Bought a pipe wrench the other day. The wife was going to call the plumber. “I’m calling the plumber,” she said. But I said no. It wasn’t just the money. I knew what the problem was–screws, tossed down the bathroom sink drain by our three-year-old. I knew where the screws were–the U-trap, that curved pipe under the sink. All I had to do was remove it and take out those screws before they–did something bad. Even I could do that.
Men.
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The wrench was a bright safety orange, meant to be spotted easily through a foot of dirty water on the floor of a flooded basement. There, molded into the cast-iron handle, one side said, “The Ridge Tool Co. Elyria Ohio U.S.A.,” and the other, “RIDGID–HEAVY DUTY–14″.”
Not at all.
I asked her whether she ever gets complaints about the calendars–the objectification of women, demeaning sexism, blah blah blah.
There was a moment when the calendar was in peril, but the moment passed.
But the power tools were no longer held by the models. Rather they were superimposed over a corner, the Ridgid Heavy Duty Pipe Wrench in Jennifer Wood’s photograph awkwardly cantilevering out of her knee, as if suspended in air.
