Joe The Plumber (NOT)

My Dear Husband is a wonderful guy. Most of the time.

I love him a lot. Most of the time.

He's a good husband. Most of the time.

Yesterday morning wasn't one of those times.

DH is the odd kind of guy who will actually ask for directions when he is lost. I have always loved that about him. He has one sort of Man-Trait that makes me totally crazy: He refuses to hire anyone to do work around the house. He thinks that if he could possibly fix something (albeit with great difficulty, enormous investments of time, multiple trips to Lowe's and a hell of a lot of swearing, slamming of doors, throwing of tools and general mayhem), he'd rather do that than to hire a professional who would do it more easily, in a fraction of the time, with all the right tools and (one would hope) with less drama. When he threatens to undertake a project I think might be difficult, I always suggest he hire a professional. He takes that as a criticism of his mojo or something and insists that he can do it himself. I get mad. He gets madder. Unpleasantness ensues, sometimes for days.

Since we know how they ultimately end up, the lead-up to repair jobs in our house takes a predictable course. As with many traumatic experiences, first comes denial. We all pretend that there is nothing wrong that would require a repair project.

As per our usual procedures, a while back, when the faucet in the kitchen sink gradually lost water pressure until it was hardly more than a dribble, we pretended we didn't notice. When eventually no water came out of the faucet at all, we sucked it up and used the sprayer, although I did venture a few vague comments about what a mess the sprayer makes and it would be nice to be able to use the faucet. DH pretended not to hear me. I shut up because Plumbing Repair Projects are the worst, and I knew we were headed for a Big One. I wanted to put it off as long as possible, so I kept my mouth shut. Denial is a wonderful thing.

We limped along using the sprayer for a couple of weeks. I gritted my teeth a lot, but I told myself it was preferable to a dreaded Plumbing Repair Project.

Well, on Tuesday of this week DH broke the sprayer. (Thank you, dear Lord, that it wasn't me or Daughter Dear who broke it!!) The result was that we had no water in the kitchen at all from Tuesday until yesterday.

My dysfunctional way of dealing with the situation was to refuse to even try to cook. We ate sandwiches on Wednesday. DH went out with the guys on Thursday and I ordered Chinese take-out.

Yesterday it rained. That meant DH was home from work. I had previously put in for a vacation day in order to putz around the house and do some "fall cleaning." When it was clear he was not going anywhere, I considered going to work anyway because I knew what was about to happen. It was sort of like watching an auto accident: you know what is going to happen, but there is no way to prevent it. Of course, he decided that it was the perfect day to replace the faucet. I hid in the bedroom most of the morning.

I will not go into the horrific details, but I am pleased to report that, after approximately four hours of swearing, grunting, slamming doors, and three trips to Lowe's he finally got the new faucet installed and working. We now have excellent water pressure. The new faucet didn't come with a sprayer, so we now also have a hole in the sink where the sprayer used to be. I don't care. I hated that damned thing anyway.