Sure, Boo

 

Hubs is the only one of four brothers who inherited their father’s beautiful gray eyes. He got his generosity from the same source. His biting sarcasm? Um…I’d have to say that’s from his mom. The genius IQ is from both parents.

Overall, not a bad set of genes, but one thing he did not inherit was his dad’s remarkable ability to fix things. Nope, that trait was passed to his older brother. For Hubs, it skipped a generation and went straight to his sons.

For the most part, he accepts this limitation, but every now and again, he decides to make an attempt, the evidence of which is scattered throughout our living space: a part he bought for something that’s still broken, a nifty thingamabob he ordered off the internet that was supposed to be a cinch to assemble and make such-and-such so much easier-peasier to do.

If he does manage to repair whatever it is, that event is peppered by outbursts of swearing, but the swearing is quietly uttered and inventive. Once, I tiptoed passed the kitchen because I knew he was working on something in there, and I heard him mutter (don’t read on if you’re sensitive):

“You pig f*cker.”

However, I learned from my brother-in-law (the mechanically-inclined one) that inventive swearing is another gem he picked up from their dad, who, said brother-in-law claims, would whistle, at first, when things weren’t going well in the repair department. And if his sons heard Dad whistle, they’d hurry out of the vicinity, because Dad’s accusations of porcine debauchery and other such exclamations were much louder than Hub’s.

The first few years of our marriage I wasted a lot of time rolling my eyes, heaving long-suffering sighs when the muttering started, and repeating, in my most exasperated tone, “WHY. Don’t. You. Just. CALL SOMEONE?”

But I know better now. These days, when he comes home with a cardboard box or a little plastic bag containing an unidentifiable something, and tells me, in his ‘I’m-on-an-important-mission’ voice, “See this? This is a coupling bojangle for the broken doseewatsit, and I’ll be fixing that right up today, in a jiffy,” I say: