Lessons in home repair

It's a double post today. This one, also from Origins, goes under 'Marital Combat'. Lock and load!

Those who do their own home repair know that many lessons are learned along the way. I learned a good one years ago about caulking guns.

I was at the end of my tallest ladder, an aluminum one about three hundred dollars in length, if you know what I mean, trying to caulk a window I had installed. There were several problems. First, the gun was a cheap one that performed poorly. My master and commander, the wife, had convinced me to get a cheaper one. My other problem was the ladder was leaning against the wrong house. Oh, I lived there, and my money went to pay for it every month, but I no longer felt it was 'our' house. I felt it was under the control of the woman I married and now resented. I was a tenant worker. The job was going wrong, and my anger grew in geometric proportion to the amount of caulk that went where it shouldn't. I had caulk on me, the ladder, the side of the house, and areas of the window it needn't be. Finally I threw the caulking gun to the ground and came flying down the ladder and landed on the gun. The wife rushed out to see what was happening and I gave her a loud and colorful briefing on the project, her, and her house. I don't know how often I had cursed the house and the wife, or the exact words I used that time, but I do remember the wife reaching her limit, and yelling at me while slamming the back door against the wall over and over. She didn't realize that her precious little dog had wandered between the door and the wall.

They say the bombing of Dresden produced a fire whose heat was so great that pieces of buildings rose in a fiery vortex, high enough to pass the airplanes dropping the bombs. When brought to a high temperature, marital combat plays out in a similar way. After the wife slammed the back door, I responded by kicking over a dresser her uncle gave her. It was the ugliest dresser I had ever seen, and another project she started but couldn't seem to finish. The "I will get 'round to it" things that lived on top of the dresser fell and patio, smashing to pieces. Then I turned my wrath on the largest symbol of all that was demoralizing and unjust in our marriage; I hit the side of the house. My physical strength was about as weak as my ability to manage my stress, so I only succeeded in gouging my hand.

After cooling off I had a rare moment of clarity that allowed me a good look at myself. I was embarrassed, disgusted, and worried. The wife came out and we looked at the door. The hinges were nearly pulled from the frame. She checked her dog and found no injuries, and I picked up the mangled remains of my caulking gun. The tube of caulk, once full, had ejaculated its guts all over the lawn. She suggested that we see a counselor, and I agreed. That same week we went to a counselors' office and pushed ourselves into the opposing ends of a large couch. I had begun to realize I had a lot to learn about myself, but I did understand my lesson in house repair: don't hold back when purchasing a caulking gun.