It's Just Wax

As I write this, Trevor is laying on the living room floor with both kids rolling around on top of him. This is one of their favorite pastimes. The more rambunctious, the better.

As I watch them, I am struck by how happy our lives are and how quickly it could all change. Trevor is flying to Tulsa on business tomorrow and I always experience a bit of anxiety when he travels. My mind always wanders down that road. You know the one....what if he never comes back? What if his plane goes down, or he gets in a terrible traffic accident, or there is a tornado? Even worse, who is going to do all the dirty work around here?

I had a renewed appreciation for my husband this past weekend. Without going into the gory details, our sewage pipes backed up and needed immediate repair. This happened, of course, on the Sunday night before Labor Day and we didn't even want to contemplate the cost associated with calling a plumber out on a holiday. So, Trevor pulled up a few deck boards to access the pipes and started trying to clear what he assumed was a blockage.

Three hours later, after threading the water hose through the pipe no less than 23 times, trying the power washer once or twice and then going back to the water hose he finally got the water flowing through the pipes again. It will still probably require a professional plumber, but at least we can call him at our leisure and after adequate time to budget some money for the visit.

As I sat in the front yard at 10:30 at night with him, I was overcome with laughter. His arm was literally up to the shoulder in the pipe and you would not believe the stuff that was overflowing out of it. I got the giggles, because of an incident that took place about a year ago. In the days following my grandfather's funeral, my brother, Trevor and my brother-in-law David went about fixing things in my grandmother's house. One of the jobs was replacing both toilets which were original to the house when Granny and Gramps built it.

If you have ever seen the wax ring that sits under the toilet, you will understand this story. It's a light brown color when it's new, and after time has passed it turns to a really gross dark brown color. So, as the boys got further and further along with the toilet replacement, the cleanliness (or lack thereof) of their hands became the running joke.

Every time one of them would touch something questionable, they would just say in a not-so- convincing tone of voice, "It's just wax."

So, as I sat there watching Trevor slog through our sewage, we kept saying, "It's just wax....it's just wax." We were tired and the situation had stopped being fun about an hour and a half earlier. I could not stop laughing but at the same time I was so appreciative of Trevor and his willingness to touch all of that "wax" to fix our plumbing.

If I had been single when the toilet overflowed and covered our bathroom floor, I would have shrugged, cleaned up the water and paid a plumber my children's college savings to get the problem fixed. But, because I have an amazing man who can fix anything, I don't have to do that.

So, here's to a safe trip and arriving home in one piece. Seriously. I don't do wax.