Thor to the Rescue!

"More coffee?" I said noticing the empty cup on the breakfast table.
"Please," Mr. Wonderful said handing it to me.
"More bread?"
"Please."
"More procrastination?"
"PLEASE!"

It had gotten to this point in our lives. Mr. Wonderful, the ultimate DIY die-hard, was tired of DIY-ing. More correctly, he was tired of breaking up concrete having already devoted two days of his life to it and knowing he'd have to do at least one more but… he just didn't want to so he was looking for methods to stall, to put off the work, to play hooky.

I have to admit, I didn't blame him. The reason for the procrastination was that after breaking up all that concrete we'd found another concrete structure located under the previous concrete slab. This structure had four walls and was built as: 1) The dump bucket for the pool's original filter; 2) A support for the pool; or 3) A hiding place for pirate booty. Anyway you looked at it, the structure resembled a sarcophagus, you know, the thing they used to bury England's dead kings in.

"Maybe Richard III is buried in our backyard!" I said hoping to move my spouse to break the thing down.

"They already found him last year. Under a parking lot. In England," Mr. Wonderful said putting his feet up on the table and sipping his espresso. It's hard to trick a well-read spouse but I kept trying.

"Maybe pirates buried gold doubloons in our backyard! Arrr!" I said limping across the floor with a fake peg leg.

"I'm glad they used concrete bricks manufactured in the 20th century to hide their 18th century booty in," he said without looking at me. It's hard to trick a spouse who knows his history but I kept trying.

"Maybe I'll just do it myself," I said marching outside with a hammer.

"No way!" he said chasing after me.

After descending into the pit, I swung a hammer at the sarcophagus wall only to have my swing interrupted by Mr. Wonderful's arm. 

"I'll do this," he said.

"I got here first." We debated who would do the arm breaking hammer work and who would do the back breaking rubble removal work. What a toss up. He wouldn't hear of me hammering and instead insisted that I continued removing concrete chunks. Since the amount of rubble in our backyard rivaled that found in Dresden after World War II, I didn't argue. Like the sarcophagus, the rubble, too, had to go.  

As I removed wheelbarrows full of rubble, Mr. Wonderful swung at the sarcophagus's walls to no avail. The thing had been built to last and it was outlasting Mr. Wonderful's strength, stamina and interest. 

"Let's switch jobs," I said. Mr. Wonderful kinked an eyebrow. "I want to hammer," I said. "Please?" Finally we swapped tools. Gripping the hammer I swung it like Venus Williams at Wimbledon and BAM! Part of the wall broke off. I swung again. WHAP! More of the wall fell. Again, THWAP! And the walls tumbled down like Jericho. Mr. Wonderful paused to look at me with shock.

"You're good at building things," I said gritting my teeth. "And I'm good at breaking them."

"Don't let me stop you."

I swung again this time with a smile. There's a time to procrastinate and there's a time to channel your inner Thor. What comic book, fanboy geek doesn't want to pretend to be a Norse god making the world right by breaking things with a cool hammer? I confess to being one of those comic book, fanboy geeks. BLAM!

By the end of the day, the sarcophagus walls were gone as were my arm muscles. Ahhh, it's not hard pretending to be Thor if it'll help your spouse. POW!

Pool or Spa? That is the Question

"It's summer," I said grabbing my beach towel with a grin.

"Yep," Mr. Wonderful said pulling on his work boots.

"The sun is hot and the sky is blue."

"Yep." 

"A perfect day to swim in the pool."

"Nope."

Mr. Wonderful was an enigma. He worked at the studio, he worked on The House, he even worked eating ice cream. In fact he worked very hard eating ice cream. With all the rich words in the English language, only one word could describe him and I don't mean: determined, committed, stubborn, irascible, bullish, pig-headed, or un-freakin'-believable. Nope, the one word that described him was: workaholic. Now at the height of summer when we should be enjoying our pool, hosting barbecues and winning Pétanque championships he wanted to work on the pool. 

One word: workaholic.

Granted, when we bought The House the pool's paint was chipping so we knew from day one that we'd have to repaint it sometime. After starting with fixing up the master bedroom, we'd worked our way from inside the House out in concentric circles until now we were forced to repaint the pool by sheer geometry and lack of circles--concentric or otherwise--because it just needed it. The last time the pool had been painted was during the Civil War. In other words, when Harold was middle aged.

"I painted it back in '62," our 86 year-old neighbor said scratching his nearly bald pate. "Or was it '63?" 

"You painted the pool alone?" I said surprised Harold could do such a huge job solo.

"Hell no. I did it with my father-in-law. Painting it alone? Only workaholics do that." I saw Mr. Wonderful's ears prick up at that one word then I watched his brain gears spin.

Now as I wanted to swim and my spouse laced his work boots he made an announcement.

"I'm going to repaint the pool alone."

"Don't be ridiculous," I said swapping my beach towel for shoes.

"I mean it. I'll do it and you, go to the spa, get your nails done, do what you want." To be honest I paused to think about this. The pause stretched into minutes while I imagined booking an appointment at Burke-Williams and having 14 people scrub, wash, clean, and color me beautiful. I imagined resting in the wet Hammam spa like Cleopatra, then going into the dry Swedish spa like Thor--or maybe I was joining Thor in the dry spa? I pictured myself plunging into the hot tub and relaxing my aching muscles--

But how achey could they be if I were in the spa being fed red grapes and my spouse was repainting the pool alone?  

One word: guilty. 

It took my brain and conscience some time--16 hours, to be exact--but eventually I told him that of course I would not, could not go to the spa while he worked on the pool. I insisted that he and I would repaint the pool together. Like Scheherazade who told her husband a story every night to prolong her life one more day, I decided to toil with my workaholic husband to prolong my marriage one more day. 

One word: smart.

"So where do we start?" I said swapping my bikini for work clothes and my spa daydreams for a brush.

"Before painting we have to drain the pool," he said sinking a pocket-sized sub-pump into our watering hole.

"That will take days," I said looking from the tiny pump to our pacific pool.

"Which means we have time to go to the spa. Together," he said removing his work boots.

One word: brilliant!