That time I remembered I am single

Yesterday my two best 8th grade trumpets were messing around and one caused the other to drop his (school owned) trumpet right on the mouthpiece.  Now for those of you who don't know, the first thing we teach brass players is NOT to 'pop' their mouthpiece when it's on the instrument, just put it in with a little twist.  It's makes a pitched fart-like sound that people of all ages find to be entertaining; but when that's done, the mouthpiece (which is metal) gets jammed in the lead pipe of the instrument (which is also metal) and it takes some work getting it out.  There's a contraption that looks like a miniature torture device, that is used to unjam the mouthpiece from the leadpipe.  I call it the "mouthpiece unsticker", but upon looking it up a minute ago, it's apparently called a brass mouthpiece puller.  Here's a picture:
Humes & Berg 179 Mel-o-Wah Trombone Mute
Because it's metal on metal, it can take some coaxing to get the mouthpiece out, but this tool is invaluable to that process.  Silly trumpet player brought his trumpet to me, yesterday after class and asked me to un-stick the mouthpiece.  I pulled out the mouthpiece unsticker and went to work, but I couldn't turn it anymore and that poor mouthpiece wouldn't budge.  I was sweating and grunting, it was not pretty.  I figured "these boys are going through puberty, perhaps they will have greater upper-body strength than I" so I had them give it a try.  Still nothing.  I told them to go to class and I would work on it later.  When he came back for it after school, we tried again and still nothing, so he went home trumpet-less.  Today, during planning, a male teacher had come to talk to the chorus teacher.  Her and I's rooms are connected by an office so I heard when he came in.  As they were chatting, I remembered the trumpet and asked if he could help get it off. I figured this guy ain't little so he'll have more strength than me. I had intended to ask a male teacher, but I only know him and got nervous about asking any man at this school for help because I was (and still am) scared that they'll think I'm making some pass at them (ewww, except one teacher, but he's engaged so nevermind); also this man is married to another teacher, one of which I eat lunch with and I didn't want her to get the wrong idea.  (I overthink sometimes in the interest of trying to be appropriate.)  I held the trumpet, and he twisted the screws and struggled, then I got him pliers and he was able to do it!  YAY!  After thanking him and explaining to both him and the chorus teacher that he had not broken it I went along my way and finished the other stuff I was doing.

This got me thinking of all these times when I don't just have some man handy to do things that I can't do or don't know how to do or that are challenging to do or just plain don't wanna do.  Last week I moved back to Greensboro from Charlotte and I had to lift these heavy bags up and down stairs and in and out of my car; no matter how much I used my legs, this stuff was frickin heavy!  Or when something is shady on my car and I'm looking under the hood trying to figure out if some UFO is out of place/broken.  Or when there's something that I just don't understand about technology.  Or whatever.

I'm not complaining about being single and I don't know whether or not I'll ever get married, but sometimes it would be nice to have some man do stuff that I'm ill-equipped  to do.  That's all.  There are some things that I've learned to do because I don't have some useful man to do them for me, and I often feel empowered (with a tinge of annoyance) when I do them myself.  I'll think to myself, I sure wish there was some studdly man to watch do this for me.  The way I see it is: men like to show off their manliness (fixin' stuff, liftin' stuff, unstuckin' stuff, knowin' stuff) and I enjoy watching them do said stuff.  It's a win-win.

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