Life in the Suburbs

I never thought I'd be living my golden years as a suburban housewife, but here I am and it's no 'Desperate Housewives' where I live. (I know it's an old television show. What can I say? I watch a lot of old television shows because I'm old.) As far as I know, no one is sleeping with anyone else's husband or wife. No one has killed anyone in the neighborhood. A plane hasn't crashed into our Christmas block party. Come to think of it, we've never had a Christmas block party. Boy, are we dull!

Living in the suburbs is a funny thing. Men who, when living in the city, think of grass as either a place to tee up your golf ball or let your dog unload, are suddenly obsessed with it once they transplant to the suburbs. You will find them down on their hands and knees inspecting each blade of grass for some exoticsounding disease like 'metamorphaguritate' with translates into, literally, bugs eating your grass.

Hardware stores were invented to keep men off the lawns so their wives can call in an expert (preferably one who looks like Bradley Cooper). It doesn't matter to the wives if the lawn is dead or alive as long as they can get Bradley Cooper to come and take his shirt off.

My husband, David, will spend hours browsing the aisles of the local hardware stores in search of the perfect 'screw'. Apparently, there are approximately 1,098 different types of screws and you are guaranteed that the store will be either (a) be out of the one you MUST have to finish a project that has taken a month to put together and will fall apart in the night without it or (b) that particular screw is no longer manufactured in the U.S. and must be special ordered, which will then be sent on a slow boat from China.

One Christmas, many, many years ago (obviously), Santa brought our children a swing set. And not just ANY swing set. This was the 'Futuristic 5000'. I took our kids to grandma and grandpa's so David could spend the day assembling the swing set from hell. Apparently, that number also applies to the amount of small, mostly mislabeled pieces that came in the box. (I guess they might have been correctly labeled if any one of us could read Chinese.)

He carefully laid out the pieces, according to the chart, deciding this would be a 'piece of cake.' He spent six hours assembling the frame before he discovered he had to attach the overhead brace to the slide BEFORE the platform. He discovered three hours later that he'd used the screws that attach the overhead fort for attaching the legs. It looked like it had been assembled by Picasso or a monkey on crack. The kids loved it. It was one of a kind and we had enough screws left over to finish that playhouse he started the summer before.

That little project involved at least two dozen trips to the hardware store for wood, nails, glue, paint, gloves, bandages, buckets, hammers, a new table saw, saw horses, shingles, felt, a chalkboard, kid-size furniture, wiring, and a trip to the emergency room when he tried to hook up the electricity himself.

He had picked up the plans at the hardware store where they had been placed under a sign that read "Save Money! Build Your Daughter Her Dream House Yourself!" Turns out this little $250 project ended up costing – doctor visit for tetanus shot included – $3,000! We can't afford any more projects that promise to save money. Do you think I could get the hardware store to take out a restraining order against him?

Life is definitely different for the suburban wife, too. My first duty as a suburban housewife is, I have found, to join as many clubs as I can.

This seems to be some kind of badge of honor to be able to brag about how many clubs you belong to, how many committees you're on (bonus points for being chairwoman), and how many hours you spend sewing rags to looks like bears for the local hospital or homeless shelter.

One of my clubs is "Overseas Aid to the Charity Du Jour" where we stuff boxes to send to the needy. Most of what ends up in the boxes come from pilfering the products hotels set out for the guests. I guess people who live in poor, underdeveloped areas can never have too many tiny bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and mouthwash. That's mostly what ends up in our boxes, along with tiny bars of soap that don't last through one shower, unless you're extremely small. Believe me, I've tried. I wonder if it's because I'm not small? Nah.

(Disclaimer #1: This column is purely a figment of my imagination. My husband is actually quite handy.)

(Disclaimer #2: He made me say that. LOL)