What We Do in the Shed...

     These days there are usually very few areas in the house that men can truly call their own. Thankfully the concept of the shed is still around. The shed is a man's domain. It smells like gasoline and testosterone in there with a background note of grass clippings. We keep our tools and our toys out there. It's our cluttered little Zen Garden. There's stains on the floor, a couple cobwebs here and there, some simple crank open windows and if you're really lucky like me, you have electricity out there too. It's a mini paradise of sorts.

     Now, what do we do in the shed? There's a couple reasons that we go out there. You may not be able to ever figure out for sure which reason we're really heading out there for because the only thing we usually say is "I gotta head out to the shed real quick". Regardless of why we're really going out there, "real quick" can easily turn into "a little while". We get distracted easily, but you should be used to that by now.

     One reason to head out to the shed is to get or do something. It's the legitimate reason. We need some nails to hang some pictures or a drill to finish building you a statue of a fancy peacock made from 100% found and recycled things.

     Sometimes we just head out to the shed because we're bored. There's always something to do in the shed. We can always get a broom out and sweep up, reorganize our tools or go through everything out there and find tools and other random objects we forgot we had. Hell, sometimes I let my shed get disorderly just so I'll have something to do at a future date. Cleaning up the shed is some of the only cleaning we like doing.

     As I said before, the shed is like a man's Zen Garden. It's a place we can go to calm down if we're mad or to just get some needed alone time. We can go out there and fiddle with a bike that needs some attention, sharpen our tools and clear our heads. Most of the time we'll come back in a much calmer state of mind, unless we started messing around with something out there that somehow got the better of us. Then we're still irritated, just not about what was initially bothering us.

     Here's my advice about the shed now that you know some of the reasons we go out there. Three words. Respect the shed. The above information was to let you know some of the reasons we do what we do. Don't jump to any conclusions now when we head out there. If you start asking your husband what he was really doing out in the shed, he may remember that he forgot to get a screw driver he needed while he was out there, even though he was coming in to take a shower. Respect the shed.