Blue collar guys...

Don't know where this post came from, but it's something I've been pondering of late as I do my best to hurl myself back into the sexual marketplace.

I don't know about you all, but there's just something about a blue collar guy that turns me on. Say what you want about a well-groomed man in a Hugo Boss suit and expensive shoes--for me, there's nothing sexier than a man with a little dirt under his nails, a man with forearms defined by weilding nailguns, screwdrivers, sawzalls, wrenches, a man who knows how to assemble a carburetor or fiddle with a timing chain, rewire a house, solder a copper pipe or fit the perfect mortise and tenon.

Maybe it derives from my youthful days as designated coffee-fetcher and flashlight-holder for my heavy-duty mechanic dad as he worked on the cars? Mechanic by trade, he was handy in myriad ways. I remember him finishing our basement from bare concrete and naked ceiling beams--he did all the plumbing, wiring, carpentry and tiling himself (with a little "help" from us kids), and I'll admit I picked up a certain flair for creative profanity from him as I got older and he guarded his tongue less.

Maybe it comes from the occasional trip to pick him up at work with my mom--the teenaged me waiting in a lunchroom where every inch of wall and half the ceiling was plastered with posters of naked women, indelibly associating sex with the smells of diesel fuel and motor oil in my already half-way bent mind.

Maybe it's because a man who's good with his hands when it comes to laying tile or installing a bathtub faucet or cutting the perfect dovetail joint makes me think he'll be good with his hands when it comes to...other things? Maybe the roughness of sweat and physical work translates into visions of roughness and sweat in other contexts in my subconscious?

Whatever the reason, seeing a man with a streak of black on his forehead, a dozen little cuts and scars on his hands, grime permanently imprinted into the whorls on the pads of his fingers, and flecks of paint or silicone caulk on his t-shirt just...does it for me. Holy hell, does it ever.

A blue collar guy doesn't need the body of an Adonis to impress me (although the ubiquitous plumber butt-crack is maybe not the hottest thing ever, heh), he doesn't need a face like David Boreanaz or Clive Owen or Brad Pitt. All he needs is to be reasonably attractive and have the ability to take something that's broken and fix it, or take something that's nothing but a pile of raw materials and build it, and I'm drooling. Drooling, I tell you.

How about you guys? Any of you ever get the hots for your mechanic, or want to jump the bones of the guy who came to install kitchen cabinets?