I’m pretty much the first to admit that most of the time I tend to look like a femmey foo-foo. I love to wear short skirts and dresses, with pretty collar type neck ornamentation, and really good eye make-up. To look at I am definitely not your stereotypical dyke. But scratch just beneath the surface and you find my butch side, as embodied by my toolbox.
I own a dizzying variety of tools. Over a dozen pliers and vice-clamps. Several saws varying from a japanese pull-saw, to a beautiful jewellers coping-saw. Half a dozen hammers of various types, dozens of drill bits, two power drills, a heavy-duty soldering iron, and my pride an joys, my two Dremel multi-tools. And that list is just the stuff I can think of off the top of my head. I haven’t even gone into the screwdrivers, files, chisels, or the custom tools I made for myself.
I’m pretty serious about my tools. Hell, I’m probably even more serious about my DIY tools than I am about my BDSM equipment, which is saying a lot. It’s probably not that surprising when you consider that in a former life I was both an apprentice carpenter, and a builder of radio control model aircraft for people who hadn’t the time or space to do the building for themselves. I love working with my hands, I love taking raw materials and creating something both functional and beautiful.
So, looking for something to do over the Winter I recently decided to build myself a ukulele, or three. Now I already own a really beautiful uke which I adore. She has a lovely sound, looks stunning, and promises to be a close musical companion for many, many years to come. But I’m a unorthadox kind of girl, and I have these pictures in my mind of what I think a ukulele could both look and sound like. Unfortunately I have yet to find anyone else who makes the uke of my random daydreams, so it’s down to me to build it.
Which is, of course, a wonderful excuse to go dyke shopping.
Dyke shopping is defined by Amanda’s Internal Dictionary as going to a tool, electronics, or car store, while dressed to knock other women dead at 20 paces. Actually shopping is optional. So it was that last Friday my partner and I went dyke shopping in Liffey Valley Shopping Centre’s, B&Q. For those who don’t know B&Q is what passes for a good hardware superstore in Ireland. Actually it’s not too bad, for tools, plumbing and home decorating supplies. But it’s bloody lousy for timber.
Anyway I had a list of additional tools to price which I would need to build my first, and undoubtedly many subsequent, ukulele’s. My partner was looking for a new grow-house, and we were both looking to get out of the house for a couple of hours. Well, we arrived at about 1pm and immediately split up. My partner looking for the gardener type stuff that bores me to tears. Me looking for the tool type stuff which makes her think longingly of a felling axe and my head holding what we shall describe as an intimate meeting of minds.
I don’t know about her but I was having a wonderful half hour mooch through B&Q’s hand and power tool section. They had basically everything I needed, most of it at really good prices. They even had the new Dremel click-in circular saw adaptor. I could clearly sense in the not too distant future a painful lightening of my bank account.
I could also feel someones hand on my ass. Now when I say on my ass, that’s being perhaps a little…under-descriptive. This person hand grabbed my ass in such a way that they were essentially picking me up like a six-pack of beer. In fact if their middle finger had been even a centimetre further forward they would have gotten an interesting surprise. Needless to say I assumed it was my partner being all sweet and possessive.
Imagine my surprise when I turned around, intent to sucking her tongue clean out of her head, to wind up face to face with a rather pretty bespectacled Polish girl.
Now imagine the look of shock on her face when she realised she wasn’t feeling up her husband.
You see there were four, or maybe five people at the Dremel stand. And it’s a frikkin tiny stand. I was bent over, and sort of in front of people to read a pricing sticker. She was…I can only assume, consumed with lust for her hubby, and mistook my shapely rear for his. Well that or she saw an oppurtunity to grab some sweet dykey buns.
Well either way I was left with how to respond. If I blew up it could have ended in disaster, and humiliation for all concerned. If I didn’t react, well I wouldn’t be me. Besides she was a serious grade-A hottie, so I couldn’t just let it go, could I?
“Umm, I’m not complaining, but I’m guessing you thought you were grabbing your husbands ass?”
A nod, a gulp, and a blush so hot I could have barbequed a steak on her face.
I turn to the hubby, who has a huge grin on his face. “So your wife feeling up another woman…dream come true huh?” Hubby gets punched hard in the arm.
And I walked off, my head held high. Of course there was renewed awkwardness when we all ran into one another again, 15 minutes later in Atlantic Homecare. Sheesh Dublin is too small sometimes.
My Random Ruminations. 