Crying over spilled milk.

Just kidding. It isn’t. When you’re over 50, you can’t hold on to anything.

Age 0-10: “I want to help! Let me do it!”
Age 11-22: “I will do anything to avoid doing this myself.”
Age 23-35: “I can absolutely do this myself, why would I have anyone else do it?”
Age 36-50: “I can do lots of things but know my limits. I’ll hire someone 25% of the time.
Age 51-70: “I think I can do most things, figure out I can’t do 25% of that, hire someone to eventually do 75% of the job and clean up my mess.”
Age 71+: “I don’t want or need to do these things.”

Current Husband and I have a condo in the Ozarks. We bought it almost five years ago with the post-Covid idea that we could spend a lot of time down there. At first, we did. It was heavenly. It’s a nearly 6-hour drive, so if we took the time to drive there, we wanted to stay for at least a week.

But the “work remote” dreams of Covid turned into “back to the office” reality, so we don’t get down to the Ozarks as often as we’d like. Our HOA doesn’t care how often we actually use it - they want their quarterly money. With this in mind, we went to a local property management company and decided to list the condo for rent when we aren’t using it.

Thank you! I thought so, too. But then we actually looked around the condo. Crap. There were a lot of unfinished projects.

When we bought it, the entire condo was wallpapered in fabric. Actual fiber paper with strings in it from the 1980’s that pulled chunks of drywall off and sang, “Take On Me” by Norwegian band a-ha. Popcorn ceilings as far as the eye could see. Tile floors throughout that looked like an older Mexican restaurant. The fireplace surround was painted burnt orange. But we were…drunk? What were we thinking? Since we were in the cusp area between age categories of 35-50 and 51-70, we thought we could do most of it. (Insert tired laughter.)

We’ve done most of the work over the past couple of years, but no one will accuse us of being “Finishers”. We spent the weekend skimming the remaining damaged walls, priming said walls, painting said walls, finishing trim work in the rooms, hanging curtains, taking down personal pictures… you get the idea.

Geez, Mom, back off.

Every time I picked up a paint brush or roller, I got paint on something. The floor, my face, my hair, my clothes. CH and I both had plaster and caulk under our fingernails and I actually cut my thumb on the popcorn ceiling. We lost things every hour: A Swiss Army knife, keys, phones, glasses, the remote, you name it. People may have tripped. Elbows may have been thrown. Knees knocked. Heads hit.

Sunday came and it was time to pack up. We put the food from the fridge into a big cooler with a bag of ice, and CH took it down to the truck while I turned off the lights. Soon, he returned. Too soon.

Try me. I bet I will.

CH apparently lifted the cooler to place it in the back of the truck and one of the plastic handles broke. He simultaneously wrenched his back trying to catch the cooler and stop the bottles of beer, glass bottle of milk, and ice from falling out. I believe he ended up on the asphalt, surrounded by broken glass, ice, milk and beer, but the details have been lost in the swearing and despair. Even the Poodles couldn’t believe it.

Yeah. Picking up glass. I thought about when Bella got the papercut in New Moon and Jackson, the newest vampire vegetarian, lunged at her. But there was no sexy Victorian Era vampire coming to save me from this disaster. We decided to let the ice melt so we could pick out what was actually glass. CH cleaned and band-aided my wound like Dr. Carlisle Cullen. He did not tell me it was the best blood he’d smelled in over 100 years.

We went back out about 30 minutes later to see little sparkles all over the asphalt, much like a shirtless Robert Pattinson in the meadow. CH moaned, “We’ll never get these cleaned up!” As the problem-solving woman, I went inside for the handheld vac. There I was, on my knees, on the asphalt, at the back of the truck, vacuuming. CH laughed and wondered what we’d say if someone asked what I was doing.

Obviously, we’d tell them we insist on an immaculate parking lot for our 10-year-old truck, and that we’d be waxing the blacktop when we were done vacuuming. Maybe light a candle to make it all smell like “Fall Vanilla Boot Strap and Tobacco”.

We made it home at 11:00 p.m. with our Poodles but without our dignity.

Had it been 11:11, I would have wished for a home improvement professional and that CH would go back to canned beer and plastic milk jugs.

May you have a firm grip, Gentle Wifers.