THE CHINA MAIL THURSDAY SUPPLEMENT; MARCH 25, 1937
ADVICE TO A HELPFUL YOUNG MAN
It's fatal to let anyone suspect how efficient you are, because once a handyman, always a sucker
PERHAPS when you
as
younger, you were
were known
the boy who was helpful around the house. You could fix the electric iron or replace a washer or get a clinker out of the furnace or spade up the flower bed or shovel off the snow or may- be run over the rugs with the vacuum cleaner.
Perhaps you enjoyed some of this. Maybe you built yourself & radio set or fooled around with photography or took manual training, and liked to make things. Possibly you were one of the thousands of high school boys who every year purchase ten dollars worth of odds and ends from a junk yard and create a sports roadster
will by sheer power and the application of a can of yellow paint. Maybe you still like to build an occasional shelf or repair a broken chair or string up a lighting system the attic?
in
But gentlemen, you are ap- proaching a time of life when you must no longer give way to those constructive impulses. You are reaching man's estate and your cue is dignity and importance. Soon you will be married to that lovely girl of your dreams who we all hope, knows nothing of your past. As far as she concerned you are helpless, in- competent and clumsy when it comes to odd jobs about the house. You have no idea how to fix a door that sticks or put in - a new fuse or stop a leaky faucet
or change a spark plug or a tire. What she doesn't know will save you a lifetime of bother and nuisance. If people think you are helpless, they eagerly rush about to do everything for you. Why, I don't quite know, but they do. If people begin talking of you as "helpless" at an early age you can go off and read a book or play chess or drink Scotch, or sit at the window and catch fies for the rest of your life. When pipes burst or fuses blow or shel- ves fall suddenly from the wall, don't rush off for a hammer or a wrench and murmur reassuring- ly that you'll have things fixed in a minute.just make some appropriate exclamation such as, “My God, what was that!””.
"You never can tell about these old "houses!”
I realise that this difficult
If you fancy yourself
cabinetmaker, electrician,
wiring,
Better to burn out the flood the basement, or even blow up the house than to acknowledge a handiness with tools.
The trouble is that once your weakness for tinkering and mend- ing is known, you are a marked man for life. When some unplea- sant task appears, a chorus will arise from all your friends, lations and neighbours him do it
he likes that sort of thing". But there is a second
•
Do you want to mind the neigh- bour's children for the afternoon? Do you want to be the one who runs out to the kitchen to butter rolls and clean celery and open cans because everybody knows? he is such a good cook? Do you want to be the noble youth who runs out in zero weather for two pounds of hamburger so that the -rest of the party won't get a chill? Or the one who gives up his girl to play the piano for the even-”
and more sinister result of making, because the regular pianist.
ing one's self useful. If you can do handiman chores you can also do housework! If you can put up curtain rods on that high win-
didn't come?
Be a grouch! Be a sourpuss! Pretend you are crippled, or pal- sied if need be. When the host-
By Creichton Peet
dow, why certainly you can do a simple little thing like peeling some potatoes and putting on the roast, because we won't be back from our bridge till almost six, and this is the maid's day out-
and, why, don't be ab- surd, it's as easy as anything.
Do you want to be the man who asked to move the piano, and lift the heavy table into the gar- den, and carry the beerkeg up the mountain for the picnic? Do you want to grow up to be the kind of fellow who is always chosen to ride in the rumble seat in the pouring rain? Of the man who can be egged into saying that he much prefers water with his drink when the soda runs out?
ess moans that the refrigerator is broken and she would appre ciate it so much if you would run down five fights and come back with fifty pounds of ice, mutter something about your sprained ankle and this being your first day out of a wheel chair. Once an ice-getter always an ice-get- ter.
It isn't that there is really any thing wrong in being helpful. It's just a matter of thinking of your Future. One simple good deed and your life is ruined. The trouble is that fuse fixing leads to faucet fixing and faucet fixing leads to curtain hanging and ear- tain hanging leads to pea shelling and pea shelling leads to
floor
There's only one Helena Rubinstein
sweeping and floor sweeping leads -to bed making, and bed making
leads to a lifetime of domes servitude
I, myself, have been doing use- ful odd jobs for too many years now to turn back. At an early age I had constructed all mzuner of electrical gadgetry in the fam lly basement, and now I have la scarlet letter burned into my forehead for all to see . “E” for handiman. And this is made worse because of the fact that still enjoy hammering, sawing and tinkering. When I come in- to a room the hostess relaxes and all the guests look relieved. At last the man who is going up to the attic for extra chairs and down to the basement for firewood and out to the store for lemons. has arrived
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and hydraulic engineer.
your
instincts will drive you int ing your skill Moreover, it difficult for the inst
chivalrous American idle while his won with some nasty and problem. But he must be