Just Finish the Job, Already!

The only things I’ve ever seen my husband finish in a timely manner are meals and a cold beer. 

As I write this, my husband is decorating the front yard for Halloween. He does this for Christmas, as well. It’s a mystery to me why department store display workers can convert 60,000 square feet of Thanksgiving cornucopias into Christmas wonderlands overnight but it takes three weeks for my husband to convert a 10’ by 20’ patch of grass into, well, something not so much spectacular.

The other day I tripped over several power tools, wood shavings and assorted hinges on my way to the car. My husband was reassembling the coffin. He puts this in the center of our driveway for about a week so I have to secure parking for my car a couple of blocks away from our house. He crawls into this coffin on Halloween night and pops out, scaring the trick-or-treaters as they make their way around the assorted plastic body parts and headstones to our front door. Don’t think I haven’t harbored the thought of keeping a hammer at the ready to permanently nail that sucker shut with him in it.

Let’s not even talk about taking down the decorations. One year, I simply added a beard and red hat to the inflatable Frankenstein and called him Santa. It was a little weird. The kids couldn’t understand why the angels were riding brooms.

Speaking of the biblical, let’s just say that the only reason Noah finished that ark was because Ruth withheld the spiced mead and sex. Remember Pharaoh? Got the great idea to build the pyramids? Brought in all the other neighborhood husbands to help? Well, they were at it so long that he died before that job was finished.

Let’s just say that if my husband had been Jesus (and what man DOESN’T think he’s a savior…), he would never have become a carpenter because he’d still be waiting for the right power tool to finish the job!

And I don’t want to hear that old story about women taking so long in the bathroom. You don’t see women retreating to the bathroom with the Sunday paper tucked under our arms, do you? We simply don’t have that kind of time.I say if you want to see a model of efficiency, just watch 500 women choreograph their way through a women’s restroom with only 10 stalls during a 15-minute halftime at a football game. Now that’s what I call getting the job done!