As a writer, I view computers as a necessary tool. I put them in the same category as a telephone, the microwave and the dishwasher: I want them to work, but could not care less how that is accomplished. My husband, on the other hand, finds the internal workings of PCs fascinating. His idea of a fun afternoon is to go to one of those large computer shows with hundreds of exhibitors. This interest would be fine if he could keep it to himself. Sure, I’m grateful when my computer does something funny and my husband fixes it for me. What I find excruciating is the in-depth explanation that usually follows. “You’ve got that pained expression on your face,” he’ll tell me in a really annoyed tone as he explains in great detail exactly what he did to get the machine working again. “Don’t you care how I fixed it?”
No. No, I don’t. There are a lot of things I care about, but how he fixed my computer is not on that list. In fact, I think I deserve points for not screaming, “Who in their right mind would give two bits about this?”
So when we made our kitchen-improvement excursion, my thoughts were largely of payback. At last, a long, detailed conversation about something I cared about. But as we met with the sales associates, we began to see signs that this was not to be the straightforward task we had imagined.
My husband and I had agreed that we wanted the cabinets we had seen in a model home. But the builder had changed providers of kitchen cabinetry, which meant that they weren’t using the people who had built the cabinets in the model home. “Can’t you,” we innocently asked, “order the same cabinets?” Actually, no. The model home had been built two years earlier and the cabinets in question were not the current model being offered.
Still, this did not seem to be insurmountable. We asked about replicating what was in the model. The sales associates assured us this was possible. And, then the fun began. They started pulling samples of cabinetry, modeling, trim and hardware from everywhere. My husband got this pained, vaguely familiar, look. I think I had caught a glimpse of a similar expression on my face in the dining room mirror once when he was explaining something about installing more SDRAM.
We finally made some decisions and left the shop about an hour and a half before our dinner reservation, my husband behaving as if he just had a life sentence commuted. I decided to press my luck. “Why don’t we go over to the mall and look at curtains?”
You think he would have learned something in the prior three hours, but you’d think wrong. My husband readily agreed. Still, his eyes began to glaze over as I asked him what he thought of different patterns. We may have taken care of the cabinets that day, but the windows would have to wait for another time.
But there is a silver lining to not resolving my questions about window treatments. It has given me ammunition when he suggests a trip to say, a computer show or something else I don’t want to do. Now when he comes up with a great idea that I simply abhor, I say, “Hey, do you want to go curtain shopping?”
