If It Ain't Broke...

During my single mom years I was accustomed to doing certain things without imput, and on my own. If I wanted to rearrange the furniture, I did. Paint the walls Antiqua Sunset, no problem. Cook fish cakes, yummy. I became very multi-talented, I had to.

When you're married, you have to keep you're partner in mind unless you find the couch especially comfy. I don't get out the tool box anymore, because I know Paul likes to do the "man thing" and give the home repairs a go. Although I do miss sporting my pink tool-belt (it's bitchin').

So what's the problem you say? Oh nothing much, except the balance of my sanity.

We had some "fix it" things on our to do list: hang a shelf, install a phone, hang a picture. Jobs which should have taken 30 minutes. Altogether. Tops.

The shelf hanging went ok. Installing the phone proved to be a bit more tricky. Paul had to put a new phone plate in the room. While hooking up the wires to the plate, one of the wires somehow found its way into a cut on Paul's hand and he electrocuted himself. Several choice words later...the phone was connected. But without a dial tone. Against my better judgment, I let Paul go downstairs to the basement, and poke around the electrical panel. He disconnected and connected wires. He flicked switches. Several choice words later...the phone still did not have a dial tone, and now none of the phones in the house worked.

An hour and a half later...

All of the house phones were back in working order (including the newly installed one). We had one task left to go - hang a picture. We picked the perfect spot. Out came the drill. Out came the F-bomb.  Paul had managed to drill through a water pipe inside the wall and now water was leaking down thru the dry wall. Talk about luck!

There is now a 6x6 hole in the wall where the drywall had to be cut, the hole filled, and wall patched. God love Paul. He tries, he really does. But I'm considering putting a lock on the tool box, and hiding the key. Preferably nowhere near electricity.

**During the writing of this post, Paul informed me he broke the downstairs toilet. I think I'm going to have to either hurt Paul's male pride, or we're going to need to move to a new house soon.

New house it is!