Say your son and husband built a dog house. And you love that they do projects together. Yes, you do. And you think it’s charming. And you also wish, right about now, that your husband was a real furniture guy so that they could both enjoy the project time together AND you might have a finished product in your yard that wasn’t so heavy it required two grown men to move it. And maybe it would be just a touch more, um, finished around the edges, but you like it enough in a kid-built-sort-of-way. And then there’s the seemingly inevitable utility issues, namely, that the dog door is so small the dog cries for help to get back out. But okay. You’re hanging with this cause they’ve painted it to match the house. And you’re not a total asshole. And then they move into phase two of construction–the dog porch. The porch, unlike the house, resembles more of a four-legged rectangular table commissioned by the same furniture makers as the dog house. Ahem. Except the porch has the added benefit of them never having completed the project and it gets dragged around the yard by the father Bob the Builder to different spots as I ask him to finish it or get rid of it.
So one day the gardeners break a leg off, and I change my nag to: just get rid of it.
Will it come as a big shock, that has about as much impact as my daily request that he dry the good knives?
And so I do what I always do which is nothing except bitch and moan and complain.
And then today, I got this idea. What’s he going to do? Leave me? It’s my yard, too. Let him be mad. I’ll tolerate him being disappointed. I call my friend Jennifer, and we put it in the alley for the garbage collector. Then I finish the job off–I call for a bulky pick up.
Jennifer was so excited. “What else can we toss?!”
Bryan felt sad.
But he lived. And it kind of sucked when I had to tell him and he was bummed and I had to endure that. BUT IT’S GONE!!!
The dog and I will be sipping margaritas outside the doghouse. And miraculously, neither of us is in it.
