Let's nail!

You've no doubt heard of those places where you can go to make dinners that you take home and cook, places with names like Let's Dish, Delicious Dinners, Lazy Cooks Inc. (just kidding on that last one). They have all the ingredients set up and you just decide which of the recipes you want, assemble everything together, and go home and have a wonderful home-cooked meal. The idea is that everyone wants to eat gourmet dinners, but no one has the time or inclination to make gourmet dinners. But at Let's Dish and friends, you can whip up a wonderful dinner in no time. You can even bring your friends and make it into a social activity.

I don't have any statistics on who uses this type of facility, but I have a suspicion that the overwhelming majority of patrons are women. So I'm sure that, like me, you are thinking, why should women have all the fun? How about someplace similar for men?

I'm thinking that the same idea can be used by men who do not have time to do all the chores around the house their wives want them to. All the men who had stuff to fix could gather at a place called Let's Nail It! -- somewhere close to Home Depot -- and all the tools and materials would be provided to fix whatever they needed to fix (with the option to purchase tools at the end of the session should a man find that he cannot do without a particular tool). There could also be make it-take it workshops for men whose wives want them to build simple furniture items, such as cabinets or a four-poster bed.

These home projects would not be limited to something off-site. Perhaps several men on a block could, say, get together one Saturday to paint someone's house, put up a fence, add a bathroom, etc. The next Saturday, they would move on to another project at someone else's house.

Of course, if women tried this, very little would be accomplished because they would all be gabbing instead of working, and there would be a lot of breaks for coffee and snacks. But the men's sessions would be extremely efficient, given that they are not that into gabbing with each other. And they would likely save their refreshments for later, when they collapse on someone's living room couch to watch a football game.

The couch, of course, would be made by several men at Let's Nail It. And while they are watching the game, their wives would be heating up dinner from Let's Dish.