Handsome AND Handy

My husband is building a new front porch on our house.  He’s handy.  This amazes me.  

Heretofore, the men in my life were useless at building and or fixing shit.  If it could be jimmied with duct tape or an old nail then my dad would take a crack at it.  He never like, ‘fixed’, anything so much as made it sort of useable.   Using most of the appliances in my parent’s house required a quick pre-operational ritual.  When people stayed with us we would absentmindedly wave our hands when they couldn’t get the toaster to work and say, ‘oh yeah, you have to prime the toaster and then turn around in a circle three times chanting before you put your toast in.’   

If an item could not be MacGyvered then it was deemed irretrievably broken.  I can remember when I was buying my first car, Dad insisted that I not buy automatic windows, ‘they will just break.’  I see now that he didn’t consider that people could FIX the windows.  He was worried that I would have to finish out a lease with no working windows. 

I thought that all people lived like this.

When my husband and I moved in together he brought his tools.  I had seen tools before but there were a LOT of tools.  Big. Tools.  I just assumed that they were genital accessories that were going to gather dust in our basement.   One of our first fights ignited with my distain at his intention to fix something or other around the house.   He went off in a huff to fix the something and I promised myself that I would not rub it in too much when he failed.  

A couple hours later he came to fetch me and show me the fixed thing.  I mean, it was fixed.  In fact, he had IMPROVED whatever it was.  I was amazed.  I’m still amazed.  

Anyway, he just rebuilt our front porch.  Check it out.  I wonder what my dad would say about this?