Blog posts about my random weekend activities are never very cohesive. It's usually a little "Oh, a park bench attacked me" followed by some "I accidentally fed Daisy some peanuts!", closing out with a touch of "I didn't think one zit could contain that much pus!". Although, it's always a heartwarming journey following my trials and tribulations from Friday to Sunday, it's rarely thematic.

This weekend I had a theme. That's good news for my blog.

The theme was emasculation. That's bad news for me.

The first thing happened when I had to make a trip to Sears to buy a new garage door opener remote control. So manly! Unfortunately, my wife asked me to pick up some pantyhose for her while I was out. So not manly! This is not a big deal for me though. I am comfortable enough in my masculinity to buy pantyhose. Besides, I knew no one would give me a hard time at a store a mere dozen miles out of San Francisco.

So, I picked out my garage door opener and the pantyhose (which was really hard! The sizes had names like CD and TwoPlus, and the chart on the back looked like a game of Tetris had puked), and I marched up to the cashier. She was chatty and very sociable, and we had an animated conversation about caffeine. She may have been flirting with me. After she handed me my receipt she said, "Oh. I only rang you up for the opener. I didn't see your.... uh.... panty... hose."

I smiled confidently and said, "I like to buy both feminine and masculine products at the same time. Keeps me, you know, balanced."

The cashier stopped and stared at me. Then she literally look half a step backwards, shrugging nervously, her eyes darting back and forth from the pantyhose to me. She was suddenly extremely uncomfortable. Initially I felt compelled to explain that the pantyhose was for my wife, but the severity of her discomfort was strangely riveting.

"Am I really the first guy today to buy Craftsman products and pantyhose?" I asked innocently.

She shook her head, twice, like someone who can't quite believe what they're seeing, like I was a ghost, a very gay ghost, and then she exhaled defeatedly. "Well, " she muttered, "We are in the San Francisco Bay Area."

I'm sure she went home and poured herself a stiff drink.

Me? I moved on, my masculinity still entirely intact. I had some yard work to do. The annual Oxalis battle began a few weeks ago, so I strapped on a radio and went outside to pull some weeds. I tuned the radio to the sports talk station and was immediately assaulted by college football "analysis". In general, I have limited appreciation for sports, but I have zero tolerance for college football. I flipped the radio over to NPR just in time to hear the announcer for their Soundprint program introduce their next program.

"Stay tuned for our broadcast of My Dinner with Menopause."

Oh. Man. A discussion of menopause done in the style of My Dinner with Andre. My testicles began to shrink at the mere thought of it.

I quickly flipped back to College Game Day on the sports station. I endured it for several moments before coming to the inexplicable conclusion that hearing ex-college quarterbacks reminisce about their glory years might just be the one thing on the planet more boring than hearing about women's fears about menopause.

With great reluctance I embraced my inner vagina, and I.... tuned.... back.... to.... My.... Dinner.... with.... Menopause.

And if you tell anyone about this next sentence, I will deny ever typing it. My Dinner with Menopause was more interesting than College Game Day.

Anyway, after my vagina and I finished picking weeds, I looked forward to reestablishing my masculinity. So, on Sunday, when I had some free time and my wife suggested that I put up some shelves in our closet, I was all over that action. Shelves! Support structures! Tools! I could feel my ovaries shrinking as I donned a flannel shirt. This would be the redemption I needed. The shelves would be big, and hard, and sturdy, a showy display of over-compensation.

My wife told me what size shelves she wanted, and I minced off to Home Depot to buy supplies. After returning home with wood, screws, and assorted shelving hardware, I set about to build the world's finest shelves.

Within minutes I discovered that I had bought almost all the wrong things. The wood needed to be re-cut and the hardware wasn't really the right kind, and I had spent so long making decisions at Home Depot, there wasn't really enough time left to complete the project. I had failed. The bags of screws lay flaccidly on the ground.

It was my one final shot at recovering my manhood and I biffed it.

What was your weekend theme? Was it Your Dinner with Emasculation? That was mine.