Husband Finally Does Yardwork…Creates Problems
Thursday, August 28th, 2008This happened a few weeks ago. I have one visual symbol that I feel effectively communicates what I had to deal with that day, and it is posted above. These scissors are MY FAVORITE kitchen scissors. Oh, sorry, they WERE my favorite kitchen scissors. As you can see, however, something happened to them. Guess what that was.
The incident occurred on a day when we needed to mow. Surprisingly, that day began well despite the need for mowing part. (Usually on the days we need to mow, my husband and I almost get divorced due to his inability to help with that ONE JOB around the house.) But that particular morning, I said, “We need to mow.” And he just started getting the stuff to do it! I nearly fell into a shock-induced coma. However, I was quickly brought back into full, though perplexed, consciousness with the following 2 incidents:
- After like 5 minutes, he says, “Alright! I’m all done mowing.” I thought, that seems way too fast, even considering the dinky size of our yard. So I go out to look. UM YEAH, figured it out–about 3 spots of grass had actually been CUT. All the rest of the grass was still 8 inches tall but LYING DOWN sideways. In short, almost nothing had even been mowed. I pointed this out, and he got an irritated look on his face and said, “Fine, I’ll mow again. But first I’m going to cut this tree back.” (Uh, correction: Omit the word “again,” Sweetie. But good idea to cut the tree back.)
- After 10 more minutes, he came inside and said, “Well, I’m going to need to go to Home Depot.” I asked why. He held up my favorite kitchen scissors which were broken in half, and said, “Because these broke.” Apparently he had been trimming the TREE with them.
I said, “You tried to cute the TREE with my kitchen scissors???????”
His response: “Well, we don’t HAVE yard sheers. Plus those tree branches are not that big.” See. See how my life is? But that’s all fine now. I recuperated by asking myself, “Let’s pretend I am forced to choose between these. Which would be better?”:
a) a man who is a really kind husband and father but somehow breaks kitchen utensils while doing yardwork or
b) a man who could mow all of Iowa in a flash and not break a single kitchen utensil in the process, but who was mean to me and the children
Easy. I’d take the guy who’s really nice but breaks kitchen utensils while mowing. Not IDEAL, but an easy choice nevertheless. My life is pretty fun–just sometimes I have to consciously remind myself to laugh rather than cry. That’s fine.
















