Running Away To Join The Circus....Or Somesuch

To have and to hold,
For better or for worse,
For richer or for poorer,
In sickness and in health......Got it. No problem.

I know it was thirty seven years ago and I know my memory ain't what it used to be BUT---

I don't remember ANYTHING being mentioned on that fateful, long ago day about lawn mower maintenance,
or greasy spark plugs buried in tractor bowels and covered in black, oily gunk,
or fuel filters,
or "How many cylinders?" [How the hell would I know?]

Isn't that one of the reasons we promise to love and cherish, 'til death do us part, a person with a beard, who belches with impunity, thinks flatulence is funny, possibly even snores? Specifically so we won't have to deal with that crap?

I thought I was marrying a man; that I would be his cherished helpmate, his confidante, his friend........It all started out so romantically......with candlelight and wine, laughter and soft music, and the whole spark plug and mower maintenance issue was cleverly airbrushed in the folds of the magic.

But then, with frightening speed, you find yourself having the birthday that starts with a Six and ends with an Oh---Oh my! Harsh reality sets in. And you realise that you are actually married to The Man's house, and to The Man's big garden, and to The Man's garage---full of tools, many of which have not had their protective dust coat disturbed in decades.

You become the scary lady before whom spiders and daddy-long-legs flee in terror when she ventures into their elaborate web cities in the dark, infrequently visited corners of that same garage, in search of some tool she knows The Man owns but damned if she knows where he keeps it.

I had an epiphany today when I came inside, dripping sweat and smudged with spark-plug-grease and tears.

I don't want to be a house-sitter;
an inept and grease smeared changer of spark plugs;
for a lawn mower that sputters and inexplicably dies;
Don't want to be the wielder of wrenches,
the fretter over pool chemicals,
the glassy eyed wanderer of Home Depot aisles, searching searching for fuel filters and spark plugs, and oh! don't forget the replacement sprinkler head!
Don't want to be the administrator of last rites to terminally ill computers.

If The Man is never here.

I want my man back, and if he's too busy to return soon I may have to pack my toothbrush and my sewing projects in my backpack and hitch hike out of here to parts unknown.