Man At Work

To this day, I still worship side one of Men At Work’s Business As Usual. Side one, wow! Can somebody get my walker.

From the first drumbeat of “Who Can It Be Now?”, I was hooked.

I’ve always been a little bit of non-conformist, so for me tracks two and four -- the ones that did NOT get much airplay -- were my favorites.

I must’ve listened to that cassette more than 1000 times.

Well, this morning at the gym, with my ipod on shuffle, two different songs from Men At Work came on and within seconds, I was back in my high school bedroom dreaming of what will be.

Of course at 17, those dreams included girls, money, girls, a job making money and a family.

Here we are 25 years later and I have it all -- except the job.

A great wife. Three great kids. Money in the bank. But no job.

I believe it was Meat Loaf who said two out of three ain’t bad, so by my calculations, three out of four is even better.

And it is.

For the last year, I’ve been at home with the family, with all the time in the world.

Time to take the kids to school. Time to make them lunch. Time to go grocery shopping. Time to do the dishes. Time to help with homework.

Wow, I do have a full-time job.

To be perfectly honest, I probably could have done many of those chores when I was working, but I didn’t.

Of course, I had a built in excuse, working from 9ish to 9ish, five days a week.

Plus, a man’s gotta kick his feet up and watch ESPNews, right?

Well I still watch plenty of sports on TV, but I must say that taking care of the things at home can be very rewarding.

And challenging too.

For example, try using expired coupons at the grocery store. Now, that’s a challenge.

Or, re-organizing the dishwasher to get more in than my wife. Bring it on!

Don’t forget the satisfaction of successfully completing two loads of laundry in one day, including the folding.

The more time I spend at home, the more I appreciate Barbara Billingsley -- and not just because she learned Jive for the movie Airplane.

This house-husband thing might just be my next career.

Now that’s a Man at Work.