Metrosexual? Me? Well, maybe I am

Could I be a …?

Is it possible that I am secretly a …?

Is it true that I might be a … metrosexual?

You’ve heard about metrosexuals, haven’t you? These are guys who are heterosexual by orientation, yet they are not exactly … normal … by regular-guy standards.

They are more cosmopolitan, more sophisticated and more tuned in to style and fashion.

Well, that just about disqualifies me. My idea of “style” is a pair of hiking boots with the classic Vibram waffle-stomper soles. It goes with all of my outfits.

Yet it was my daughter Kate, of all people, who has me wondering about my possible latent metrosexuality. She called up last Sunday from college in Bellingham and asked me if we were going to watch the Super Bowl.

“Yeah,” I said. “But mom and I have a plan. While we’re watching it, we’re going to redecorate the family room.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then there was laughter. I heard muffled noises while she repeated this line to her friends.

Finally, she came back on the line and said gleefully, “That is sooo incredibly metrosexual.”

Well, OK. I admit it sounds a little unusual. Regular guys never redecorate anything, much less during the Super Bowl.

Yet, as I took pains to explain, it was not what it sounded like.

I like football as much as the next guy. If my beloved Denver Broncos or Seattle Seahawks had made it to the Super Bowl, I would have been parked immovably in front of that TV for three solid hours, beer in one hand and KC Masterpiece Barbecue Potato Chips in the other.

My wife, Carol, likes football, too, which may make her the female equivalent of a metrosexual, or “retrosexual.” Yet New England and Philadelphia hold no special place in our hearts. We have no rooting interest. We wanted to watch the game, but we weren’t exactly going to paint our faces in team colors either.

Meanwhile, another plot thread has been developing for years. About every month or so Carol looks around at our family room and says, “We really have to do something about this pathetic room.”

Not that it’s decorated badly. It’s just not decorated at all. It functions as a TV room slash U-Store-It locker. Besides a TV and a couch, it contains a mountain bike, a Flexible Flyer sled, two sets of golf clubs, a fly rod, a set of poker chips, a set of free weights and a lava lamp. The wall decorations consist of three badly framed posters of birds, a photo of my softball team and an old leather bota bag, hanging from a nail.

One day, around Christmas, Carol looked around the room and said, “You know what we should do to help this room? We should take all of those old signs of yours and put them up on the wall in here. Display them properly.”

She was referring to my small collection of vintage metal signs that were presently tacked up on the back porch, beginning to rust. There’s a “Ted’s Creamy Root Beer” sign, featuring Ted Williams. There’s a Great Northern Railway mountain goat. There’s a Red Rock Cola sign featuring a foxy ‘40s babe holding a fishing rod, with the slogan, “The right bait for any angler.”

In other words, not your flaming metrosexual kind of décor. However, I was pleased when Carol said she would be willing to have them in the family room, since I had always assumed that she felt they were more suitable as “exterior” art, meaning, art that belongs in the tool shed.

Yet another month went by, and we had procrastinated. Which is why I suggested we do the work during the Super Bowl. The game would be on, we wouldn’t miss anything, and we’d get our wall o’ signs installed at the same time.

So, that’s what we did on Super Bowl Sunday.

We didn’t get carried away. It was all over by the second quarter. The mountain bike is still in the room. The bota bag still hangs by a nail. Yet next year we will be able to sit in our family room, watching the Seahawks, and glance up to see a fine Dr. Pepper sign with the slogan “Drink a Bite to Eat.”

Is that so metrosexual? And even if it is, so what? Let’s all work together for a world in which a guy can proudly redecorate, if that’s his inclination, even during one of the most hallowed days of the year.

But never during Game 7 of the World Series. That would be just plain sick.