On Point
By: Linda McCarthy
Home repair has always been a touchy subject in our house. Whatever my husband wants to fix, I beg him not to touch.
Although his talents are many and varied, working with power tools isn’t one of his strong points. It’s not his fault. Someone has to teach you these things and Dave’s father was equally tool impaired. This caused a rift in the beginning of our marriage because my father taught MacGyver everything he knows. I couldn’t understand why my new husband was baffled when I handed him a hammer to hang a picture. Once I explained what end to use things got better.
Since those early years we’ve lived in a mobile home and three houses. Each residence bears the "Mark of Dave." This is the official name for the home repair jobs of my husband. In the mobile home, our water pipes froze so he crawled underneath and tried to thaw them out with a blow torch. It took him 15 minutes before he realized he was torching the gas line. The burn marks remain and I’m just thankful I didn’t end up in Kansas.
Our first house was a real challenge. It was an adorable, tiny bungalow. The front steps had two loose bricks. All I wanted Dave to do was re-cement them. Four months and 18 pallets of bricks later I had steps big enough to mount the great pyramid. As if my house wasn’t small enough, the scale of his improvements made it look like Barbie’s Dream House.
In our next house he wanted to replace wallboard in the kitchen. Apparently, he didn’t know it came in varying widths so consequently all the walls aren’t exactly flush. Speaking of flush, he also attempted to retrieve the G.I. Joes my son sent down the toilet. This entailed tearing up the front lawn to expose the main sewer pipe. After three days of digging and numerous attempts at pipe cutting, I’m happy to report the mission accomplished. He found the little soldiers still in their jeep. By the way, he never replaced the grass.
The house we live in now is a do-it-yourselfer’s dream. We have a great front porch made of wood. The railings needed to be replaced so Dave bought the wood, a table saw with an array of attachments, a router, a band saw, an orbital sander and a tool belt. We spent so much the nice people at Home Depot genuflect when we enter the store. I could have had a master carpenter custom build two porches, a detached garage and an outhouse. That was eight years ago. The railings still need to be replaced.
Since the day we moved in I’ve been acutely aware of a leak in the upstairs bathroom. The ceiling in my kitchen bears the telltale marks of rogue drip. My husband has attempted to fix this problem four times. The last time I went without a kitchen ceiling right through the fall and winter. Try serving Thanksgiving dinner with pipes exposed and flushing above your head. He finally repaired the ceiling, although the spackle still remains. His ultimate solution for fixing the leak has me questioning his sanity. He put a rolled-up towel in the corner of the tub. I’m not kidding. The other night we had Dave’s boss over for dinner and it started dripping on his head. I pretended I didn’t notice.
I guess I can overlook Dave’s shortcoming in the fix-it department. He’s a wonderful person, and we’ve been through a lot together. I think I’ll stay with him as long as he whispers those three little words every woman longs to hear: Call the plumber!
Linda McCarthy resides in Robbinsville with her husband and three children.

