A funny story that was shared that didn’t make the article: Like any couple expecting their first child, there is a lot of preparation. One Saturday, Aunna was away for the day and Scott decided he would be useful and paint the baby’s room. (Let me stop here and add that Scott knows everything about how to run a farm, having grown up on one. Once he enters a home, however, the expertise abruptly ends at the threshold.) They had the paint, it just needed to be applied to the walls. Scott had watched the professional painters change the wall color in several other rooms in their home, so how hard could it be, right? Scott went to the Do-It Center to pick up the needed accoutrements and went to work. When Aunna got home he told her to go look in the baby’s room. She ascended the stairs with trepidation Reaching the doorway of their baby’s room, she stood there and cried. For there was not only paint on the walls, but also on the carpet, ceiling, and trim. Before she came back downstairs, Aunna placed a desperate 911 call their painter to COME AND FIX IT!
Every couple has a story like this one, where boundaries are set, rules are created, and limitations discovered. One of my favorite stories of my husband’s household handiness is a plumbing episode from our condo in Broad Ripple. We had a drip in the master shower that was slowly getting worse and making me crazy. It had progressed to the point that I had to close the bathroom door at night. After insisting that he could fix it, and after dropping hints that I should just call a plumber, he finally took the initiative to tackle it, on Thanksgiving Day…
I was very pregnant with child #2, and our oldest was 3.5 years old. The shower was a standup, stall shower that I could barely fit into being 8 months pregnant. As he popped off the nob, it unexpectedly burst forth, pinning him against the opposing wall, shooting out cold water at his chest like a fire hydrant. His arms and legs are spastically moving all around as he is screaming. I enter the bathroom to see what is going on and started laughing to the point of tears. It was the funniest visual and situational comedic event I have ever seen that wasn’t on a movie screen. Our daughter enters and starts crying because she thinks I am crying, due to the tears of laughter streaming down my face.
By 2pm on Thanksgiving Day, every plumber in central Indiana is relaxing on a La-Z-Boy in a tryptophan-induced coma drinking beer. Being forced to shut off the water main for our entire building until the next day did not win us any points with our neighbors. Lesson learned: call a professional!
View the Geist article here:
