The Mennobrarian

Adventures in Home Improvement

10:32, Wednesday, December 19, 2007 .. Posted in Home Improvement .. 3 comments .. Link

Isn't is funny how sometimes you know you would do anything for your husband, and other times, well...?
And it's always the little things that are the ones that seem the hardest to do! When my husband asked me to help him measure out plans for the backyard fence in the freezing cold over the weekend, I politely declined, then pretended not to speak English, and then ultimately went to do it. This scene repeated on my day off as I was both trying to clean and cook two night's worth of meals in one afternoon. My husband was, as usual, working on rewiring the house. He routinely summons me to help "pull wires." You know, he's under the floor or above the ceiling and he's putting a wire through a hole and I have to grab it and pull. It's easy enough, and suits my mechanical abilities well. Anyway, I'm trying to do something when he asked me whether I think I could climb up in the attic and just guide a wire for him as he pushes it through. It's not the most thrilling request, as the attic is dark, dirty, and you have to climb a ladder to get to it.

"Hmmm. What are the alternatives?"

"Well, you could instead go under the house into the crawl space and push the wire."

Yikes. The crawl space, accessible only by the outside, is tiny, unfinished, and has a hundred year's worth of dirt populating the air. My husband once found an ancient rat skull down there.

"I see. What would you do if I had worked today and wasn't here?"

"It would have been very, very difficult."

So I climb up into the attic and Jim shows me which boards are safe to step on (there are four) and which boards will send me falling through the ceiling (all the others). He explains that he is going under the house to push this wire up through a long skinny tube and I am to make sure it does not get snagged or something. But it's bait and switch! As soon as he gets under the house, he starts shouting for me to pull the long skinny tube and hold it up in place, for some reason. I yell back that my arms are too short to reach it. In the end, dear reader, it was I who ended up under the house crawling around in a four foot high dirt-floor space, feeding wire. As I breathed the air of the ancients, I tried not to look around too much for fear that I might spot something terribly unpleasant.

After the task was successfully completed, my husband was amused to find that I marched right into the shower. He thought that was funny because, of course, Jim routinely spends hours in work clothes going back and forth between the attic and the crawl space, breathing dirt, and touching the unknown. But I was heading back to the realm of the kitchen to start cooking, where I would rather spend hours breathing yummy scents and walking upright.

"You wouldn't want the person preparing your meal to just have been in the crawl space, would you?"

He agreed, he did not.
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Fun Post!!!!

06:05, Thursday, December 20, 2007 .. Posted by rellamom
I'm giggling, my friend! :-D

Carrie

Giggling was the only way to defuse it!
Monica

Edited by Mennobrarian on Thursday, December 20, 2007 at 11:56

me either

09:52, Thursday, December 20, 2007 .. Posted by blurose
LOL -that was good! But you must be proud of your "manly" man, I don't think I would want one that couldn't get in there and tackle those nasty dirty jobs -just something about the "take charge" and dirt that I swoon at. lol.
Blessings, Jeanette
p.s. I was a public school librarian for about 5 years, now I homeschool, but I do miss the kids.

Oh Jeanette, a public school librarian! Now those are really the front lines of the battlefield! Thank you for your comment, and yes, I am both amazed and grateful for my husband's ability to do the dirtiest of the dirty jobs!
Monica

Edited by Mennobrarian on Thursday, December 20, 2007 at 11:55

Hello!

09:20, Friday, December 21, 2007 .. Posted by Psalm23
I really liked your post! It was funny.
Thankyou for the comment on my homeschoolblogger blog. :-) That's a BIG rumor going on about me!And I'm serious too. Don't let my mom fool you!

~Rose