Handy Manny

I have a secret.  A deep, dark, secret that I have not shared with anyone before. At least not  To myself, Outloud, inperson, on my blog.  What is it that hides inside this heart of mine?  Well, I'm in love with another man.  Sortof, kindof, okay totally.  But alas, he can never be mine.  Who is he, Handy Manny.  My hero.  Do y'all know who Handy Manny is, here I'll share a picture of him with you:

Be still my beating heart!  Now you know why we can never be together, as it would be a mixed marriage, doomed from the start.  Animated character and human.  Sigh...

Now, don't get me wrong.  Y'all know how much I love my husband.  I refer to him here as Mr. Wonderful, and I even mean it.  Always, most of the time, usually, sometimes-okay most of the time.  (Except for those times when I feel like he is quickly outliving his usefulness. Kidding! Sortof.)

Anyway, Mr. Wonderful is a man of many qualities, capable of doing many things.  But handy, he is NOT.  Not even a little.  Our yard is the envy of most of the neighbors and many professional landscaping professionals as well-all him.  Totally!  Behind closed doors though, that is where the problem begins.  Allow me to illustrate my point for you.

I had purchased a pair of cornice boards for our bedroom windows and they needed to be installed.  After sitting around the house wrapped in plastic for a couple of weeks, months, years, I had convinced him to hang them for me. I am a very patient woman!

Anyway, Mr. Wonderful went to the basement to retrieve the necessary tools, a couple of  L brackets, a few screws, his electric drill and the re-chargable batteries needed to operate said drill.  After gathering all the supplies, he put the screws and the batteries in his pocket and we headed up the stairs to begin the installation process.  (Whenever he is doing anything of this nature, I have to accompany him.)  He puts down the drill and begins to make this strange face.  He reached in his pocket to get the screws and the batteries and yelled.  It seems that both of those items should not be kept together because they will get hot.  So hot in fact that his pocket caught on fire and when he pulled them out of his pocket, he had burned his hand and dropped the screws on the floor burning screw shaped marks in the carpet.  Now, picture this if you will, my grown husband is standing, jumping around the bedroom with a drill in his hand, his pants on fire and a burned hand and thigh.   What was I to do?  I did the only thing I could think of at the moment and I laughed my arse off!  He got mad!   Can you imagine?! 
(Wish I had my camera handy at the time.)

Since that incident, he has been less than willing to help me hang things or do much of my 'honey do' list for that matter.  In a crunch he'll do them, but he really doesn't like to and it might just jeopardize our happy marriage.  So, I wait for an unwitting visitor (read: Dad, Dad or Son-in-Law) to arrive and pounce on them.  It works, but it's really not the best system.

When reality strikes and we feel so inspired to make a change to our home, we usually have to pay someone to do it and that makes the price tag of simple home improvements go way up!

Now can you understand why the sight of that little man with his tool belt and all his adorable tools makes my heart go pitter pat?  (I am currently in a 12-step group and awaiting a call from the casting director of 'My Strange Addiction'.)

  Why am I telling you all of this?  Well, I want, wanted a new sliding glass door.  The beautiful, amazing, life altering kind of sliding glass door with blinds in between the glass.  Last weekend when we were at the Home Show I saw one and while I was admiring this beauty, a salesman approached us and asked if we'd like someone to come to the house measure and give us a price for the door.  No obligation, no charge, no problem!  Well, he came, he saw, he measured and he gave us a full presentation on replacement windows before giving us the price.  $5,700 and change.  What! Really! It's just one door!

After he left, Mr. Wonderful offered to have our verticle blinds that have been broken for 3 years fixed. 

That's love!

 Now let's see how long it takes him to actually get them fixed.