My Life: The Sitcom

I had a strange realization today. In sitcoms, movies and books families are often portrayed in a very stereotypical way. The dad is goofy yet lovable, always trying to fix things around the house, never calling a professional, and it always ends in disaster. The men never get freaked out over details, like wedding plans, the woman is always dealing with details, like cleaning. The men are sloppy. The women are always overstressed and overly concerned with communication. You know the stereotype I mean. There are lots of examples.

Today I realized that there is a reason for these silly stereotypes.

They are true.

I went to take a shower and did the typical 5 minute set-up and it occurred to me right then. What set-up you ask? Well, about a year ago our shower dripped. It drove me insane. I hated the dripping. The interval was so perfect. I just know exactly when each drip would happen and lying awake listening to it was enough to drive a person (if that person is me anyway) right over the edge.

So my dear JJ decided to fix the shower. The husband of a woman he worked with was a plumber and offered his assistance, but JJ in his great wisdom informed them that "plumbing was easy" and he didn't need any help.

Surely you can see where this story is going. When JJ finished the first "fixing" the shower not only dripped far worse than it had before, but had no water pressure. I took to taking showers in Lilly's bathtub, which looked like a Barbie snuff film.

A week and $150 later, JJ again "fixed" the shower. Another week of disembodied Barbie heads staring at me.

The next weekend he tried again. This time he admitted that plumbing indeed was not easy, but would in no way admit it to his plumber friend (I understand that). This time the results were great.... for a few months.

Now the shower takes a special set-up. It has two knobs, one to turn it on, and the other to adjust temperature.... in theory. Ours actually has two knobs that do both. In order to turn it on you use the proper turn-on knob. Then you spin the temperature knob around until it gets lukewarm (the direction depends on the day). After that you turn the on/off knob toward "off" and it gets hot. But if you turn it too far you lose your water pressure. Now when you are done taking a shower, you turn both handles, but the temperature one is the one you have to pull over to stop the water completely, so it is pretty much ass-backward.

It is a minor inconvenience, one that I have become accustomed to, and it works. But today it happened right after I was trying to deal with getting wedding invitations done. JJ has been acting like the "typical" male about wedding plans lately. So when I called him at work (he wasn't busy, I asked first), I just wanted to confirm the time of the wedding, and make sure he didn't care what invitations I picked. He didn't. "I don't care what you do for the wedding, just as long as you're there," he says.

So you see, my life is a sitcom now. I am not sure what to think of that. I pick-up JJ's dirty socks, over-stress about wedding plans (I hate acting like a girl) and roll my eyes when I have to jiggle the handle to make sure the toilet stops running (he fixed that too).

But all in all, the moral of all of this is that JJ tries to be handy around the house (the shower doesn't drip anymore), he wants me to show up for the wedding and you know, there have been a lot less socks laying on the floor lately. At least it is a happy sitcom.