Once you let on to a Sainted wife that you're vaguely handy, all hell breaks loose. "The drain is slow - could you take a look at it?" "There's a loose stone in the front walk - could you take a look at it?" "I sure could use a potting shed - can you build one?" "That gutter seems to be clogged - would you climb up and clear it?"
These hideous jobs are endless. And the complexity of the task doesn't occur to her - "you can change a lightbulb, why are you whining about pouring a foundation?" "Look - the Spenser's have a brick path in the back yard - how hard can that be?"
Let's be frank here: every curmudgeon is an expert in EVERYTHING. That in no way, shape, or form means we can actually perform those tasks. My neighbor Bert was an expert in this: "Let me look into it a bit" he would say. When his wife got impatient - like after a year or so, Bert would show her some bridge that fell down and say "see? I've got to be careful."
He was a master. Me? I build it, it falls down, and I conduct a VERY lengthy failure analysis. It generally concludes that it can never be built again. I'm also a master.
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