Home improvement projects are always stressful. A bathroom-remodeling project, for example, is never quite as smooth-sailing as some reality shows make it out to be. Yes, it's fun; yes, it's nice after the fact; but, when you're standing in front of two long aisles of faucets and don't see a single one that you like, it's hard to escape asking yourself the question, "Now, why did we decide to do this again?"
No, I'm not drawing an analogy between having a baby and a home improvement project (though, there may be something to that--planning, execution, maintenance ...), but the pending arrival of a baby does engender a medically-documented "nesting" instinct. In women, this typically manifests itself in furious online shopping for baby clothes, and, in general doing useful things around the house to prepare it for the baby's arrival. For men, this is usually taken as an opportunity to execute many home improvement projects that otherwise would not get approval from management.
All this serves as background for the events of last night. The latest addition to our on-going project of putting together the baby room involved Jo buying some curtains for our new windows. Now, we have a rather unique window frame due to its proximity to the slanting roof, such that it requires an inside mount. After unpacking the curtains and assembling the rod, Jo held up the curtain for me to see.
"So, do you like it?", she asked.
I paused. As any man knows, that already spoke volumes. But, to that, I added, "Hmm ... it's not doing it for me."
Now, home improvement projects always involves choices. There are times when we sit down and make choices together, but often we go down the (hopefully benevolent) dictator route. The problem with this is that the expression of choice reflects taste, and in some sense, our choice of furniture, faucets, paint color, etc. bares our inner sense of style open for public scrutiny ("I can't believe they painted their house that color! How uneducated!).
So, my pause and subsequent castigation of Jo's purchase was not just an insult to the piece of fabric, but to something deeper. Needless to say, the rest of the night did not progress well. I stuck to my guns--"Am I not allowed to dislike the curtain?"--while Jo decently kept quiet, glumly twiddling at her Blackberry.
The next morning still had a dark cloud over the Yoong-Kannan household. Jo muttered something about new curtains, I said "no, no, let's just keep the ones we have", both with not much conviction.
We spent the morning working from home as an electrician was coming to install an exterior lamp which would illuminate our new house numbers (guess whose projects these are?). A pleasant, twenty-something year old, was busy measuring and tapping the walls while Jo and I were working in the living room. Suddenly, the electrician pops his head into the living room.
"Excuse me, sir."
"Yes?", I replied.
"Is okay I make hole in wall?"
Jo and I were immediately off the couch and in the study. We found ourselves staring at a rectangular hole that was 4 inches wide and about a foot long. Plaster, wood and paint chips were scattered all over the floor.
A funny thing happened then. Suddenly, the events of the night before seemed trite. I realized that I had been a bit of an ass about the curtain, and (I'd like to think) Jo knew I felt that way. The hole had united us, and reminded us that it's not me against her, or vice-versa, but us against the challenges that would plague us the rest of our lives together--in this case, manifested in a large hole in the wall. Curtains, and home improvements more generally, are just something that couples have to do together to turn a house in not just any home, but their home; and soon, a home for their family.
"So, how long will it take you to patch up the hole?"
"No sir, me no patch. Me electrician."
