The Joys of Homeownership or The Neverending Parade of Repairmen

Once again, I took today off from work to await the return of Prince Charming. Well, two princes, actually. And by princes, I mean two men in uniform, who speak in heavily accented tongues and wear these really sexy utility belts, low-slung in such a way as to surely turn-on the women-folk left alone all day to their own devices in cavernous, scarey castles.

To my surprise, Arturo showed up punctually at 9:00 in the a.m., hoping to find CruiserMel in various states of undress. But alas, what Arturo found was a dishevelled and hungover redhead in sweatpants and Cat In The Hat bedroom slippers ready for action. And by action, I mean ready to get a new garage door installed following said hammer elbow incident a few weeks ago. Poor Arturo had a very cold job ahead of him - it was perhaps 40 degrees when he was banished to the outter regions of Castle de CruiserMel. Don't fret, dear hearts, CM wasn't completely heartless. I offered to make him a cup of coffee, but he declined as his desire for the lonely mademoiselle of the castle would surely delay the installation of said overhead door. So I sat in my family room and gazed at the manly Arturo through the window. And what a beautiful sight! I had to crane my neck to see past Arturo's physique and there it was - a glorious, well-oiled, louvered, and most-importantly WORKING garage door. It was so satisfying. So satiating. I almost had to shower afterwards. And before I could blink, Arturo was gone into the mist.

Before our maiden could catch her breath, Beau came a-callin'. Beau is pure southern charm wrapped up in baby-faced strapping maleness. His embroidered nametag glistened against his blue shirt in that gas station attendent from yesteryear way. He had a bag of tricks, too. A big black floppy bag. He called them tools, but I knew better. I led Beau to the furnace and stepped back to allow him to open the door. CruiserMel has been thinking a critter of large proportions has been stuck in there for a week now, rattling and rustling, surely stuck between two grinding parts of the furnace and I was going to let Beau be the man. Besides, if there was a critter, I wanted to be close enough to hop on the washing machine and let Beau slay the dragon. Bravely, Beau poked his upper torso and calloused hands into the closet for awhile and soon the rustling stopped. I wanted to wrap my legs around Beau and his tool bag, but hesitated when he said "Your stepladder was leaning against the furnace. No charge." And in an instant, Beau was gone like the wind. Ahh, my hero, I swooned.

Our fair maiden can now commence on her next home project: hiring painters to paint the exterior of the castle. Mmmmm, this could be fun.