Legacies

I was putting away the last of the Christmas decorations today, and while I was in the garage, some Y-chromosome function kicked in and compelled me to putter. It was already tidy, but my mind insisted it could be even more organized. So I moved shelves and toys, emptied some boxes and filled others, hung tools on the wall, and generally had a high old time. At one point, Mrs. Cat asked me why I was doing all this, and I honestly had no answer beyond grunting “Woman go house; cave mine!”

But it occurred to me as I was putting up the ochre hand prints and saber-toothed ibex drawings that if a man’s home is his castle, surely the garage is his armory.

Now, my grandfather died before I was born, so I never knew him, and can only piece together what sort of man he was by looking over the things he left behind. Judging by the stuff in the garage, he was either an amateur mechanic or a professional assassin. I mean, there’s a toolbox I could fit Cub into filled with all sorts of rasps, files, wrenches, screwdrivers, drill bits, and blades. In various corners and on random hooks are three different hacksaws, a large wood saw, a pick, a mattock, an axe, a couple of hatchets, a manual drill, bamboo stakes, a very large spool of medium-gauge wire, enough heavy chain to fetter the entire cast of Hostel, a sledgehammer, a couple of different shovels, a post-hole digger, two bags of lime, and – most telling for we Dexter fans – an unopened box of 39-gallon trash bags.

I imagine if I uncovered his diary up in the attic, a typical entry would be:

July 19: Changed oil in car; fixed porch rail; dismembered milkman; sanded dining room table; finished interrogating the Communist I caught at the Post Office (see July 5) and buried him in the backyard; my new rose hybrid bloomed today!; replaced bathroom faucet; set snare for that damn raccoon/sneaky neighbor kid. Note: need more trash bags.