Listening Is The New Fixing
Posted By jayna on May 17, 2013
I’m going to do it. Leaping off the bridge. It’s been so long since I let loose and railed on this poor, unsuspecting soul, but oh, tonight it’s on.
The husband has been away for a few days and the solo parenting gig has not been kind. Not one itsy iota. I’d love to blame the general funk from the girls on the rampant allergies plaguing all of us, but that might be a bit too lenient. And Tatey? I will give someone a million dollars if they can figure out exactly what is causing him to scream for 9 out of the 10 hours in his day. Just, speak up when you figure it out, because I’m pretty sure I’ve gone at least partially deaf.
Anyways . . .
As I often do during these stints on my own, I made an overly ambitious list of projects to complete during all my “free time.” Yes, now is when you’re all welcome to laugh at me. I fully recognize the crazy. But, instead of slowing down that roll, I busied myself with making a complete mess out of the house, with tools and half completed parts everywhere. Today I spent part of naptime and an hour before dinner trying to scrape off all of the clear caulk on my new shower and tub, which was only installed three months ago. It sounds entirely crazy, but I swear I had a good reason. Apparently, the tile install guy decided to use a clear silicon caulk to seal everything which, in addition to turning yellow over the past few months, was not something we could paint over. This left a weird line around the top of the tile where the paint was uneven and didn’t meet up right. Soooooo, it needed to come out.
Long story turned extremely short, it was a nightmare. Absolute nightmare. If silicon could turn to cement, this did. My hands are ripped to shreds from digging and bashing them against the tiles and 8pm found me in tears on the bathroom floor as I struggled to curse quietly enough to let the kids keep sleeping. An hour later and I had it all finished, looking amateurish but completely functional. I, of course, started the project fully expecting to be completely dazzled with the professional results I’d see at the end of the night.
Sweaty, exhausted, covered in caulk, I went downstairs. The garbage had to go out to the curb, along with 7 bags of grass clippings that weighed nearly as much as I do, thanks to the rain today. Then there were dinner dishes to do and laundry to switch and lunches to make and, oh yeah, heading back upstairs to clean up the giant mess I’d left in the bathroom when I originally came down meaning only to get a drink of water. Somewhere along the way, the phone rang.
We’ll start with the moral of the story. Men, when your wife is complaining of some great accomplishment being incredibly difficult, a giant pain in the ass, and it not turning out absolutely perfect? Do not, ever ever ever ever, proceed to suggest that she just call and hire someone to come out and do it better.
Don’t do it.
I normally have so little to complain about with this guy. Piddly stuff, here and there. But oh, oh boy, did he ever walk right into this one. I talked to him twice during the day while Tater was screeching and screaming bloody murder in the background. He had fair warning when I answered that that had been the soundtrack of the day. I even prepped him at the beginning of the last conversation, letting him know that the only thing I wanted to hear as he returned home and saw the finished bathroom was “That looks wonderful, dear!” I even said I would settle for, “My, that looks better than it did before!”
Instead his alleged attempt to console me over the terrible time I’d had while accomplishing something we’d put off for three months, was . . . to advise me to simply hire someone to do it over. To take down my blood, sweat and tears and do it better.
Oh, husband.
I’m going to just chalk this one up to you being a completely clueless man and not picking up on all those hints smacking you upside the head about me wanting someone to listen to my woes, and not fix my problems. Thirteen years in and we still haven’t bridged that occasional speed bump in the communications department. I completely forgive you for this terrible oversight in judgement and promise to move on from this little incident. But . . . I still fully expect to hear that it looks lovely and how you can hardly see the imperfections and it would have been a complete waste of money to hire a handyman for something like this and oh my goodness it’s so awesome to have a wife that can do these sort of projects in the first place whatever would you do without me.
Or something like that.
