Outside & In

This week is spring break here in our county and there is no school. My youngest will be home when she feels like it for me to mother and friends will be visiting from Indiana. I have decided to take a few days off from blogging and since no one has stepped up to "guest" blog I shall post old entries from my very first blog that I have recently discovered while searching for something else. I've also chosen to post entries that had to do with my father. Today is the anniversary of his death and so I thought it appropriate to post old entries that had to do with him. See you next week!

June 19, 2004

When I married I made a deal with my husband. It wasn't his idea, but something that popped into my head most likely when he suggested we go outside and trim hedges. At the time I was working. I worked outside all day while he worked inside all day. On the weekends he would want to be outside and I would want air conditioning. I'm positive the deal came to me on a day he suggested we be outside after a long week of me doing just that.

The deal is that I take care of the inside of the house and he takes care of the outside of the house. It has worked well for us. I'm responsible for inside things like laundry and cleaning and he is responsible for outside things like mowing and pool cleaning. It has worked well for us. Until this week. This week my friend had car trouble. Her car would not start. She borrowed a car for the rest of the week and it too would not start. I sent my husband to help.

He spent most of his Friday jumping cars, testing batteries and talking to various mechanics. That night in bed he grumbled, "You women amaze me. You know you are quite capable of calling a tow truck and getting your own car to a shop, yet you don't."

I stared at him in amazement. I thought all men knew that car repair was...well...a MAN'S JOB. I mean let's be realistic. How many women can point out and name the mechanisms under the hood of their vehicles? How many women mechanics are out there with their heads under the hoods? It's not something I'm proud of, but car mechanics wasn't something our fathers taught us. We didn't learn it in school. Does Home Economics ring a bell? I wish I did know more about what's happening under the hood of my car. I would love to drive into a shop for an oil change, stand over them while they work and leave with just that...an oil change. But it doesn't work like that.

In today's world women go in for a $19.95 oil change and drive out with new spark plugs, replaced cables, and look-at-this-filthy-you-need-to-change-that filters. We come out of an oil change a hell of a lot poorer than we were when we went in. It isn't because we believe the mechanic when he tells us we are damn lucky we got here when we did before driving any more miles. It's because of that nagging feeling that if we wave off the plugs, filters, and cables he suggests we might just find ourselves stalled on the side of the road with our car on fire and our children in the back seat. What kind of a repair bill will that be? And mechanics know this and use it to their advantage. It's one of the reasons why no mechanic offers to teach a woman about the inside of a car.

Men, however, are born with car knowledge I'm convinced. Men know that when you turn the ignition key and nothing happens exactly what the problem is that causes this. They understand alternators and starters. They can change a flat tire and change the oil. I don't know how they know all of this stuff anymore then they know how we know to sort our laundry into white and dark piles. It is just the men/women rule in life. At least for my generation.

My father took care of all of our cars. If we had a flat tire, we called my dad. When it was time to change the oil in our cars my dad climbed under the car and did just that. When something made a funny noise in our car and my dad couldn't locate the source he took it in to a car mechanic that knew him by name, stood over him while he did the work and learned what caused that noise. No one tried to sell him parts he didn't need. If we were stranded on the side of the road because our car had smoke coming out of it we called my dad. He never complained. He showed up and took over. He thought it a MAN'S JOB and we did too.

I explained all of this to my husband, asking him if his sisters were car mechanics. He didn't get it. "What I want to know," he asked, "Is what would have happened if I hadn't of helped? Would you two have just left both cars sitting in the parking lot forever?"

I reminded him again of the inside/outside deal. I take care of the inside of the house and he takes care of the outside of the house. To emphasis the point I got out of bed and pretended to look for my van inside of our bedroom. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. I then played my trump car. I went into the bathroom and raised the toilet seat, reminding him how I clean the toilet each week never mentioning how off his aim might be.

"I think I'll take the van in this week," he said, rolling over on to his side and away from me. "It's probably due for an oil change."