Honey Don't

Wednesday afternoon, I threw a load of scrubs into the dryer and ran upstairs to finish charting. When I did this, I realized the load prior was still wet. I didn't really give that a thought, thinking someone had just forgotten to turn the dryer on. Well, since clean scrubs were a priority, I pulled the damp stuff out, put the scrubs in and went up to finish pre-work phone calls and charting. At 3, I went to grab my scrubs. Wet. See, you already knew where I was going with this.

In the evening, my husband sent slave-boy to Mr. Larger Than Life's house to dry the 2 loads of wet clothes. When I got home, my husband and I discussed the virtues of repair -vs- dumping much more money than repair costs into the economy. Then, my honey disappeared. I could hear some clanging noises coming from the basement and thought, uh-oh, here we go again. My beloved fancies himself a handyman. After 21 years of me reinforcing this well entrenched thought is just a figment of his imagination, I think he'd get it. He just isn't inclined to be Mr. Fix It. He has other talents but home improvement, no matter how many episodes of This Old House he watches, isn't one of them.

When we first bought this house, it needed so much updating and repair. One night, I called him from work and could hear heavy breathing and hammering. Without discussion, he'd dismantled the brick from an entire wall in the family room. He had no clue what he'd do after that, but in the long run, it cost 1 arm and 2 legs and took several handy men to fix. Another time, he tried to repair the washer. When I saw what he'd done, the front was off the washing machine and the thing was toast. Since it had already expired, this was no major loss. Having watched so many HGTV and do it yourself home improvement shows, he got it in his head once that he could remodel the basement. He bought a video and watched it. Then he went to Home Depot and loaded up on 2 X 4s, nails and hammers. After an endless night of pounding, I had to do an intervention. The basement ultimately required a professional. This morning, up early, I called the appliance doctor and scheduled a repair.

When I went down to see the results of my honey's tinkering last night, I had to laugh. He'd pulled the front of the dryer apart and had just left it like that. I know he didn't know where to go from there, but again, at least he made an effort. I can't fault him for trying, but he just is not Mr. Tinker. However, he is my handy man in so many other ways. He has unwavering loyalty and the best sense of humor of any man I know. This song is for him: