Pick up sticks (and other stupid games)

 Advice to newlyweds:  Think poker. Don't reveal all your cards. Guard your expression.  Communicate as LITTLE as possible. Trust me, cherubs. My 35 years of marriage have served me well and left me with a lifetime of regret. My husband ruthlessly reads my tells and exploits my weaknesses. He seamlessly slips into teacher speak, using my own language against me. Last Sunday, the day the Lord SPECIFICALLY told me to rest, Brad, with a suspicious air of innocuous innocence, asked, "Would you prefer raking rocks or picking up sticks?" Was there a paper option?  I stared angrily at my husband. But who was to blame here? I'd weaponized him myself...sharing the educator's strategy of asking questions that could not be easily answered with a "yes" or "no." 

So, that was how it came to be, that poor little Amy Mosiman, just seeking a bit of serene solitude after a grueling work week ("Were you getting up at 3 am to drive 2 1/2 hours to cut concrete floors on your knees?" Brad inquired. I scoffed. "Puh-leeze...try teaching a 9-year-old hoarding a contraband Pop-tart in his desk with one eye on an analog clock that he can't read (EXCEPT pertaining to recess, lunch, and gym times) how to multiply a mixed fraction by a whole number.") was led outside (like a sheep to slaughter) for an over-view of the "little" tasks that we would "quickly" complete. Zip. Zip. Behold...the zillion sticks littering our lawn. "Do you remember that I just got my nails done?" I said, showing my husband. He paused to admire them and then handed me some gloves. "We should clean out that brush pile," he mused, observing the remnants of gigantic branches brought down during a winter storm. "Remember I recently hurt my hand dancing the Do-see-do," I cautioned. He studied a dead tree. "While we're at it..." (I sighed), "...we should probably grab the chain saw and remove it before it falls on its own and we're forced to deal with it." Zip. Zip. With the trained eye of a tree surgeon, I inspected our patient. "Looks pretty sturdy to me," I pronounced, "I'm not ready to call it yet. Plus...isn't it a good wind break?" "But first," he said, "we need to unpack the shed to get the lawn mower out so we can measure the blades."

I stopped. Stunned. What happened to picking up a few sticks? 

"I read that mowing too soon weakens the roots of our new-born baby grass," I shouted, clearly desperate. "It also leaves our lawn vulnerable to rapid weed growth." Brad was already wrestling the shed door open. "Why can't we just Google the size of the blades?" I pleaded, reasonably. "That's a great idea," Brad said cheerfully as we heaved our fire pit up and off the wheelbarrow that straddled the lawn mower like we were playing a weird version of Jenga. I chipped my first nail here. I rolled out the human-propelled lawn mower after removing the 40 five and ten gallon bucket pails that Brad collects like baseball cards. Hoping to avoid the inevitable, I quickly Googled. "21 inches," I reported. "Great," Brad said, wrestling 2 x 4s carefully out of the shed. Apparently we'd switched from Jenga to Kerplunk. "Let's just make sure." I watched, baffled, as he laid them out on the driveway in an overlapping quadrilateral pattern. He extended a gallant hand to me like Prince Charming and invited me to "Stand here," as he then drove the lawn mower up onto his mini-lift. I held my breath, waiting for either myself (or the lawn mower) to be catapulted magnificently into the air like a circus performer. I may have actually gnawed one of my own nails at this point. 

Measuring tape in hand, my husband crawled beneath the lawn mower. It was here that my Christian faith was tested as I prayed. Did I pray for his safety or that my trials would come to a quick end? The world will never know. "Great news," he yelled from beneath the bone-crushing machine. "You were right! Twenty-one inches!" 

We hadn't picked up a SINGLE stick yet.