It was one of those rare quiet Saturday mornings. I was in the kitchen sipping my coffee, enjoying the stillness of the house. Then my husband appeared, power tool in hand.
“What?” he asked defensively, holding a shiny, just-unboxed drill still bearing its factory sticker like a badge of honor.
“What?” I replied, impressed that my here-we-go-again expression had come through so clearly.
“I told you, I am going to fix the fence,” he said.
The deep lines between my eyebrows furrowed even further.
“We talked about it,” he blurted out.
We had never talked about it.
My husband stood between the kitchen and the back door, waiting for official clearance to proceed.
“You’re going to fix the fence,” I repeated slowly, hoping it would sound better the second time around.
It was an ambitious project. The backyard fence had not been touched in the 30 years we’d lived in the house. Florida’s relentless sun, a few brushes with hurricane season and the occasional run-in with the lawnmower had all left scars. What it needed was a dignified retirement, followed by a proper replacement, installed by a professional fencing company — not an overzealous middle-aged husband. They say Pisces are dreamers, but this was going too far.
“It’s no big deal — it’ll just take me a couple of hours,” he added, doubling down on both his plan and his astrological tendencies.
I knew it was a bad idea, but it was worth the risk, I thought, to have a few more hours of peace that morning. And, really, aside from a few less-than-perfect repairs, how much damage could he do?
Which is how I ended up with a fence that could only be described as “Frankenstein-inspired.” Boards were hammered in horizontally to patch minor scuffs, gaping holes remained exposed and entire sections leaned forward, on the verge of collapse.
When he was done, he called me outside to take a look.
“I think the Milwaukee Fuel Hammer did a good job,” he said, admiring his work.
He turned to me. After all these years, I knew how to handle this.
I looked at the fence, then at him, and said, “I wouldn’t touch a thing.”
Happy reading!
Alona Abbady Martinez
alona@bocaratonobserver.com