Thursday, Jan. 12, 2006
Dear Diary:

It's a little known fact, but the Marquis of Queensbury rules were originally developed during the Middle Ages to set physical ground rules for marital spats. Several centuries later they were later applied to the kindler, gentler art of male fisticuffs, but, like I said, originally it was a way to keep marital maiming to a minimum.

Really. I mean it.

So, as the spousal unit and I went toe to toe in the cavernous mega building supply store over the issue of the Merlot Oak, we went Marquis of Queensbury all the way.

The spousal unit, being a carpenter and all, does a wide variety of building type work. This past year he's installed three hardwood floors, all of them in dark wood, which seems to be coming into fashion.

When you are charging someone a buttload of money for a job, you want the finished work to look as beautiful as possible, so after he installed each floor he made sure he left it gleaming. In the process he discovered that dark wood is not nearly as forgiving as blonde wood. If you have one single dust mote on dark wood said dust mote is clearly visible.

From space.

I am not known for my housekeeping abilities. We don't live in actual squalour mind you, but with four cats and my somewhat casual attitude towards vacuuming, we have lots and lots of furry dust bunnies. I personally think this indoor tumbleweed effect gives our modest wee home a charming "home on the range" feel.

And, well, if the spousal unit was a neat freak our marriage would have lasted 31 � minutes. The fact that we're at 31 years and counting means that keeping floors clean enough for surgery is not one of his top life priorities. The illusion of clean has always been enough around here.

So how does a man say to his wife the equivalent of, "Dear, you are such a crappy housekeeper that I really don't think this is the floor for you" and come out alive?

Well, he can wear full body armour, but body armour is both expensive and heavy.

The other option is to announce the crappiness of his wife's housekeeping in a cavernous mega building supply store where he is surrounded by many, many witnesses. That way, he can't be bumped off on the spot and his body buried deep, deep in the woods in an unmarked grave.

Not that I would ever consider doing such a heinous thing.

Once it became clear to me that the spousal unit's objections were housekeeping and colour-based it was only a matter of minutes to impose my will help him to see the error of his ways.

I assured him that I was willing to spend a few minutes each morning with a dustmop. That would keep the floor looking spiffy, I told him with utter confidence, the roving packs of dust bunnies down to a minimum.

As for the colour business, well, all I can say is thank heavens I'm married to a tripod and not another woman. There is not a woman on this planet who would buy my somewhat devious Merlot-is-not-purple, Merlot is purplish claim.

We bought the floor, just a few weeks before Christmas. Sixteen big, heavy, eight foot long boxes, of flooring. "Maybe we should wait, get this delivered after Christmas," I said to the spousal unit. "We already have the porch full of drywall and studs. If we don't get the floor on before Christmas, we're going to have to fill the kitchen with boxes of flooring."

He pooh poohed my concerns. We'd give the floor four days to acclimatize to our home, he'd rent a floor nailer, and lay it over the old parquet. Easy peasy. Two days tops to get it on. Lots of time before Christmas.

Well, like I said, he's put in three hardwood floors this year so I figured that if anyone knew what he was talking about, it was the spousal unit. So I agreed that we'd get the floor delivered the next day. When we got home we started emptying the upstairs, scattering its contents all over our home. After all, it was just temporary. It wouldn't be that way for long.

Yep, I convinced him that Merlot is not purple. He convinced me that we could move everything out of our upstairs, get 310 square feet of hardwood flooring installed, and pull the room back together ten minutes before Christmas.

I leave it to you to decide which of us is more na�ve.

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 63.06 miles. Starting over. When does it get easier? Huh? HUH?


Goal for 2005: 1,250 miles - 2000 kilometers



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