Keeping the spark alive

"I'm going to clean up the garage," my husband said, attempting (and failing) to maintain eye contact with me. There was NO WAY I was going down there. Two deer had been butchered and processed in that space over the last three days. It was like a horror movie down there. To enter my garage at this time would be the equivalent to first, splitting up an established group to seek out a suspiciously missing person and second, going down into a dark basement to check out a questionable noise. 

So yeah, I let him go...without me. With minimal guilt. 

But soon, I realized that I'd never heard the garage door open. Where was he? A quick inventory out my windows soon spotted him by our car, huddled over the engine beneath the open hood. Shoot. Moral quandary. Do I pretend that I'd never seen him and retreat back under the warmth of my comfy covers or do I venture out into the cold to offer my usual incompetent assistance, undoubtedly, triggering a stress-induced spat? Darn it!

The first thing I noticed was the concerning lack of jumper-cables. I immediately deduced several things. One, our jumper cables were in the truck we'd just dropped off to be serviced and two, Brad must have been in the process of making sure the car would start so I'd be able to go to work the next morning with no fuss. Now I felt ashamed. Good thing I'd come out here.

"Here, hold this," Brad said gruffly. I refrained from reminding him to use his manners as I looked, with some alarm, at the brown household extension cord with exposed wires that he'd wound around the car's dead battery and had connected to one of Brad's many hoarded back-up batteries. I gripped the cord tentatively as Brad hopped in the car to give it a try. Nothing. Was it my imagination that I could feel a surge of lightning-strength electricity surging through the wires? Brad returned to peer back under the hood. I prayed my usual prayer that he would suddenly spot a loose plug. "Golly, look at that," he would exclaim, firmly pushing it back into the receptacle as the car suddenly leaped into life. But no...instead he inspected my grip on his death-wire and deemed it unsatisfactory. "Pull it taut," he instructed as I mumbled, "That's what she said," under my breath. 

He got behind the wheel again as I watched my knitted mitten start to smoke. As the flesh on my fingers began developing more seared marks then a grilled steak,  I debated my options of marital disharmony or second degree burns. When the car again refused to cooperate, Brad returned. "It's burning me," I complained. He huffed, rolled his eyes, dramatically grabbed his flammable wires and stomped off. Were we done? Done with the project? Done with the marriage? "Erin would be happy to pick me up tomorrow," I yelled after him. 

Before I knew it, he was back. Goody. This time he held an industrial type of extension cord. Great.

Round two.

I could feel the sizzle in my toenails.

Suddenly, I was demoted to "Try-Starting-the-Car Duty."

Thank God.

I resisted the impulse to tell him that I was cold as I waited for his barked orders to "Try it again." I wish the radio worked. I wondered how Brad would feel if I asked to pop in the house to grab my phone.

Finally, the car sputtered to life.

""We're gonna let it run for awhile," Brad told me. I suppressed a giggle at his use of the royal "We." I watched him gather up his supplies and walk into the garage. I decided that it would be best for our relationship if we gave each other a little space so I returned to my comfy covers. It was the least I could do.