Preserve your marriage: don’t DIY

I have it on good authority that many home improvement centers may not practice truth in advertising. I suspect most such business may be secretly owned by massive networks of marriage and family therapists.

They lure you in with warm pictures of men and women - and sometimes even their children - working together in perfect harmony. Not only do these icons project an image of well-oiled home improvement machinery, they are having a good time doing it. Smiling, finishing their projects ahead of schedule and under budget.

Luckily, those scenarios do exist. Right on your television. In reality, the typical do-it-yourself project proceeds more like this (feel free to assign genders):

“Honey, I’ve been thinking…”

“Did you hurt yourself?”

“Ha, ha. We should remodel the [fill in the blank] room.”

“Well, have fun. And good luck.”

“Get up, you slug! Come on, I have a coupon for 97 percent off anything at DIY Remodeling Iz Us. We should be able to gut and renovate the whole thing for $1.95.”

“Sigh…all right. Let’s go.”

Minor disagreements begin before the couple leaves the store.

“I wanted periwinkle, not purple.”

“This is periwinkle.”
“No, that is more purple. If you would just hold it up against a true periwinkle, you’d see how purple it is.”

The next phase involves sizing up the job. You might as well just make an estimated guess, because you can’t possibly do any worse than the 16-year-old who will invariably sell you too much or too little of what you need to do the job and knows nothing about marriage, too boot.

Eventually, there is the construction phase. It is during this stage that it is discovered that:
He can’t miter corners. She can’t operate a hammer. He doesn’t think the dents in the wall are that bid a deal. She can’t intelligently hold a flashlight. He’s not very nice when the electricity being out prevents him having his morning coffee. She’s meaner than a junkyard rat until she’s had her shower, and he just sawed through the hot water pipe to the bathroom.

There will be leaks and dry rot found that were never known to have existed before the project. A squirrel will fall into an unreachable excavation in the house, providing a unique ambience for the nasally keen. Parents will hate their children. Children will hate their parents. Couples will hate each other. The only light at the end of the tunnel is emitting from the headlights speeding toward you. Your only hope is to roll over and play dead in hopes that your partner finishes the job without you; otherwise, here’s where the therapists come in.

Take my advice. If you want to save yourself a lot of time and aggravation, go to your favorite dollar store and buy a two-pound hammer. Take it home, and give yourself a solid whack in the head. I guarantee no matter how bad it hurts, it will be a whole lot cheaper and feel a whole lot better than you will feel by the end of the project.

Reprinted courtesty Eagle Newspapers, Syracuse.

It’s about time… then again, maybe it’s not

Despite raging wars, skyrocketing gas prices and circling peace demonstrators, Dubya has taken the time to put his John Hancock to the Extended Daylight Saving (not Savings) Time proposition. Beginning in 2007, Americans will have another four weeks of artificially lengthened days. Well, lengthened on one end, anyway.

DST was initiated during World War I as an energy conservation measure. It returned during World War II and just kind of hung around like a houseguest who’s overstayed their welcome. Proponents of Dubya’s energy bill say the EDST component will save the country 100,000 barrels of crude a day. I’m not sure exactly how that translates to daylight, since most people gave up their oil lamps for electric lights around the same time DST took up permanent residence. Now we just burn more electricity in the morning instead of the evening. Not me, though. It is no coincidence that most days I look as though I got dressed in the dark.

Some of us actually like the dark. Thrive on it, in fact. Eat, drink, breathe, sleep and be merry in it. Speaking of sleep, I think DST wreaks havoc on our body clocks. It’s like deliberately inflicting jet lag on yourself without the pleasure of travel.

Some analysts are saying the move to EDST was made too hastily, and contingencies such as airline schedules will be adversely affected. Agricultural leaders are predicting a potentially negative impact on livestock. I could care less about airline schedules, but what about those poor cows? I can hear them now… “Geez, Bessie; I feel like I was just milked 11 hours ago.”

Likewise, what becomes of my electronic devices programmed in the DST days? I just got them trained to spring ahead and fall back on their own…God knows if I have to remember to change them, it will be time for the next cycle.

One supporter of EDST practically sparkled as he said “Kids across the nation will soon rejoice.”
He was talking about having an extra hour for trick-or-treating on Halloween. I have to wonder how much rejoicing will be done by the tired and elderly adults jumping up and down to answer the door for another hour Oct. 31.

He also failed to consider those children whose bedtimes are 7:30 p.m., regardless of the season. They are going to lay there even longer listening to their friends having fun outside before the daylight finally fades away. Maybe he was one of them as a child and this is his revenge.

I also have to wonder about the impact on our youth too young to understand trick-or-treating. When our youngest was 2 years old, and we went to pick her up at about 5:10 p.m. that first weekday after “falling back.”
“Why did you leave me here until after dark?” she asked and started crying. She thought she’d been abandoned.

That same EDST genius said, “It makes everyone sunnier.”

I’ve got two words for him: Bite me.

I feel sunnier already.

Reprinted courtesy Eagle Newspapers, Syracuse.