Secrets of a builder’s bum-crack

THERE is a house going up next door.

It’s been going up for several weeks, along with the level of profanity, the decibel levels of the radio and area of the builders’ exposed skin.

If ever I have a house built I’m not going to bother about how skilled the builders are. I just want to be assured that they won’t swear, play radios or take their clothes off.

We can strike a bargain: if they’ll do that for me, I won’t make jokes about the cracks in their bums. Builders don’t show their bums because their trousers slip down. They show them because their bums come up higher than other people’s.

It’s not a well-known fact, but the builder’s bum-crack is mandatory. The Master Builders Association charges several hundred dollars (minimum) to become a member and it has nothing to do with administrative costs. It’s for the surgical implant.

But that doesn’t explain why all builders swear and play radios, too.

But don’t you swear and play the radio? I hear you ask.

Yes, I do. And at quite a high level on the profanity scale, too. But I’m selective and economical. That way it’s more effective.

The builders next door (and everywhere else I’ve ever heard them) swear heartily and obscenely and randomly, all the time. They could shorten their conversations by several hours if they cut out the swear words, which outnumber verbs and nouns by about two to one.

“F@#$%^&*ing pass the f@#$$%ing hammer for F#@$% ing f#$$%!~@’s sake, you f#$%%^&ing c#$%^&*()_&^#$%$!” is a fairly standard conversational gambit.

Do they do this at home? I suppose they must have learned it from somewhere.

If you could force them to stop, would their brains start smoking with effort, like the wheels of a car when you hold down the throttle and brake pedal together? Always supposing they have a brain. Maybe they remove them at the same time they implant the crack.

And I don’t just play the radio. I listen to it. Something you can’t do when you’re hammering or sawing or, presumably, swearing.

And do you know there are no builders in the universe who listen to ABC. It’s a well‑known fact. Sorry, I forgot… they don’t listen to anything. But they play only pop music, DJs and brassy chat show hosts.

And they take their clothes off. Who can blame them? It’s hot work out there on the roof in the middle of summer. Or even in early spring. I wonder if there are any statistics for skin cancer among builders, because I’ve never seen one use sunscreen. Not a chance. One sniff of the 15+ and all their mates would be effing and blinding at them for being a girl.

But a 95-kilo, hairy builder with a mouth and skin like a baboon’s bum is not a pretty sight.

And where do they go at the end of the day? The only place you ever see a builder is on a building site. If you have one living next door I doubt that you’d hear him cussing his family up hill and down dale. He probably never listens to the radio (but okay, maybe the television) and I bet he wears all his clothes.

My theory is that they disappear up their own backsides ­– and that’s another reason for the sheer length and depth of the surgically implanted crack.