At 5.30 this morning I woke up to the sound of banging. Not the saucy type. Or next door refitting their fine wine cellar. With a thrill I realised it was me, or at least one of my alter egos, Hot Stevo, knocking about my cranium. Hot Stevo’s a hunky handyman and jack of all trades who lives in one of my mental cul-de-sacs right next door to my inner talk-show host, Lafawnda Jones, and my tortured but brilliant other self, a forensic detective called Linus Novak. This balmy AM, Hot Stevo had on a faded navy wife-beater, short shorts and a pair of steel-capped Blunnies rimed with sweat salt. He waved me a cheeky G’day, slammed shut the tailgate of his muscle ute, and drove off in a cloud of cement dust and vintage Acker Dacker.
It was an unexpected pleasure to see Hot Stevo up dawn’s proverbial with his toolbelt abulge. It augured well for my idle hands and manual cortex, both of which have been a bit rusty lately. Before Hubster and I tied the knot, I was a hammer-savvy single gal who travelled the world fixing her own fuses, sealing her own leaky shower cubicles and rewiring a flat-pack wardrobe with grow lamps. But that’s a whole other packet of TallyHos. Anyhoo. I’ve been known to run like a chunkier Julie Andrews, arms outstretched, down the paint-chip aisle at the nearest Home Depot, my fingertips setting Madder Lakes, Midnights in Vegas and Flouncing Gazelles aflutter. Nothing beats hanging at the charity sausage-sizzle outside Bunnings talking dimmer switches. Unless it’s glues, putties, sealants and solvents. Don’t get me started. Araldite was my crack.
But since I’ve domiciled in CharmingVille, my veteran red tin toolchest – a brimming, fold-out Pandora’s box of hardware porn – has gathered dust kitties propping up the cookbook cemetery under my hand-lathed kitchen island. I’ve lost the will to tinker.
For starters, it’s fucking hot. DIY accoutrements are not mapped out in an easy-to-navigate, one-stop Megamart with air-con switched to Arctic Vortex and bossa nova remixes of Lorde playing while you swap reno intel with a cheery tile fogey in company King Gees. There are no sat-nav trolleys here, let me give you the tip. Looking for that thing for the thing in the bowels of O’Russei is as exhausting and futile as, well, looking for that same thing in the bowels of Tuol Tompong.
Granted there’s that air-conned, reasonably well-lit and organised electrical place on Monivong that’s sometimes got the thing you want. But mostly they’ve got 99 other things and the thing you want ain’t one.
If it’s not scorching, I don’t mind a circuit of Mao Tse Tung when I want to drop a couple of bucks on a brand spanking bidet or backsplash tiles in my favourite shade of Tiffany Dusk. But spare me the fly-blown indifference of those shuffling Dementors at that multi-storey bed ‘n’ bath Bermuda Triangle next to the Bentley ‘n’ Beemer emporium. Hengs. Hangs. Whatevs. If you want to watch someone’s eyes glaze over while they simultaneously rob you of your very being, go there. Fuck. Me. Green.
If I do need anything done around Marital HQ, I generally pay the famous Mr Deth and his assistant, a skinny dude with a BOY cap and an extra-long fingernail to fix whatever needs fixing. That nail. It’s like a Khmer Swiss army knife. I can’t tell you.
Anyway. So how come Hot Stevo’s back in the perfectly dovetailed frame? What awoke my inner handyman and gave me mental wood?
The culprit is my new favourite four-letter word: Aeon.
I was ready to hate the place and follow-up with a scathing diatribe about the beginning of the end for CharmingVille’s charm. I still might. But like every man, woman and child in the universe, I went there on opening day and the first thing I saw was the fresh cactus section, right next to the miniature trowel department. I burst into tears of surprised relief. There was a whole wall of reasonably priced Bosch power tools. New. In boxes. Not hanging by their cords at head height, ready to brain you because you’re too busy scoping for fire exits, just in case.
Barely sensate with unexpected joy, I bought some wood putty. It came with a little spatula snapped into the lid. The polite and well-informed salesperson stepped up to help. They had shoes on. I hyperventilated with happiness and had to go to Burger King to comfort eat. After that it was the $1.90 shop where I bought the Bunster some self-stick carpet patches for his disabled stairs, cup hooks, and a set of mini wrenches for the bike. Later I got some hot Japanese guy to give me handy tips on smoke alarms. It was right then I noticed Hot Stevo doing some landscaping with his shirt off. He was beaming. He told me he was planning a sausage sizzle later, and I should bring a slab. Youse are all invited.