- 0
- 0
A few years before we decamped to the wilds of Two Rocker Ridge, back when we still lived among neighbors, sidewalks, and the occasional pizza delivery, we decided to do some upgrading in our former home. By “we,” I mean Willie did heroic feats of demolition, carpentry, tiling, plumbing, and muttered engineering innovation, while I provided encouragement, snacks, and the occasional highly questionable design input.
One particular weekend found us putting everything back into place after the installation of new cabinets, countertops, and fixtures. The house looked like a showroom. The humans looked like we’d been excavated from a coal seam.
Willie had just finished wrestling a new sink into the primary bath. This was no small accomplishment given that he had already tiled the floor in an intricate diamond pattern that required geometry, patience, and the willingness to cut tile around every architectural oddity known to man: walls, tub, shower, and even the angled closet that builders include solely to test marriages.
I, meanwhile, had reached the point in any home project where you begin to fantasize about restaurant seating and someone else doing the dishes.
“Let’s go out for lunch,” I suggested, in the tone of one proposing a diplomatic peace accord.
“Great idea,” Willie said, straightening up. “But I have to shower and change first.”
Now, I glanced at him. He was dusty, yes. Slightly adhesive with caulk residue, sure. But this was not, in my estimation, a level of grime requiring full decontamination procedures.
“Why?” I asked. “You weren’t working that hard on the plumbing.”
He looked at me with the expression of a man who knows he is about to deliver gold.
“Because,” he said solemnly, “the drains were full of Yeti slobber … and I got some on me.”
I lost all structural integrity. Just collapsed. Gone. There are moments in a marriage when you realize you did not, in fact, marry a normal human being. You married a man who, mid-renovation, invents cryptozoological plumbing hazards and reports them as workplace incidents.
So, I waited—laughing, helpless, wiping tears—while he went off to rid himself of alleged Himalayan bio-residue and reemerge fit for public dining.
What I learned that day, and a thousand days since, is that if you give my husband a clogged drain, a tile saw, or a tractor attachment, he will always, always find a way to bring home both the fix and a story.