I am a Man, and I Iron. (Yes, you read that right)

A couple weeks back our iron decided it was time to die, and join its brothers and sisters up in iron heaven. And while I am sure that its iron parents were glad that they were back in the fold, it left us with nothing to smooth out our wrinkles with. I decided to take it upon myself to go out and get a new iron, so we would not have to go around with creases on our shirts that shouldn’t be there.

Oh yes, let’s get one thing out of the way right now. Yes, I do iron. And while Lisa does do most of the ironing in the house, I will step up to the plate and press away if necessary. I have been an advocate of nicely pressed shirts since I was in high school. In fact, I have always been very picky about not only how my shirts are ironed, but how they are washed. If liquid fabric softener wasn’t used in the laundering of my shirts, I can tell. Everybody has their strange ticks. I guess this is one of mine.

Back to the story at hand. I decided to make one of my famous trips to Wal-Mart at night to purchase an iron. Now I have never bought an iron before, but I know that I didn’t want to get the cheapest one they had. There are certain iron features that are a must. It must do that steam thing, and not just the spray thing. The spray thing always leaves your clothes with wet spots. I hate wet spots. That is why the steam is vital. It is an added bonus if the iron also comes with a button to manually steam, so you don’t just have to depend on the automatic steam. Another feature that comes in handy is a cord that won’t get all twisted up. Our old iron’s cord was so twisted that even if you tried to untwist it, it would instantly curl back up.

I was quite surprised to see the price range of irons. They started around 9.99, and went up to over 100 bucks. And while I do appreciated a nicely pressed t shirt, I wasn’t about to dish out over a 100 bucks for it. That my friends is crazy. I settled on a Sunbeam iron (It said they were making irons back before clothes were invented, so I figured it would be a good one) that was priced at 24.39 after the little smiley face had rolled it back from 26.97.

When I made it up to the counter, the lady gave me a funny look. She acted kind of surprised that a guy was buying an iron. “If you don’t mind, let me give you a little advice,” she said to me. “Irons are not the best gift that you could give to your wife/girlfriend. They will take it the wrong way” When I informed her that the iron was for me, she gave me that once over look as if trying to decide if I was either telling the truth, or pulling her leg. After bagging it up, she wished me happy ironing, and I headed home.

The next day Lisa set to iron a big pile of clothes that had been accumulating since the old iron died. She was ready to start, but when she did, there was a problem. The iron sucked. It sucked a lot. It was as if you were trying to use a piece of sand paper to iron your clothes. At first I just figured that she was exaggerating about how bad it was. But when I gave it a try the next day, I understood her pain. It was like a nightmare that you couldn’t wake up from. It became obvious to me why Mr. Smiley Face had rolled back the price. It was because they weren’t selling at that price. In my opinion, one of the 9.99 ones would have been better than that garbage. Since this iron just would not do, I needed to go get another one.

Not wanting to give Wal-Mart my iron buying business now, I decided to check out one of my favorite stores, Target. Much like Wal-Mart, Target had a large selection. After pondering the many different choices, I decided on a T-Fal iron. The ironing surface on this one seemed perfect. It had great features and also came with a lifetime guarantee. And it was only 39.99. A little more pricier than the hunk of Sunbeam refuse from the other store, but I had a 25 dollar gift card from work so it wasn’t bad at all.

It was right after I picked up the box and was about to walk up to the front and purchase this iron when I was confronted by a lady who was also looking at the irons.

“Is that iron for you?” she asked me.

“Yes it is. Our iron died, and we needed a new one.” I replied.

“Oh you mean it is for your wife.”

“Well, she uses more than I do, but yes it is for me.”

“Does that mean you know how to use it?”

“Uh, yes. Yes I do. Have been ironing for about 15 years now.”

“Oh, OK. Have a good night.”

I thought back to Wal-Mart the week before about how the checker was caught off guard with my purchase, and now this lady was asking questions. Very strange indeed. With iron in tow, I headed to the checkout line, where I placed the new (and hopefully better) iron on the conveyer belt. When I did this, a girl who was in her mid 20’s sees it and says to me, “Hey, you are buying an iron huh?” Yes, I AM buying an IRON! What was with these people? It was as if I was on candid camera or something. She didn’t quite know how to react to my sarcastic answer, so she just turned to the cashier and paid for her items.

Finally, it was my turn to be rung up. And what were the first words out of this cashier’s mouth? Not “hello there” or “how was your target experience tonight?” They were: “Oh…you are buying an iron huh?” “Why yes I am. My other iron died, and I can’t go out in public with a wrinkled shirt. So I had to buy this tonight!” And right on cue, as if she had rehearsed it before, she asked me if I was serious, or if the iron was for someone else.

C’mon now. Do you mean to tell me that these cashiers at both stores had never seen a man buy an iron? Or the ladies who couldn’t believe that a male shopper would buy an iron? The funny thing to me is that I could have walked up there with a family size carton of feminine hygiene products and no one would have said a word. Well, there would have been quiet laughter from any men that might be around, but other than that nothing. But heaven forbid a man wants to buy an iron. Then there has to be an explanation. And I found out that I want nicely pressed shirts just doesn’t seem to cut it.

So from now on any iron buying will be done by Lisa. Or I will have to pay a girl to go into the store for me and buy one while I wait in the car.

By the way, the iron works great. I highly recommend it. Just make sure you are of the fairer sex if you buy one. That is unless you want to have to have a lot of explaining to do.