The news came to us in the form of the brightest florescent orange envelope I have ever seen.
My husband proudly held it up. “Look what I got,” he said.
Under his name, which was printed in nearly inch-high letters (this alone was enough to make me concerned), were the words “Will you do us a favor and test tools?”
The words were in all caps. Again, another cause for concern.
Then my husband began reading from the letter inside. “It’s no secret to your family and friends that you are an outstanding handyman.”
He paused, looked up at me, and began laughing hysterically.
Which then led me to begin laughing and laughing and laughing…
See, my husband is many things, many good things.
But a handyman he is not.
We joke that his oldest brother got all of the MacGyver genes: you can give his brother a stick of gum and a paperclip, and he can build you a house.
Okay, he’s not that good. But he’s really, really good at just about any home improvement project under the sun.
My husband, however, is, uh, not.
When we were in our townhome, we bought a blind to hang on the back door. The instructions indicated that it should take us 20 minutes to put it up.
Two hours later, we were still sitting on the kitchen floor. We were looking for the C clip.
We eventually discovered that our model didn’t come with this stupid clip. We put the blind up.
Time elapsed: Two hours and 30 minutes. Most of which was spent being frustrated and cursing.
Handyman projects don’t tend to work out well for us.
We both have tried. We even took a class on home improvement at a high school. We skipped the days when electrical work was covered, as I said to my husband, “There is no way, no how, that you are doing any electrical work.” I’m usually pretty easy going, but when the thought of my husband being electrocuted and burned to a crisp is involved, I tend to put my foot down.
We learned to fix some things. He can replace anything that goes wrong in the toilet tank. He’s put on a faucet. We’ve done some painting in our new home.
But when it comes to something big like rewiring, putting up drywall, or installing a hot water heater, my guy is not your man.
“It’s right here in writing,” he said while smiling, “So it must be true!”
Having my husband get a letter saying he’s an outstanding handyman would be like me getting one raving over what an outstanding athlete I am and asking me to join the Olympics.
I stink at sports. I love to play, but I know my limits. I am a bit, shall we say, non-athletically inclined.
And that’s being kind.
I want to know what the criteria was for choosing my husband. Is it because he belongs to Sears’ Craftsman Club? He does that to get discounts on tools. Is it because they’ve seen him, and he just “looks” like a good handyman? Unless they’re stalking my house, that’s probably not the reason.
Or could it be because we bought a bunch of stuff at the local hardware stores when we moved in here?
Whatever the reason, he is not going to be an official tool tester.
The last thing I need is for him to come upstairs bleeding profusely because he cut off an appendage while trying out a new circular saw.
While he bled all over the kitchen, I’m sure he’d utter, “But they said I was an outstanding handyman.”
As I said, he’s a lot of good things. But a handyman he’s not.
And that’s no secret.