Man Labor

GE is giving away these free samples of caulk. Since I like free and I'm nefarious, I said, "Yes!", when Jenny asked me if I'd like to try them. The box came in, I ripped it open and gleefully waved them in Chris's face. "Caulk! Look, babe! Caullllkkkk! Man stuff!"

"Mmm."

"What? It's caulk. It's messy and sticky and probably flammable. What more could you want?"

"Single use caulk? No gun?" He raised one eyebrow at me as if he were the Queen and I was offering him a biscuit liberally sprinkled with poo. "Take these away from my sight, wench!" (Ok, he didn't really say that. I get carried away)

I nagged at him to try them and tell me, honestly, what he thought. "Crystal, you just want me to randomly caulk something?"

"Well, we have a perfectly destroyed bathroom that you promised you would finish sometime in 2007. Let's start there!"

"You say that as if we'll both be working on it."

"We will. You'll caulk and I'll take pictures and notes."

Phase One: He painted over the lime green I had chosen at Home Depot the spring before. (Never, ever let me choose paint colors. Mexican restaurants have better taste in decor than I do)

Phase Two: He laboriously scrapes away ... whatever he needed to scrape away before he could caulk.

"So, you're scraping."

He sighed. "Yes, babe. Are you gonna stand there and bug me the whole time?"

"What exactly do you do with caulk?"

"You fill in cracks."

I took note of his shorts and the remarkable lack of coverage in the coin slot area. I snorted and guffawed.

"You're staring at my butt crack, aren't you?"

Phase Three: Disgruntled Baby

"Does caulking mean you can't hold me? Can you hold me? Hold? Me? How about you hold me? Is now a good time to hold me?"

And they're pretty, too. Preeeetttty.

Phase Four: Dubious husband picks up the first sample. He wrinkles his nose. "I need scissors."

"No, you don't. They just tear right ope-"

"Scissors! STAT!"

Phase Five: Really, really crabby baby




"Stop with the caulking! THERE WILL BE NO MORE CAULKING! EEEEEEEE!!!"


Phase Six: Husband is pleasantly surprised

"You know, I really like this stuff," Chris says.

"Really? Because you need to be honest."

"No, really. With the gun, I can't ever get a consistent bead. This stuff is like toothpaste. I'm doing a good job."

He sounded surprised.






And then I saw this:






"What's all that droopy crap in the corner?"

He mumbled something.

"What?"

"It's the first time I had ever caulked, when I moved into this house. I know. It looks terrible."

"It looks...like it needs some botox."

"Shaddup."



Completion:





GE, you DO bring good things to life. In this case, it just happened to be my husband.

(But my daughter wants you to butt out of her "hold me" time. Not a big fan, the daughter)