What does a router saw, a butter knife, a sliding compound mitre saw and an air compressor all have in common?

Well, besides the ungodly amount of money I spent on all of them (or rather, winced as the hubs forked out the cash), they are all in my kitchen. Right this second. Apparently, they’re more useful to me than say, a stove. Or a countertop. Both of which are covered by an assortment of tools, wood pieces, carpenters glue and sawdust.

This is what happens when I have a dream. Or a delusion. A vision of a perfect kitchen. All it took was fifteen hundred smackers on a few pieces of cabinet trim, a henpecked husband, some patience and an iron will.

Sure, the hubs and I will probably murder each other before he goes back to work. Sure, we have neglected the kids and fed them cereal while we farted around with measurements and tools and argued with one another while our kids rotted their brains out playing video games.

All in the name of progress, baby.

What the hell was I thinking when I decided my kitchen, just three years old and in perfect working order, needed an upgrade?

And just how deep are my husband’s balls buried in my purse that he actually agreed???

It’s all fun and games around here. Until some one loses a finger. Courtesy of the power tools sitting in my kitchen and the hubs and my mutual annoyance with one another until this task is finished.

In a fit of desperation, I called my brother, Stretch, and asked him for his professional assistance. After all, he’s a carpenter by trade. Surely, he wouldn’t mind spreading the love, enlightening his favourite sister, and in the process, save her marriage.

His advice?

Don’t cut the fifteen-dollar-per-linnear-foot trim in one inch chunks. It’ll look bad. Remember, any project you think will take six hours will unerringly take three days and a pound of flesh. Oh, and my personal favorite? Remember to measure before you cut. Apparently, it’s important.

With those little gems, the hubs and I set out to kill one another finish our cabinets.

Cabinets that looked fine before we started screwing around with them, my darling husband snarled at me as he Brad nailed his finger to the trim.

At that point, it was hard to disagree with him.

I almost felt bad. I mean, the man is only home for 96 hours every 24 days. This is his down time. He should be kicking back, with his feet up and tossing back a cold one while I make gourmet meals for him wearing nothing but an apron and a pair of stilettos.

Or at least, this is what he keeps telling me.

I keep telling him the only whip I’m gonna wield is the one that is gonna motivate his ass to get my cabinets done, the garbage moved to the dump,and the wood chopped and stacked.

Apparently, we are having a bit of a break down in communication. And not a lot of sex. It’s hard to get close to one another when we are both covered in sawdust. Neither of us wants slivers in sensitive places.

We have made some progress. (With the carpentry. Not the sex, sadly enough.) By the end of today we should be finished. As long as no digits are forcefully removed by rotating blades, no eyes are lost with flying nails and no lives ended by the throttling hands of an angry, annoyed spouse.

Soon we will be back to our regular, loving selves, ready for some romance as we take in our newly completed kitchen cabinets.

The question remains, will we be romancing each other or new spouses? At this point, I’m thinking the odds are fifty-fifty.

Remind me of this nightmare the next time I have the urge to start a do-it-yourself (or nag your husband until he does it) project. While you may learn new tricks and skills about home improvements, you may also learn that you and your husband morph into scary, ten feet tall, angry monsters; each capable of shooting death rays from your eyeballs while attempting to destroying one another. Or just to shut the other one up for one freaking moment of peace.

I’ll have to remember to try and avoid getting any blood on my the cabinets during the carnage.

I’m not a morning person. I never have been and unless an apocalyptic event occurs, I doubt I will magically transform into a little Miss Suzy Sunshine shooting beams of happiness out of my arse first thing in the morning.

My family know this about me. They may not like it, but they accept it. Fric and Frac know to keep it quiet and mellow until ambrosia from the Gods of Java is running through my veins. I’m just not human first thing in the morning.

My darling husband, however, seems to have forgotten this charming fact of my personality now that he sleeps in a different bed, some 300 odd kilometers away from me on a semi-regular basis.

He has taken to phoning me first thing in the morning. And by first thing, I mean at 6:45 am, thirty minutes before my lovely alarm clock takes to abusing me with it’s shrill screeching. At first, it was cute. Lovely even. My man calling me to wish me well before he walked onto a job site and surrounded himself with the testosterone riddled apes he works with. He wanted to fortify himself with the loveliness that is me.

First thing in the morning.

He must have lost his marbles in a poker game gone wrong. Talk about having rocks for brains.

The charm quickly wore off. Somewhere around the third straight morning in a row. Three days of sleep deprivation for a woman who is single handedly raising his children, maintaining his family relations, paying his bills and not getting any um, marital returns er, cake, in the mean time.

For the love of our children and for the sake of all the stupid people who annoy me daily that I must deal with the general public, I need my rest. Almost as much as I need my coffee. Which is still being brewed manually since my darling Fric shattered my coffee pot and I can’t find a replacement carafe to fit my ridiculously overpriced coffee maker.

(Side note: Why in the world did I pay almost two hundred dollars for a lovely, magical coffee system with out checking to see if replacement carafes are available? Whyyyyyyy?)

This morning, at 6:47 a.m. the phone rang. Shocking, I know. I can’t even pretend any more to love him at that time of day. Fumbling to find the phone I now keep hidden under my pillow (as I’m way too lazy to actually get out of bed to answer it) I groped to answer it before the ringing woke my children and forced me to unnecessarily rise from my bed and actually start parenting.

“Stop calling me this early in the morning or I will be forced to divorce you, sell your children to some travelling freak show and spend the rest of my years stalking you in perverse ways.”

“Ah, my lovely. Good to know you slept well.”

“Boo. This has to stop. I’m seriously questioning if I love you enough to survive these early morning phone calls.” Oh, how the softness of my pillow taunted me, mocking my awakeness.

“Aw, did someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?” he asked me in an annoying sing song version of Pee Wee Herman.

“That’s it, I’m changing our telephone number. And I’m not telling you what it is.”

“You’re cute when you’re grouchy. Are you nekkid?” That’s my husband. Annoying and perverted. This is what happens when you marry the first guy who knocks you up.

“Shut up,” I groaned. “What do you want? Or are you just tormenting me because you are evil?”

“Actually, I had to call you this early. It may be my only chance to talk to you today; work is nuts around here. Somebody blah, blah, blah.” I admit it. I tuned him out. I was starting to drift back to the land of Nod, the place of warm comforters, soft pillows and no shrill early morning phone calls from out of town husbands.

“You’re not listening to me,” he complained.

“No shit, Sherlock. You woke me up. On a SUNDAY morning. The one day of the week I am supposed to be allowed to sleep in. The holiest day of the week.” Yawn.

“Oh right. I could apologize from waking you up from your humble sleep while I’m out here busting my hump trying to earn enough money to feed you and pay for your internet, but if you want to be like that-”

“I only want to be like that before the hours of 9 a.m. and after 11 p.m. on a Sunday. All other hours I will be the sweet Stepford wife you married.”

“Sarcasm on you is sexy. Especially with that husky morning voice you’ve got going on. Are you nekkid?”

“Boo,” I warned. I was quickly morphing into a cranky, uncaffeinated shrew.

“I just wanted to know if you were planning on posting anything anytime soon on your blog. The boys are starting to complain about the lack of new material.”

“You woke me up on a Sunday morning before even God himself has gotten out of bed, to ask me that?” I screeched.

“Yep.”

“I hate you.”

“I love you too. Now get off your arse and get blogging. We’re bored up here.”

He was saying something else, but I accidentally, cough, cough, pressed the disconnect button. What can I say? I can’t be held accountable for my actions before 7 a.m. on a weekend.

My apologies to everyone and to the boys stuck working with my husband. I live to entertain you and I promise to do better. Once this week has passed, the verdict has been delivered and the anniversary has passed.

It’s hard to be creative when I’m busy hiding in the pantry, rocking back and forth, waiting for this week to end.

Bear with me for a few more days and I’ll be back in brilliant form. Well, I suppose the brilliancy will depend on just how low you pin your expectations, but still, hang in there.

It’s not all doom and gloom around these parts while I sit on my ass and wait for my future to be determined by a group of soul sucking zombies er, government bureaucrats. In an active attempt to avoid the looming emotional crisis that October represents for our family, the hubs and I went out and did something we’ve never done before.

We hired a hooker.

Kidding. In his dreams. Actually, his dreams would consist more of the sexy (and now slightly knocked up) Halle Berry, me and a can of whip cream. Or more likely, Halle Berry, the whip cream and me locked in the basement, pounding on the door, screaming to get out.

No, no hooker. However, we went to see our friendly, neighbourhood travel agent. All right, so we just randomly picked one out of the phone book, but turned out, she WAS friendly. Just not in our neighbourhood. (To be fair, our neighbourhood consists primarily of a bunch of trees, a few bears, some moose and the odd hillbilly.)

It must have been Boo’s lucky day. Our agent was hot. He got even luckier when her and I hit it off immediately. I never once got mad at him over his clumsy attempts at flirting or his obvious attempts to check out her rack.

Okay, so I was checking out her cleavage as well, but it was impressive. I was in the midst of developing a serious case of boob envy.

Ahem.

After spending some time oogling like a pair of perverts discussing foreign travel, weather patterns and just how shallow our pockets really are, Boo and I held hands and took the plunge. We handed over our credit card and booked our very first ever, vacation. Thousands of dollars later, we had our pool chaises reserved on a stretch of white sandy beach overlooking the warm waves of a blue ocean. I think I saw my travel agent rubbing her hands together with glee as she rang in our card when she thought we weren’t looking.

At one point, the excitement and the pot of coffee I ingested, got the better of me. I excused myself to find my way to the loo, looking at all the travel posters and imagining what life would be like if I was born closer to the equator. (I have to say, I think I’d miss the snow and the forgiving nature of my winter wardrobe.)

When I sat back down in the office, next to my hubs, he looked mighty pleased with himself. Worried he might have said something to embarrass me himself, I looked to the travel agent, then back to him and asked what’s up with the cheshire grin.

“I booked us first class, baby!” He was bursting at the seams with pride and excitement.

“Oh. Great. What does that mean, exactly, other than spending more of our children’s college funds?” I inquired.

“Well,” started our lovely, well-endowed travel lady, “it simply means that your flight will be more comfortable. Which is important since a vacation starts with the flight.”

“Great. Why will my flight be more comfortable? Do I get mandatory foot rubs by hot Swedish airline employees while a staff of scantily clad men and women feed me hand peeled grapes?” A girl can dream, can’t she?

“No. It just means your seat is bigger. And you get free juice.” Funny, she avoided making eye contact with me when she let me down.

“What? Bigger seat? Are you implying something? Is this because you saw the size of my derriere when I went to the bathroom? Because I’m bloated. It’s almost that time of the month. It’s just water weight!”

My darling hubs was now cowering in his seat, wishing I would shut the fuck up. Our lovely travel agent looked like she had just walked in on her mommy giving Santa a holiday treat and she hastily tried to undo the damage.

“Of course not! I just meant bigger seats mean -”

“Bigger asses can fit in them.” I couldn’t help it. Boo shot me a murderous look, silently ordering me to be nice to the lady with the nice boobies.

“No, no!” she sputtered as she looked around in vain, worried her boss might have overheard her call me a lard ass and praying for some divine intervention. “I didn’t mean that at all. Your bottom is lovely. Er, I mean, it is quite small and could fit into any seat comfortably. I just thought your husband might be more comfortable in the larger seat.” She finished the sentence with a small sigh and looked like she dodged a bullet.

“Oh, in that case, I agree. He does have a rather large ass. Don’t you, honey?” I leaned over to pat his hand.

Funny, he wasn’t amused. Muttering something about how he could dress me up, but couldn’t take me out, he apologized to the agent for my behaviour and explained how I had forgotten the medication that makes me normal that morning.

The poor lady. She couldn’t decide if she was amused or confused by the time Boo and I had signed our lives away and reached for our coats.

Let the good times roll. You see, the vacation doesn’t start with the flight, my dear. It starts with tormenting the delicious travel agent and seeing how many times you can make your husband squirm with embarrassment and wish he had never fallen for my mesmerizing charms.

It only gets better from here.

The hubs was home for four whole days. A lot of liquor was consumed, more pizza than I care to admit and I did my best Gumby impersonation on more than one occasion.

Besides having some quality romantic time , Boo managed to knock a few items off my Honey Do list. Without me bitching at him. NO. REALLY. He did it all on his own. He was just so damn happy to be back at home living with his family, he would have done just about anything in gratitude to show his appreciation of us.

Well, that and the fact that he got a speeding ticket on his way home. The facker was trying to earn his salvation.

Admittedly, neither of us are the perfect spouse. But that doesn’t stop us from trying (for about two whole hours) when we see each other.

One of the items on Boo’s list of chores to accomplish before his wife’s candy store opened for business was for him to get his passport. Other items included giving me a back rub, grilling me a steak and putting his damn laundry away.

(You’d be surprised at the lengths I’d go to avoid putting laundry away.)

First thing Friday morning, we trekked into the city to our nearest passport office. About half way there, Boo slammed on the brakes and looked at me with a wild look of panic in his eye.

“I forgot my birth certificate at home. We have to go back.”

“Do you have your driver’s license?” Going back home would tack on another hour before we even hit city limits and I was jonesing for a Starbucks coffee.

“Ya, but the papers clearly state I need my birth certificate and I left it on the counter.”

Like the dumbass I am, I looked at him and said, “Nah, they don’t even look at it. When I went this spring they didn’t ask to see it. You’ll be fine. I promise. Now get thee to the city so that I may spend obscene amounts of your hard earned cash on calorie-ladled coffee.”

“Are you sure?” he asked as he looked at me warily.

“Is the sky blue? Now quit doubting your wife and drive!”

Walking into the passport building and noting the two hundred or so people waiting to see the three government officials stuck in their little kiosk, Boo looked at me and said, “I’m gonna murder you in front of all these people if we wait in this bloody line all damn day only to discover we needed my birth certificate.”

“It gets me all hot when you threaten me, pretty boy. Now act like a good boy and get in line with the rest of the lemmings.”

Lucky for me we only waited about an hour in a line filled with annoying people before the government official asked for his birth certificate and tsked at us as she sent us packing until we could produce one.

Needless to say, Boo was annoyed. And I narrowly escaped with my life. So yesterday, we went back to the passport office, birth certificate clasped tightly in Boo’s oversized paw, and gasped when we saw the length of the line. It seemed to triple over the weekend.

Fack. Double fack.

“You are so not worth this.” Boo was annoyed, as he weaved his way to the back of a line that weaved about the building several times. I could feel my shame rise again as I vividly recalled telling him not to turn the car around.

Every now and then, my stupidity astounds me.

“I’ll fix this. Wait here. And don’t talk to any strangers. Especially females. You may decide to trade me in. Can’t have that.” Off I set to fix the problem. Lucky for me, the guard remembered Boo and I clearly from Friday and after a few flattering words (okay, so I begged like my life depended on it) she obtained a ticket for us to by pass the line.

Boo was impressed. The hundreds of people who had been waiting in line for hours before us, were not. “How did you do that?” A silence ensued as the surrounding people held their breath to learn my dark secrets.

“Easy. I showed her my boobs. Works every time.”

“Damn. I need a set of knockers. Think of the raises and vacation time I could get if I could just flash my boobs willy-nilly at the boys.”

“Oh, Boo. You aren’t that far behind. A few more donuts and then I’ll teach you to squeeze your boobs together using your arms. With your pretty blue eyes, tight ass and growing breasticles, you’ll have all the men after you in no time,” I joked.

Just as he was reaching to choke the life out of me, his number was called.

Saved by an underpaid, overworked, government official. Who would have thought?

Most husbands show their love a variety of ways. The occasional bouquet of flowers, a shiny bauble or even the impromptu picking up their shit dirty socks with out being asked.

Not my man.

No, he prefers a bolder method of announcing his love.

He buys me appliances. Now that my friends, is true love.

After seeing me stroking Karen and George and whispering sweet words of love to them countless times over how efficient the new appliances were, he decided it was time to replace several other appliances, namely our fridge, stove and deep freezer.

In his mind, appliances equal unbridled sex.

In my mind, appliances equal well, unbridled sex. (There is a reason we have been happily married for so long. This man gets me.)

Because his plans for the summer fell through and he spent the majority of it busting his ass, surrounded by other sweaty men busting their asses, instead of at home with his family, he decided to bribe pony up a few grand to add to our clan of shiny new electronic appliances.

I now have a sparkling white, energy efficient, french door, bottom pullout-freezer-drawer refrigerator; a glass top stove with convention oven that is electric blue on the inside (for all that baking I never do); and a stand up deep-freeze so that I may never again bend over and fall into our chest high freezer while searching for that last elusive package of ground beef.

He’s so thoughtful it kills me.

However, since he is out of town and the appliance dudes called to say they were on their way out with our new family members, I had a bit of a problem. How the hell was I going to get the old ones out of my house to make room for the new ones with the spagetti arms I sport? The kids would be of no assistance, a strong wind could blow them away. I was on my own with no muscle in site to lend a hand.

I did what any good wife would do.

I called up Boo to whine about my hardship. He, however, was unsympathetic.

“Just ask the delivery guys to move them for you.”

No shit sherlock. Like I hadn’t thought of that. “Thanks Boo, but when they called for directions this morning, the lady clearly stated it wasn’t in the men’s job description to remove old appliances, just bring in the new ones.”

Like, duh.

“Well, I guess you’re scewed. Listen, I’ve gotta go. Someone is on fire and we want to stand around and roast marshmallows while we wait for the rescue team to arrive.”

“Wow. You really are helpful today. Have fun with that.” Asshole. Since he was about as interested in my dilemma as he was in tweezing my nose hairs, I wandered into my closet and thought to myself, how would a resourceful, pathetically weak, with no one to call, woman solve this problem?”

The answer was folded up neatly on the top shelf.

The purple shirt.

Aha!

Noting the time, I quickly ran to the bathroom, shook out my hair and gave it a good brushing, slapped on some blush, dug through my mound of folded, yet still-not-put-away clothing and pulled out my secret weapon.

Shrugging into the slightly ill-fitting, yet surprisingly flattering white pushup bra, I grabbed the purple shirt and tossed it on just as the delivery truck was beeping it’s way up my driveway.

Praying I wouldn’t scar my kids for life, I figured I had two options. First option, I could pretend to be in a delicate condition. Men are suckers for knocked up chicky, stuck in the woods with out a big, strapping man to help her out.

If that didn’t work, I’d use plan B.

I’d push up the girls and bat my eyelashes. After all, what good are newly grown guns if they can’t get a few men to move some heavy, old appliances for her?

One step closer to living like a true hillbilly…

I do feel a little bad. My darling bird Lester decided to pull a Houdini and escape his cage. Before I could catch him he landed on one of the men’s shoulders and took a dump.

He wasn’t amused.

Secretly, I was. But only after wishing the earth would open up and swallow me. As I blushed with mortification, my fucking, soon to have his feathers plucked bird chirped happily and then squeezed between his birdcage bars, safe from my grasp to have a laugh on the stupid humans.

After wishing me and the kids well while staring at my cleavage, the men climbed into their big truck to go deliver more appliances like manna from heaven. As the kids were hauling the boxes off into the woods to go make a fort, the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Did you get the appliances moved, darlin?” I could hear the sound of money being made in the background as Boo spoke.

“Sure did. And the new appliances are soooo pretty. I can’t wait to rub them.”

“Anything to make you happy sugar. Just remember who your daddy is when I get home.”

“Oh that won’t be hard to forget. It has to be the appliance dude. Even our bird, Lester, loved him.”

“Very funny. Did you have any problems getting them to move the old appliances for you?”

“Nah. It was easier than I thought.”

“Really. How’d you manage that?” I could tell he was really curious now. “Did you offer them favours?

“No funny man. They were charmed by me and my natural assets.”

“You mean you had your boobs hanging out.”

“Yep. A girl has to do what a girl has to do.”

“Harumph.” Apparently, he didn’t like this too much.

“Don’t worry Boo. I wore the purple shirt. They thought I was knocked up. They felt sorry for me, what with two wild children, a festering bird and no man in sight. They were just being kind. Suckers.” Snicker.

“You’re horrible.”

“Yah, but I’m horrible with three spanky new appliances and the old ones out on the deck. I think I may have to wear this shirt and wander around town looking for buyers who need slightly used, old appliances for cheap.”

“I’m gonna burn that shirt when I get home.”

“Ah honey. I love you too.”