Every now and then I get myself into trouble by trying.
Recently I happened to mention to TLW (The Little Woman) that I needed to paint
a strip of new molding put up and did we have any paint for it. Since she put
the paint away the last time she said she would look,
A few days later she makes her announcement:
“I found some paint for the molding you wanted, AND I found
some paint for the baseboard in the bathroom you will need for you to paint it
with!”
This all happened while she was home from the Wanna-Be-Bank
& Truss Co., she was feeling rested! Had I asked for more than one color,
she would have found paint for me to use both interiorly and exteriorly, and a
huge home-improvement project would have been underway!
I have learned over the years, but refuse to put into
practice the art of talking to myself, and excluding TLW from the conversation.
If I did, I would have only painted the molding.
Years ago I made the mistake of fixing something in our
little apartment we had just signed a lease for before we married, and it
fixated into a remodeling of my kitchen in my old house, along with the
bathroom and living room being completely overhauled by yours truly after we
married and had our first house. Simple mistakes can lead to big projects.
Along the way she learned that there are certain jobs I hate
to do and to leave the house before I start them. When our first two were young
babies, I had to fix a kitchen sink’s leaky faucet, and it meant getting under
that old fashioned sink and getting into a contortion with a basin wrench to
undo the nuts. It was frozen on, and my hands were hurting from the attempts to
undo the nut. I started to use the traditional Italian that dear old Dad used
so many times before me, passed on down from his dad. TLW, mortified by my
excessive use of Italian verbiage, although she didn’t understand what I was
swearing to, took the two little tykes and ran to her mother’s house and waited
a few hours. After a while I was resting from the ordeal and had cleaned up,
she called to see if the coast was clear and was my mouth in good English
order.
One thing I never did was use four letter English words in
front of TLW, my kids or sisters and family of any kind. My dad never did and
so it went. To this day I hate the words but have let one or two fly over the
years, just not in front of the family.
However there was the time in church of all places, where #1
Son picked up a phrase I used all too often while driving: “Son of a bitch!” And
son of a bitch if he didn’t start repeating it: at 2 years of age in church
during Mass. Now to his credit, he didn’t use the whole phrase, just the juicy
part: “Bitch!”
There we were, Momma, Poppa sister and little #1.
“Bitch!”
My hair stands on end. I don’t look at TLW.
“Son of a Bitch!”
This is getting ugly!
“Bitch!”
I sneak a glance at TLW, and then at #1 who I am trying desperately
to stop saying things. I frantically wave him to stop; looking around me, at
TLW and then him, he smiles at me.
“Bitch!”
Oh God! I decide we have to leave the place before I am
struck down by lightning or TLW’s dirty look.
Out to the car we go, for my lecture about my language use
while driving. All he needed was a learner’s permit!
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