Survival tools of an ageing Saint THERE is no way around this. I am a man in decline. My hair has withered to the point where my daughter in her drawings no longer gives my head a smattering of Texta stubble. My body is depleted of the testosterone, human growth hormone and other performance-enhancing goodies formerly available in natural abundance. Hangovers that would once have dulled the senses for an hour or two floor me for an entire day. I look at my eldest son, just turned 11, and wonder how long it will be before I am craning to meet his eyes and wincing upon greeting, as my knuckles crush in his handshake. No longer does he unquestioningly accept my handed-down wisdom on all things from how to kick a drop punt to how to apply hair gel. Especially the hair gel. Dad jokes, once hilarious, fall flat. Only my four-year-old still thinks they are funny. In quiet desperation, I turn to football for affirmation of vitality and find none. My team, like me, is diminishing before my eyes. I took the kids to watch the Saints in Melbourne last week and fought the urge to abandon them at half-time (the team, that is). There are things you can do to treat mid-life emasculation. The drugs that reportedly give elite footballers extra pep are also favoured by cashed-up executives and gym junkies prepared to part with $300 to inject more man juice into their lives. The drugs scandal in Australian sport is a high-performance sidebar to a far bigger anti-ageing industry that spruiks the benefits of hormone replacement for blokes who want to wipe 10 years off their body clock. It is vanity in a vial and, unsurprisingly, a fast-growing, lucrative market. As tempted as I was, I took my $300 to the hardware store. What started with a vague idea of tidying up the garage produced one of the most masculising experiences of my life. To understand my joy, come into my garage. Along one wall, rising majestically in black powder-coated steel, behold the great tower of Bunnings; a shelving unit of such glorious height and expanse that all the foldaway chairs and disused rugs and cardboard boxes packed with stuff from two moves ago and kids' school bags and all the other crap that previously covered the floors and prevented entry by conventional means is stowed neatly and orderly. Along the other wall is affixed a Garage Storage System that provides a hanging spot for every rake, hoe, shovel and broom. There are big hooks and little hooks, wide hooks and utility hooks. Extension cords are neatly coiled, hanging next to old bike tyres that until recently formed a boot camp obstacle course on the floor. Not every tool can be the sharpest in a shed, but each now has its place. The jumble of boxes and left-over floor tiles and the lawnmower and ladder that formed a modern art sculpture in the middle of the floor have been decommissioned. The floor has been swept and half-empty bags of fertiliser and mulch and gypsum sealed in plastic tubs. At a pinch, you could actually park a car in the garage. Or at least a table tennis table. For now, free-range bicycles graze on a smooth, uncluttered spread of cement. I have returned to the garage of my forebears and their pegboard organisers on which homicide outlines of every tool were carefully drawn. The effect on me is hard to explain. I've never kept a neat desk at work nor been especially orderly in any part of my life. I don't quite fit the stereotype of a bloke retreating to his man cave, because there is nothing I do in my garage other than keep stuff. Yet in the bedlam of an evening, when the four-year-old is trying it on and the office is ringing and our dogmentia-stricken Jack Russell is maddeningly under foot, a quiet moment in the garage assures me there is a place in my life that makes sense. Just remind me to stay in there next time the Saints are playing.