Going out for brunch on Mother’s Day is a frightening proposition. The hype, the clamor in the packed restaurants, the (sometimes false) gaiety, which goes with the mandatory gift of flowers/chocolates, and if the kids can’t make it over the state/continent to see the woman who gave birth to them, there is always the cheaper and conveniently alternate option of the Hallmark card. Although these days our offspring don’t even have to take the fifteen minutes out of their busy lives to do that - fifteen seconds worth of sending an ecard works just as well to make Mom cry.
When my kids were small, Mother’s Day was the Best Day of the Year. There was peace. There was quiet. There were no kids. My present to me was my husband taking both of them out for the whole day and leaving me alone. I know I sound worse than Tiger Mom Chua, but don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. A brunch is two hours worth of food that gives you indigestion and a doggie bag of leftovers. A day without the kids is heaven.
A few years later, when the whining and crying and exuberant ‘let’s run around the house and drive mom crazy’ days were over, I still eschewed the $6.99 Champagne Brunch scene in favor of hanging out in the house in my pajamas the whole day.
And my husband gave me ‘real’ presents (as he called them).
One year I got a Cordless Drill (Dewalt 3/8 inch 12 volt). When I told my friends, they were appalled and asked me exactly where I planned to stick it. No! No! I exclaimed. It was the best present ever. Better than a sparkling stone? they asked. Wayyyy better, I said as they walked away, planning to defriend me as quickly as possible.
I charged the drill and then walked around the house with a swagger, ready to tighten, twist and turn every loose screw in the house. I heard that my (de)friends did suggest I adjust the few loose ones in my head, but couldn’t see their comments on facebook.
If this were an Indian movie, this would be the time for the black-and-white flashback ... to 1982 - and the move as a newlywed into a beautiful house in Mission Viejo. A beautiful house whose toilet wouldn’t flush. (No, for the one-track minded - I did not stick unmentionables down the potty). On checking with the neighbor, she suggested it was an easy fix by buying a flush valve at the local hardware store. (Now let me tell you Donna knew her toilet well - she saw her plumber once a month). So off we went to National Lumber and that’s when my (second) love story began. I was in Shangri-La, in Utopia, at Disneyland. I was in heaven. I inhaled the aroma of the wood. I fingered the wrenches and the ratchets with awe. I roamed the aisles bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I checked out the nuts (screw and crown). The washers (flat, fender, rivet and my favorite - the tooth washer). The bolts (lag, u-bolt, carriage and eye). The screws (deck, drywall, wood and machine). And the nailssss!!!! I had never seen so many different types of nails before.
We bought the part and I waited for my husband to fix the toilet. And waited and waited. One month of running to the downstairs bathroom almost ended my (first) love story. Too embarrassed to admit to his newlywed bride that all he knew was how to open the packet, he kept making excuses. In frustration, I rolled up my sleeves, took the packet from his hands (the one he had cut open carefully with the scissors - he took his one job very seriously) and fixed the toilet. Eureka! I shouted and as my new career blossomed, my husband retired from what he had never done in the first place ... and went back to more important things ... like pondering the truth between the two debatable schools of thought advocating “free will” or “pre-determined destiny” (fatalism).
In all fairness, I did give him other chances. We once heard a crashing sound and thought it was an earthquake, only to find that the shelves he had fixed in the closet had come crashing down. How was I supposed to know that you cannot put more than three paper towel rolls on a shelf? Next, he affixed a curtain rod in the kitchen. Or tried to. There were so many holes in the wall, it looked like target practice at a shooting range for the blind. He kept losing the fillers inside the wall. I was sent to get a fresh pack of fifty fillers. Then I had to go back again to get bigger ones and bigger screws. When he finally finished and draped the curtains, we stepped back to admire his handy-work. I noticed one curtain was six inches shorter than the other. His solution? Let’s open up the hem to match both the sides.
I think that was the point when I took (or was it snatched?) the toolbox from his hands. But I blamed myself for all the disasters. Something should have tipped me off when he once read an instruction manual and asked me: Which one is the Philips Screwdriver? And also when he was amazed to find that the purpose of a stud finder was to find the stud and knock the nail
into it and not
avoid the stud. It was unfortunate that the neighbor saw him doing this, spread the word throughout the street and was subsequently referred to as Mr. Stud.
Trips to National Lumber (now turned into Home Depot) were done on my own from then on. Apparently reading about the Arab-Israeli conflict, analyzing the Single European Entity, checking Tendulkar’s cricket scores, discussing regional policies in shaping Third World countries and other (boring) stuff was preferable to accompanying a wife to the hardware store; a wife, who shrieked with joy when she got load of a miter saw. I didn’t care. I learned about ceiling joists and crown moulding, gables and girders. How to apply faux finishes and lay tiles.
And then came HGTV. A tad too little and too late, me thought. By this time I had already painted a good portion of the house and every wall was covered with artwork and artifacts brought from my travels. Mexican tribal masks vied with Mughal Paintings, a collage of a Chinese mirror and shadow puppets from Thailand, Mola art from Panama with Hawaiian shells. All bought, installed, anchored, riveted, sawed, planed, framed and furnished ... by yours truly.
When I first started to paint the walls, my family was all for it. Part of the reason was because I did not ask for their help, opinion or advice. My son did, however, help paint the dining room and the sixteen foot staircase wall. He was smart enough to weigh the odds of Mother falling and breaking her leg/back/arm equalling to no food and dirty clothes for months, as opposed to straddling a ladder for an hour or so. But then I got carried away. Walking around with the paintbrush in my hand, I scoured the house for fresh wall/pillar victims. There came a point, sadly, when they decided to put a stop to it. “
Put the paintbrush down!” I was threatened. “Step
away from the paintbrush!”
So I am done. Cleaned the drill bits, reorganized the pliers, boxed the stapler and the nailer and the glue gun, labeled the paint cans, and retired the toolbox.
Now I just rest and indulge in armchair fantasies. While my girlfriend dreams of being marooned in Tahiti with George Clooney and another (guy)friend wants to be locked up in a kitchen with Rachel Ray, I have my own dilemma: Should I choose Bob Vila or Mike Holmes when I am exiled to Habitat for Humanity?
