Call Me E.

Call Me E.
all stories and essays by Sean Rein

How to Build a Birdhouse

So fellas, don't know what to do with the pile of scrap lumber in the corner of your garage? Why not build a housing complex for our avian friends? It will bring wildlife to your backyard as well as get you out of the house and away from her for a few hours.

In addition to your scrap lumber, you will need the following items...

saw
hammer
nails
wood glue
pencil
something straight to make straight lines
sandpaper
gauze
duct tape
1 quart of Kentucky bourbon (may substitute gin or vodka)
ice

Now, lets get started.

Pour yourself a double shot of booze into a highball glass and add enough ice to your liking. Feel the tasty liquid slide down your throat and warm your innards. Isn't that nice?

Next, let's clean off that workbench. Let's throw away all of the rusty nails (why do you keep those? a new box of nails is only a couple of bucks). Dump the 2-barrel Rochester carburetor that you disassembled three years ago (like you'll ever get that rusty Chevy running again with that crappy thing). Also, why do you have that old toaster? She already bought a new one. Throw it out!

Let's save the boat catalogs. The Lund is preferred, but Ranger makes a nice fiberglass boat that is comparable in price to the Lund. In fact, let's pour another drink and thumb through that catalog and remember how you always wanted a new boat instead of that shitty rowboat that you own with an outboard motor that's older than you are.

You always dreamed about going pro on the bass fishing tour, but she got her claws into you ten years ago and quickly squashed that dream. Right now you could be traveling all across the South, potentially earning hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

"How are you going to afford to keep me comfortable doing that? We might as well live in a trailer!" Now, you sweep the floor at a medical test facility, making $9.58 and hour, so she can sit at home on her fat ass and watch TV until you come home so she can yell at you some more.

Pour another drink and put away those catalogs before she comes out and sees that you are daydreaming.

Okay, is your workbench cleared off yet? Good.

Next, before you get too drunk, you might want to pull her car out of the garage. Then she won't yell at you for getting sawdust all over her nice new car that she had to have.

You drive to work every day in a rusty 1982 Honda Accord and she doesn't work but gets a brand new Ford Taurus. How did that happen? Somehow she and her mother talked you into getting deeper in debt by getting this car. This ugly maroon Ford piece of crap! You got to drive it once and when you did, it made a horrible rattling noise and you still haven't heard the end of it.

Is the car moved? Good, pour yourself another drink.

Any small fires? Yes? Put them out. Good.

You slammed that last drink? Good. Pour another.

What, the good-looking Asian neighbor is walking her dog? Okay, let's go have a look.

Wow, she is good looking... nice can.

Well, let's get started.

Pour yourself another drink.

Now, grab one of the scrap pieces of plywood that are left over from when you built your deer stand four years ago. She is still pissed off that you spend one weekend a year up north hunting with your buddies instead of cleaning the house.

On the plywood, draw an outline of a birdhouse that looks like this...

Next, pour yourself another drink.

After that, cut out the shape that you just drew. A table saw works wonders, but you should be intoxicated by now and I cannot ethically advise you to use power tools at this time. Heck, you are so drunk that I would advise against the use of any hand tool, like even a saw or a hammer.

Go in the house and tell her that if she wants a birdhouse so bad, she can put her fat ass into her new damn Taurus and drive to a hardware store and buy one her damn self!

That's done? Good. Then pour yourself another drink.