| Saturday, November 18, 2006 |
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My husband gets on a tear every few years and decides to build something. A couple of years after we first became roommates, he decided to build a remote controlled airplane from scratch. He filled our entire apartment with balsa wood dust and the smell of a heat gun and various glues that I am sure were toxic to bunnies and other things that have lungs. But the plane was a great success and he had fun flying it. Until some other guy with a plane took off nose straight into the air and flat out tore the wings off Husband's handmade beauty.
A few years later, he decided to build high power rockets. This of course meant lots more wood dust, in addition to glue fumes, paint fumes, and the acquisition of some very exciting explosives and fuse lines. I freely admit that I had a great time driving out into the country with him, the car loaded with enough rocket motors to blow up another federal building. We would get to the farmer's fields or big dry flats out in the middle of nowhere and be joined by fifty or a hundred other crazy people who had brought there own high explosives. We would spend the day in the sunshine watching grown men play with their big dangerous toys. My personal joy came from the bad outcomes. The rockets that shot fifty feet in the air and then went horizontal. The rockets that blew up on the launch pads. The motors that ejected from the rockets and set fields on fire. Those were especially fun because the big strong men in shorts and no shirts grabbed huge jugs of water, ran wildly into the fields, and doused the fires before they caused death and destruction. Some of these rockets were so big they were launched from gantries and required FAA clearances for plane diversions. Great times. All that ended when the BATF changed the rules about who could have access to the big rocket motors. We aren't exactly anarchists, but we didn't want to establish a armory and have it certified and inspected by The Gub'ment. So no more rockets.
Now it's radio controlled speed boats. As usual, he can't go to a hobby shop like a normal sane person and buy a shiny ready to go beast. Nooooo. He has taken over the kitchen table with yet more balsa wood dust, glue fumes, power tools, and intricate blue prints. Today, his best buddy came over and the two of them just spent over an hour talking about rheostats and rigging electrified hotwires to shape the foam ballasts. They're working out how to do all this hopefully without causing anyone's death. So they come up with a hairbrained scheme. They decide upon a jig construction. They head out into the garage and gather some scrap wood, the sawhorses, various limb removing power tools, and no written plans or genuine idea of what they're doing. They decamp to the backyard and begin their mad scientist adventure.
So they're out there sawing and talking and cutting and rearranging and planning and generally taking their fingers for granted. I am in the living room on the sofa with The Black Dog reading a book that I'm finding tedious. I hear some wood break, then I hear silence. Next, the back door bursts open and The Husband blows through it, followed by The Buddy. The Husband says "Time for Plan B!" The Buddy says, "Yeah, Plan B".
I look at them and say "Plan B?? Shit man, you two didn't even really have a Plan A. You two are like Lucy and Ethel but a little more dangerous."
The Buddy says, "No we're more like Tim and that sidekick guy on that Tool Time show."
I think of all the mishaps and disasters that were featured on the show and say, "Somehow you think that's supposed to be better???"
ADDENDUM: So in the time it has taken me to type this they have apparently re-thought Plan B. They just came into the house from the back yard. Husband said, "Now we have a plan!"
I say, "What do you mean NOW you have a plan. What happened to Plan A and Plan B??"
Buddy says, "Well Plan B wasn't really a plan."
Husband says, "And this isn't Plan B. This is Plan A.1".
I just smile and they say, "What?"
I say, "I'm trying to think about where LifeFlight will land, and if we get a Frequent Flyer Discount."
On another note, I made my first ever from scratch quiche today. I meant to take a picture of it for you all but, you know, I ate it instead.Labels: cooking, husband |
posted by Carol @ 2:31 PM  |
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| 1 Comments: |
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your husband reminds me of all the men who are now my in-laws... characters all of them. what would the world be without these inventor/engineering types? i'd like to watch the rockets go horizontal too.
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your husband reminds me of all the men who are now my in-laws... characters all of them. what would the world be without these inventor/engineering types? i'd like to watch the rockets go horizontal too.