Things are so different for kids now.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about.When I was in the eighth grade at Farrer Junior High School in Provo, the girls were required to take Home Ec and the boys were required to take Shop. In Home Ec we learned how to make "Basic Mix" (homemade Bisquick) and A-line skirts out of something called "kettle cloth."
The boys who took Shop learned how to put on big goggles and chase each other around the classroom with power tools after which they got down to business and made candy dishes to give their mothers for Christmas.
Now everything has changed. These days the girls are wearing the goggles and the boys are wearing the A-line skirts. America! What a great country!
OK. My point is that I realize there are a lot of "sisters" out there nowadays who know how to use a variety of highly sophisticated power tools, including glue guns. I just don't happen to be one of them. Or at least I didn't happen to be one of them.
Until now.
Here's what happened.
In spite of the fact that I said in last week's column that English dogs are stupid, I am actually an "Anglophile." This means I like English stuff. English authors. English movies. English sitcoms. English cars. English duchesses like my close personal friend, Fergie (Duchess of York) with whom I attend weekly Weight Watchers meetings. Stupid English dogs.
What I like best of all, however, are English gardens.
We actually have an English garden in our front yard. Our garden is full of English garden-type plants, including one of everything that ever killed somebody in an English murder mystery. (PLEASE SEE "digitalis," "monkshood," "deadly nightshade" and "belladonna.")
The only problem with our garden, other than the fact that the neighbors die if they eat the flowers, is that it's TOTALLY overgrown. In fact, our garden looks just like that forest in "Babes in Toyland" with those scary trees that come to life and try to grab Annette Funicello, as well as her co-star, Tommy Kirk.
Wait a minute. It's been a long time since I saw that movie. Can I actually be remembering it correctly? Why would trees be grabbing Annette Funicello and her co-star, Tommy Kirk? What exactly would their character motivation as trees be?
Well, I guess I'll never find out because NOTHING on earth could make me sit through that movie again.
Anyway, our garden has been so tangled and messy that I sort of gave up on it this fall -- until the day Ken brought me home a power tool called a "Hedge Hog," which looks like an underachieving chainsaw. It came with an Operators Manual 20 pages long, whose text can be summed up in the following paragraph:
INSTRUCTIONS FOR OPERATING YOUR NEW HEDGE HOG
1. Plug your tool in
2. Turn your tool on
3. Do not lop off any of your own body parts
4. Do not lop off any other people's body parts
With these instructions in mind, I took the Hedge Hog outside for a trial run, and I am here to bear witness that the experience has completely changed my life. If you want to feel truly "empowered," buy yourself a Hedge Hog immediately because there is absolutely nothing like taking out a limemound spirea (SEE "small shrub") in five minutes or less to make you feel like Xena the Warrior Princess.
Better than therapy any day. (Cheaper, too.)