Tonda and I have been married almost 30 years and I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. She’d probably be the first to admit that she’s not exactly Jane Wyatt and I’m not anything like Robert Young. In fact, many times Tonda is more like Robert and I’m more like Jane.
Early in our marriage Tonda discovered that I was very unhandy when it came to doing things around the house. It could be because the wallpaper I hung is still sticking to the picture window.
I have over 200 hours of college credits and not one taught me how to fix a door knob. But like most people, I took door knobs for granted. Through a lifetime of broken lawn mowers, clanging refrigerators and walking washing machines, the door knobs have always worked. After all, their task is rather limited.
Almost immediately after our wedding ceremony, my step-daughter Courtney came to me to pass the word from her Mom that the bathroom door knob was broken. I asked, “Which one?” and she smirked, “The red haired woman you married last week.” I knew then she was smart beyond her years.
“Which bathroom?” I replied.
“The one by my bedroom. It’s broken real bad. “
“Define real bad,” I asked.
“It’s sitting on the carpet outside the bathroom.”
Puzzled I asked, “So why didn’t your Mom just tell me herself?”
She knew she had me, so she answered, “Because she’s sitting on the floor INSIDE the bathroom...” The unspoken, “So there!” was left hanging in the air.
“Tell her I’ll be there in a minute,” I procrastinated.
“Mom said to tell you to take your time. This was the first time she’d been alone for more than 10 minutes since her stretch marks appeared,” said Courtney after returning from talking to her mom through the door. “What does that mean?”
I ignored her question and headed down the hall as Tonda emerged from the bathroom. I asked why the door knob fell off and did she think Andy had yanked it off. Andy, my son, was pretty rough on things.
Tonda laughed and said, from her limited perspective, he had never shut a door in his entire life.
“What did Kelly (my other daughter) say?”
“She’s blaming it on Courtney,” Tonda said with frustrated hands on her hips. “She says we should check the knob for cat paw prints.”
I suggested that maybe “we’re jumping to conclusion and the door knob died of natural causes. Maybe it’s supposed to fall off at this time of year and if we wait until Spring it’ll grow a new one.”
Tonda frowned and said she didn’t think so and “You’ll have to fix it.”
Well the moment of truth had come. I hadn’t divulged to her that I was a mechanical clutz. She just assumed I could fix things. Guys fix things, right?
After 45 minutes of fumbling, Tonda finally came to the rescue.
Backtracking a bit: Before our marriage and after checking her teeth and family background I discovered how handy she was at fixing things.
There’s a lot of reasons I love that woman. Being beautiful and smart are in the top three.
Trivia question of the day
(Try it without Google)
The answer will be in tomorrow’s blog.
Yesterday’s Question: What laundry detergent got lots of mileage out of the ad tag line, “Ring around the collar?” Whisk
Today’s Trivia: What was the profession of Ozzie Nelson in the television series Ozzie and Harriet.
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