Chuck's to-do list now rivals SuperMom's

Yesterday was Diana’s second day nannying for Junior. We called her because even though Chuck had taken the day off from work for his birthday, he needed his hands free to get things done around the house.

If to-do lists were farms and items on the list were vegetables, Chuck would be blessed with a bountiful harvest.




See that brick above? A stack of 567,987,234 bricks has been sitting in our driveway for more than a year! When Home Depot first delivered them, we told people, “We’re laying a patio” and they nodded enthusiastically. Six months later we said the same thing and they still kind of believed us. But now? The gig is up. When you’re not in the midst of home repairs, you really can’t claim you are in the midst of home repairs.

So that’s at the top of Chuck’s to-do list. Also on the list?

1. Clean his “man room”/office, which now generates an odor of dirty socks and old coffee that spills down the stairs and out the front door.

2. Go to the grocery store.

3. Fix the molding in the bedroom.

4. Mow the lawn.

5. Walk the cats.

6. Paint the house.

7. Order new windows.

8. Caulk the bathtub.

9. Find the broom.

Items completed?

Zero.

Silly, silly me. After being bridled to this man for 11 years you’d think I would have learned a thing or two. You’d think I’d know that if my husband takes the day off from work and it’s his birthday he is not going to do jack shit—he is going to drink Bailey’s and coffee and get a little loopy and then watch Star Trek reruns in between napping and yawning.

I wanted to write about this yesterday after I got home from work and saw that my darling husband was still in his loungewear, but there is an official blogging rule that goes something like this: “If it’s your spouse’s birthday, you can’t write anything disparaging about him.” If you notice, I even injected his birthday wish with a sweet note about how he’s become a better vacuumer.

Let’s be frank. It’s not hard to become better at something when you’ve only done it three times in your life. If I pick my nose once a year I’m going to improve by default because the expectations are so mediocre there’s nowhere to go but up (in this case, literally).

So, here is my revised birthday greeting, in all its glory:

“Happy 36th birthday, Chuck. Here’s to the 36 things you didn’t get around to doing.”

Does anyone want any bricks? If you pull up to the curb I will personally walk each and every one of them to your car.