The General Contractor’s Wife

This is not the beginning of a steamy novel or the title of a chapter in a volume of erotica. It’s simply a rant. Humor me for a minute.  It’s  after 1:00 am and I’m writing this to get it off my chest so I can rest in peace. 

I’m constantly playing this entertaining little proverb (the origins of which I am not about to research at the moment) over and over again in my head. It goes something like this:  “Who’s worse shod than the shoemaker’s wife? … the shoemaker’s wife, the shoemaker’s wife?” – Come oooon, sing it with me (to the tune of Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, of course).  In laymen’s terms, that means that the scoundrel of a shoemaker is either too busy or too lazy to fix up his wife’s footwear. Hence, the shoemaker’s wife walks around with big old holes in her shoes!  No, no Manolo Blahnik for that chick. What an unhappy circumstance!

Well, I’m here to tell you: the general contractor’s wife fares no better than the poor dear spouse of the shoemaker!  No, it’s not about the shoes, darling. Read on…

I am totally embarrassed to say it, but our house is a mess.  Oh sure, it’s relatively clean. You’ve got to remember, I have issues with that.  But those little odds and ends that should be seamlessly polished away by so great a man as the big-guy contractor that Hubby has become are left undone ad infinitum.

Hubby spends all week and endless hours getting guys to spruce up the domestic dwellings of what seems to be everyone else in Lower Fairfield County.  I have to actually drag out my own pretty power drill to get things done around here.  Childproof cabinets – check.  Hang pictures and shelves – check. Install those cellular shades that have been sitting in their boxes in the corner like forever– check. Etc, etc, etc. 

I can’t help but laugh when ladies marvel at the fact that I’ve got a guy who knows how to do all that and much, much more.  What they don’t realize is that my guy doesn’t want to do any of that and much, much less when he gets home! Ahhh!  So there’s absolutely no reason to be envying me for my magic man.   

Do not be fooled.  Still, as of this evening, no little elves have sneaked into my house during the night to fix the crack in the ceiling where water leaked in from the central air unit the very first time we turned it on this summer!  Those same elves won’t soon be a-callin’ to unstick my front door which I actually have to throw myself at to open!  (Yes, I’m dead serious!  Try that with a preschooler and toddler underfoot, a purse, a sippy cup, the newspapers, the mail and whatever other paraphernalia in tow. ) Nor will those flighty fairy-type gentlemen be quick to make the other one-hundred and one repairs that lay rotting on my honey’s  honey-do list. Oh, dear elves..!! Where are you?  I suppose I’m just not as worthy as the shoemaker and his wife.

In any case, I shouldn’t complain.  Things do eventually get done, eventually.  Not when I’d like them to or even when I need them to. Just eventually.  

Such is the plight of the General Contractor’s Wife.