This blog was suggested by a female reader of Male Pattern Madness who noticed a similarity between her late husband, her current husband and her nephew, Bill. None of them wanted or want any help on handyman projects while she’s around. In fact, both her husbands would drop their hands to their sides and instantly stop working whenever she entered the garage and wouldn’t resume work until she left.

I suppress my wife’s urge to “help” by creating the most elaborate Rube Goldberg contraptions using any number of clamps, vices, tools and boxes to prevent having to ask my wife to come here. (I can’t wait until my son is old enough to be trusted to hold something still for more than 10 seconds.) I know for a fact Matt W. is the same, he splurged on a couple of Workmates to prevent having to ever invite his wife into his workspace.

Bill admits that he tells his wife he’s stopped working to give her his “full, undivided attention.” But we all know that’s not true. There are two basic reasons why we don’t want our wives in the room: 1) we’re in a zone or 2) we’re completely lost.

When we’re in the zone, all our thoughts are focused on the task at hand. We aren’t worried about the politics at work, or how to refinance the mortgage or whether the dog ate the bread AND the plastic bag. We’re just thinking about what we are doing, what to do next, and how gratifying it will be when that lawnmower engine is purring like a top. Men don’t multi-task like women. We concentrate on one thing at a time with laser-like focus and interruptions every 20 minutes don’t help. As Bill puts it, “We don’t need ya’ll entering the room with some trivial crap and having a 15 minute discussion about what laundry detergent to use.”

Then there are the times we don’t know what we’re doing, and we certainly don’t want our wives around for that. Because once she gets a whiff that we’re unsure, it’ll be endless comments on how we should have done it, how we should do it, and how we should have called a professional.

Either way, ladies, your presence is not welcome. If something you want to talk about pops into your head, write it down and we’ll be happy to discuss it later. If you must pass by, please refrain from commenting while you keep moving. So, unless someone’s life is in danger, a loved-one has passed on, or something weird is happening to the plasma TV and buttons must be pushed, leave us alone.

And by the way, offering suggestions for future blogs is a completely different category. Those are greatly appreciated.