medical technology, you
are probably aware that doctors are now using super glue in place of
stitches to close up wounds. Most men were aware of this years ago,
when we first glued our fingers together and then we had to look for
new and novel solutions to get them pried apart so we could drive or
eat in a civilized manner. Some men choose not to attempt to unstick
their fingers but were soon found out when their wives noticed them
trying to pick their noses with three digits rather than only one.
To sum up, the real reason men glue? Because it’s there.
