Once upon a time, long, long ago, I compromised with my husband.
(Read that knowing I wrote the word
compromise with great disdain and dislike. Compromise is for the weak. Or the happily married. WHATEVER.) There was bartering and tears, foot stomping and then ultimately, a promise wrenched from my lips, all so that I could get my own way.
Eight years ago I told the man that one day, in our far off distance future, when our kids were older and we had paid off some of our debt, he could build himself the biggest, baddest garage/shop/barn he could dream of and I would not stand in his way, argue, or roll my eyes in exchange for him agreeing to let me have my own way on something that wasn't even important enough for me to remember what exactly it was that I was selling my soul for.
(Seriously. No idea. None. Hope I liked whatever it was I bartered for.)
Well that far off distant future I promised my husband? Started this past weekend.
Suddenly I've got contractors calling my house, blue prints scattered everywhere, permit applications littering my countertops and one very, very excited husband.
Of all the many things I may be, I am indeed a woman of my word and for the most part I have sat back and let my husband do his thing as he starts the arduous process of carving his dreams into reality. A promise is a promise after all, plus I like the idea of never having to scrape ice off my windshield anymore during our long cold winters.
Boo has been talking about this garage for
years and I've known for months he planned on starting construction this spring. But that's about as much as I actually do know because every time my husband started talking about the garage or asked my opinion I would tell him I can't respond unless he calls me Alfred and that the only thing I need in his Bat Cave is working plumbing and a spot light to shine into the sky.
At that point he typically rolls his eyes, mutters something about wishing he'd listened to his siblings when they told him not to marry me and then remarks that without him I'd just be some pathetic cat lady who spends too much time on twitter and Facebook while watching comic book based movies.
21 years, people. This is true romance.
This weekend I stood at my kitchen window and watched as a bunch of men hammered stakes in the ground, pointed at trees and wildly gesticulated about who knows what. The dream is about to happen and I realized, I should probably start paying attention to what is going on outside because that is what responsible adults do.
Besides, if I don't show any interest I'm forfeiting the right to whine about the construction process later, right? It's like voting really. You have no business bitching about the government if you are too lazy to cast your ballot.
So later that night I asked Boo to walk me through the entire process.
Two minutes later, my husband had launched into an in-depth conversation about engineered roof trusses, floor joists, solar panels and who knows what and just as I started to hear everything he said as "
Blah Blah Blah" I realized I made a mistake.
"Woah there Nelly! Too much. Let's dumb it right down for me. How about you show me what you are building? Why don't we start with that?" I begged.
Boo briefly looked like a kid who just dropped his cookie into a mud puddle but the moment soon passed. Before I could blink three times, I was staring at his dream on paper.
"What is that?" I asked in a super high-pitched voice meant to convey both my dismay and disbelief.
"It's what our garage will look like." He replied in a tone meant to convey "Like duh, stupid."
Now, I don't really know what I was expecting. As long as it looked better than this, I figured I'd be cool:
I couldn't have been farther off the mark than if I was smoking crack.
My husband? The man who can't drink wine unless it's from the correct stemware? His little man cave? Turned out not to be so little. In fact, his far off future distant project to store vehicles has more square footage than the house he stores his family in.
Boo's garage is my damn dream home. Minus the carbon monoxide fumes and cement floors, of course.
Not an exact replica of what my husband has in mind.
This isn't as BIG as the one Boo showed me.
I sat there, momentarily, dumbfounded, searching for something to say which didn't involve threats on his life.
You know what happens when you give your husband eight years and a dream?
Big things.
Big red barn/garage thingies with triple doors, two storeys and a private man cave. Surely to be completed with a "No Girls Allowed" sign hanging on the door.
You would have thought I'd have learned my lesson after
our couch debacle. I suppose the upside to all of this is that he can take his manly leather monstrosity of a couch and stick it in his oversized man cave.
Where the sun surely won't be shining.
Once upon a time there was a girl, who married a boy, who never quite learned how to pay attention so she made a compromise, which involved a promise and now she's banging her head against her desk. It's like that song about a
fly on a log, only worse.
Because my song involves an ugly couch, a giant garage, a Bat Cave, me wearing Alfred's butler costume and my husband wearing a sh!t eating grin.
The devil really is in the details.
