It started as a good day.
Saturday.
I got to watch the college’s basketball team scrimmage in the morning….and had plans to go to the SIU basketball scrimmage in the evening.
Ahhhh….basketball season……and a whole day without answering an e-mail.
As I was backing out of the garage, I cut the wheel just a little too much and clipped the edge of the stone retaining wall in the front of the house. It fell apart into various pieces and started rolling down the driveway and yard.
This is something that Carol would do, I thought. But she didn’t do it. I did. And baby it was a mess. Probably fifteen rocks that once were held by mortar into a wall were scattered everywhere.
I don’t know if I have ever mentioned it….but….
I am not a handy person. I blame my Dad. He wasn’t handy either. Dad was a kinda Liquid Nail/duct tape kinda guy. So am I.
But Carol’s Dad, Harry, made her an “everything can be fixed” person. When we first were married…. She decided to change the wallpaper in our one bathroom. I took a shower with a hose in the basement for three months while she found problem after problem under the wallpaper. She and her father almost completely rebuilt the bathroom. I, on the other hand, would have made it all better with a tube of Liquid Nail.
During the great bathroom project of 2005----Carol and Harry did all the work and I was designated as a “swamper.” A swamper is a third rate, unskilled assistant who runs to buy things that are written down on a piece of paper from the hardware store.
This afternoon----Carol surveyed the damage in the front yard and started mixing mortar. She was convinced she could rebuild the wall. I had my doubts. I became the swamper.
It’s hard for the CEO of a $40 million dollar business with 800 employees to be a swamper. But I was the one who rammed the wall…..so I had to swamp. I did so without any backtalk. I took my medicine.
Three hours later….and lots and lots of mortar…..and a sledgehammer…..and Carol declared the wall repaired.
Well, sort of.
“It looks like a kindergardener did this work,” she said as she suggested I pick up the tools and the various unused rocks. Yes….there were many unused rocks.
Swampers are not supposed to be judgmental.
Swampers need to slow down when they back out of the garage.
Swampers also don’t get to go and watch basketball in the evening.
They order pizza delivery and pray the wall is still standing when the sun rises.
Fathers------teach your children to use tools.
Otherwise, they will become swampers.
And that isn’t a fun way to spend the day.
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