Call the man

Whenever something at the house requires the attention of a professional -- lawn care, electrical work, plumbing, repair of any kind -- our mantra is "Call the man!"

This phrase stems from one of the very best episodes of one of our very favorite television shows, The Andy Griffith Show. "Bargain Day" (1964) features Aunt Bee buying 150 pounds of meat because she can't pass up the price, then having to deal with a freezer that won't work. Embarrassed by her scheme gone awry, she refuses to swallow her pride long enough to call a repairman, prompting Andy to plead with her, in ever more exasperated tones, "Call the man!"

The ubiquity of this phrase in our household parlance leads me to privately transform it in ways that venture increasingly far from the referent. While I was gone to Denver, Noel contacted an electrician (to fix our walk-in closet light fixture) and the guy who sold us our windows (to fix a sliding door that wouldn't latch). Both came today and did their thing. I caught myself thinking about the event as "an orgy of man-calling," a locution that is probably best not uttered aloud.

By the way, if you search for "andy griffith" on YouTube, you get a surprising number of home videos of cockatiels who've been taught to whistle the show's theme.