Sunday, October 02, 2005

I Married MacGyver



And by that, I don't mean I married Richard Dean Anderson. (Although I loved the episode of Fact of Life where he was married to Tootie's aunt....) No, when I say I married MacGyver, I mean the man can do wonders with simple household objects. If the car is broken down, requiring a new part, forget about it. There will be no trips to Auto Zone.. not when he has a rubber band, a piece of chewing gum and an old pair of pantyhose available. While some men prefer duct tape, he swears by super glue and has some available for whatever the crisis might call for. Is it metal? He has the glue! Plastic? He's got the right glue for that one too! There is not one emergency gluing situation he is not prepared for! And don't think that because he isn't using OEM replacement parts, his work is less than quality. No, to be sure.. it's often better than brand new! BUT, it takes more time to do things his way. About 17 times more time. But it's cheaper so who's counting!

While I love him and wouldn't trade him for anything, this can be just a tad bit nerve-wracking! I am reminded of an important day about 5 years ago. In our homeschool we were studying the Middle Ages. We had such fun with the unit and were going to end on a grand school with a large medieval feast. We had studied with a couple of other families so we all divided up the tasks to make sure that the Feast came off without a hitch! My family would be responsible for the large u-shaped table common to celebration feasts of the Middle Ages. I figure this would be easy... plywood and saw horses.

Nope, not even close!

We got to the park early to greet the re-enactors. We had spinners and jousters. We had court jesters and jugglers. We had ladies and lords. And we had my dear hubby, working hard with power tools in the middle of it all, creating a grand u-shaped table that was quite possibly more sturdy than anything Henry VIII ever ate from. Luckily, by the time the re-enactors had re-enacted, and just before everyone was ready to go home, the table was finally ready to display the medieval foods, including a lovely pig's head carved from a block of chopped ham.

Now, I could go one of two ways here... I could be frustrated that the table was not ready on time or I could be thankful that I have a husband who cared enough to build the very best. I choose to be thankful... while no longer volunteering him for any build out on our field trips from now on.