The hit song, “My Boyfriend’s Back” began playing in my head the day my husband popped out of bed in the pre-dawn hours and started dressing.
“Why are you up so early?” I yawned. He’s retired – he doesn’t have to clock in anymore and everything he wants to do can wait until after the sun rises.
“I want to get working on those ornaments,” he answered as he pulled on a shirt. He was referring to the assembling of clothespins, poker chips, yarn and ribbon with the 15 skirts I had cross stitched to create an angel ornament for each female family member.
I stitch, he assembles. After 10 months of stitching in my spare time, I had completed 15 angels skirts, plus 12 miniature stockings for the men.
It was his turn to contribute to the ornaments. He had a project, and no way could he sleep while his mind toiled over the best way to complete it.
That was the day I declared, “watch out world, my guy’s back and things will get done around here.”
For those who did not know, he spent a couple months in Pennsylvania helping my son do a major overhaul of their kitchen, bathrooms and laundry room. Work remained to be done when I visited him near the end of his time there – but after two months of working from “can to can’t” – and beyond – tiredness suddenly overwhelmed him. He finished up what he absolutely had to do, took a circuitous route home to check on our far-flung sons and daughter and arrived in time to vote.
After two months of solitary meals, quiet nights working on cross stitch and keeping the house as clean as I wanted it to be, my Energizer Bunny came home.
While he was gone, I did two of his jobs: I picked up the pine cones in the yard – before I paid someone else to mow it; and, I took the car to the shop for new brakes. He returned in time to rake up a heap of pine needles, leaves and another basket of pine cones.
My honey-do list grew in his absence: The dishwasher timer developed a short – forcing me to wash my solitary dishes in the sink. The electronic car seat adjuster locked-in on super high and the knob on my car door that changes angle of the mirrors disappeared – I rode high in the saddle with my head tipped sideways until he came home.
Then there was the morning I stepped out the front door to check on the cats and the door swung shut and locked behind me. There I stood, barefoot, in my flannel jammies, with no one inside to hear the doorbell and let me back inside.
I weighed my options. I could either find an unlocked door or window or walk across the street in my jammies to ask the neighbors if I could use their phone to call a lock smith.
I began checking doors. I discovered that although I had locked the laundry room door with a twist of the lock on the knob, it only needed one good push to open and allow me back into the house. That was the morning I wrote down the number one item on my honey-do list: “Put a deadbolt lock on the laundry room door.”
My boyfriend’s back – and all the doors now have deadbolt locks.
But, if you see me walking across the street some morning in my flannel PJs you’ll know, my boyfriend’s left … and I’m locked out, again.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times.)