Tuesday, November 11, 2008

You can't escape Freud, I guess

When I met my husband-to-be, he was not particularly handy. He didn't own any tools, and I don't know if he had ever changed a car's oil himself. As we started dating, though, a transformation took place. He bought a car, and expressed an interest in trying to do the maintenance. I loaned him my tools, and he started messing around. He discovered the great wide community of Internet mechanics. (Did you know there are people who post detailed instructions on how to replace the engine mounts on a Ford Escort? Neither did I.)
Since I come from a rather do-it-yourself kind of family, this new interest was only encouraged by my family. He started receiving power tools for Christmas and tool boxes for his birthday. He built some furniture for the house. Last week the toilet started leaking, and he didn't have time to repair it right away, so he showed me how I could turn off the water at the base of the toilet and turn it on just when it needed to refill. As I was going through this ritual a half a dozen times daily, I reflected that my life is now EXACTLY as it was in my childhood. I'm surrounded by ingenious temporary fixes, which eventually morph into creative permanent solutions. I'm told that we can't move to Europe because it would be too hard to take the tools. I'm spending far too much time in hardware stores, praying we'll be able to leave soon.

In other words, in spite of a promising beginning, I have married a man who turned into my father.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The perceived wisdom is that son's look for partners who are like their mother. Don't take it to heart. I didn't realise I had so much talent!

Gill UK

I don't understand the Europe comment

astrobassist said...

Hmmm...rather reminiscent of my recent trend in the direction of foodyism since I started dating Anna...remember that when there's evolution, it's the species that changes, but it's the environment that selects how!

Oh, and what is "spackle" called in England? It's not "humped zebra crossing", but it's something funny like that...

Anonymous said...

Putty

Anonymous said...

Temporary fixes are above most peoples pay grade but ingenious temporary fixes are the flowers of life.

I feel bonding to s-in-l seeing him morph into a member of the family.

Dad

alexis said...

wait wait wait - you guys are thinking of moving to EUROPE???????

Anonymous said...

Thinking about Wife's father and what that says about me. Well I never do any maintenance either.

Anonymous said...

Alexis, you'll note that I said we couldn't go to Europe, all because of the tools. It was during one of those, "Where would you be willing to live?" conversations.