Last weekend I introduced the Jackal to water balloons. I honestly can't believe it took me so long to turn him on to this staple of my childhood summers. Well I guess the obvious reason is that we don't have balloons just laying around the house. For my birthday our wonderful nanny decorated the house with balloons and some of the Jackal's finger-painted masterpieces to surprise me when I returned from work. On a day when it was dog-breath hot outside and he was kicking it in his trailer-trash baby pool in the back yard, I stumbled upon a bag of unused balloons, and the table was set.
I dropped the first one from the deck above, and it exploded on the patio next to the Jackal's feet. Of course this elicited a symphony of giggles followed by a request for more. I obliged him with a couple of targeted tosses at Baci, our chocolate lab, who seemed to have mixed emotions about this activity. While he didn't like the concept of objects being hurled at him, he did not seem to mind the cooling splash of water that came with it.
Not that I needed more encouragement, but the Jackal egged me on, and I was suddenly at the faucet creating a nice arsenal, which lasted about a minute once we got busy throwing them all over the patio. Then, to my wife's chagrin but not to her surprise, I took it a step too far and asked the Jackal if I should throw one at the garage at the back of the yard. It was a rhetorical question, but he still replied with a charged "Yeah!!!"
I was aiming for the roof but evidently didn't put enough mustard on it, so when it hit the window pane on the door, water was not the only thing that splashed everywhere. It's all fun and games until daddy breaks a window, or at least that was the case on this particular day.
If I had a handy bone in my body, this would probably not be a big deal. Since I don't, it would not be a stretch to say that window could remain broken for a couple of years. Okay, that won't happen because I am resourceful enough to dial up someone I can pay to repair it. Still, it's just another task on the seemingly endless list of jobs that keep getting put off because I don't posses the skills or interest in dusting off the toolbox to tackle them. Hell, we have lived in this new house for 8 months and our walls remain naked because I have not drummed up the drive to hang a single piece of art work, so add that to the list as well.
Literally, the prospect of handyman work gives me angst. On the rare occasion that I decide to take on a dreadful chore, it turns into what my wife and I have come to call a "sideshow," marked by no shortage of curse words, plenty of huffing & puffing, and sometimes the birth of some petty argument between us, started by me. It's a hoot, let me tell you.
All that being said, when I look into my crystal ball, I see a white van parked outside our house and that quells the angst, at least until the the Jackal or I break something else, which is absolutely bound to happen.
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