My husband likes to think of himself as very cosmopolitan.  He wears the three piece Polo suits, Ferragamo shoes and has the nicest dress shirts I've ever seen on a man.  Always pin-striped, always clean--you ain't never gonna catch him "half cocked'!  He's always fine as wine.  And he's very much a "city guy"... big city bright lights! 

His father on the other hand is a good ole' country boy.  Mr. B, as I refer to him, loves hunting, fishing and has a garden in his back yard. He ain't bought a chicken from the store or a bag of peas from the market all his life.  He makes his own hot-sauce, skins hogs... all the stuff that country boys do. 

When I first met Mr. B, I couldn't believe he was Shawn's daddy. I thought to myself "How the hell is this possible? Mr. B is walking around in coveralls and work boots.  Shawn's sporting a pair of Sean John acid wash jeans, Gucci flip flops and a G-Unit tank top.  This don't go together."

What I didn't know at the time was my husband was fighting off his country.  He was a young man running from his roots. He hates fishing, doesn't want to be outside and won't pick up a gun to save his own life--let alone shoot a deer.  My damn husband is probably a part of the wildlife conservation club and wants to restore the deer to it's natural habitat.  Meanwhile, my father-in-law is sitting in the window of his kitchen picking off squirrels that are running through the yard or hopping from tree-to-tree.  And he's got a dead aim too.  He gets his buck-shot gun--plants one right through the dome--goes outside, skins 'em, cleans 'em and next thing you know "Dinner is served..."

All these years I thought "This don't make no sense. These dudes ain't nothing alike..."  NOT SO FAST!!!

So my husband turns 40 and suddenly, the differences are slowly disappearing...

Case in point, this summer, my husband is outside in coveralls and work boots, shoveling snow off the driveway.  Now mind you, he ain't NEVER wore no damn coveralls in his whole life.  In fact, he used to laugh at the guys at Home Depot on Saturday mornings who chose to wear their coveralls out of the house.  Well, one Saturday morning, while shoveling snow, this guy, my cosmopolitan husband runs out of ice melt.  He grabs the keys and says "Baby, I'm going up to the hardware store. I'll be right back."

I looked at him in amazement and asked "Did you want me to iron your Gucci pants or will you be wearing your polo warm ups?"

"Oh no," he waved me off, "I'm going to wear my coveralls.  They are so comfortable."

Child, blew me away! But before I could get shocked about that, he tripped me out by saying "I need a tool shed. I think I'm going to pick one up while I'm there. You know, keep all my tools and stuff in there."

Tool shed? My cosmopolitan husband who gets manicures and pedicures is getting a tool shed? What's he gonna keep in there? His bow-tie collection?

Mr. B has about five tool sheds. Hell, one of 'em got a couch in it.  The man loves outdoors, but what he loves even more is a good home improvement project.  My husband ain't never been one for manual labor or maintenance.  He's never met a good contractor he didn't like.  But lately, things are changing...

The other day, Andrew and I went on a day trip--to give dad a break. I came back, and my husband done hung light fixtures in three rooms, changed all the lights to those energy efficiency joints and is measuring the deck outside to build a child safety wall (To keep our clumsy son from falling over on the concrete ground.  I swear, that cute little boy ain't never met a set of stairs he ain't wanna tumble down head first.  What's today? Thursday? He done fell down the stairs three times this week already).  He done painted the entire house (Polo paint of course!  Any other paint would be uncivilized.  Dutch Boy is so beneath him), cranberry accent walls included. 

We used to have a crew of four Hispanic guys that came to do our yard every other week. I ain't seen them men since last season. My husband is now out in the yard with weed killer, weed whackers and weed-be-gone-Ortho-max!

So, when my father-in-law gets here, they are walking around the house looking at all the home improvement projects they can do together and they get excited.  But what excites my father-in-law more than anything is that we fixed up the basement for him to sleep down there. See, my father-in-law and mother-in-law are one of those old couples who ain't slept in the same bedroom since Ike and Tina were still a couple.  And whenever they came here, they had to share a room.  Which, if they liked doing, they'd do at their own damn house.  So Shawn got my father-in-law the air mattress, fixed it up downstairs with pillows and a comforter like a little bedroom.  When Mr. B saw that, he was happier than a punk in jail. He was whistling and singing like "Alright. Thanks! Yeah, I got my own space." He took his bags downstairs and set up his "man space"!

Shawn looked at me and said "You think I'm like my father when it comes to home improvement and these coveralls, when he leaves, I'm gonna move out of our bedroom so I can have my own space."

"I ain't your momma," I told him, "if you think you're moving down here you'd better bring my $hit too. Cause I'm coming with you.  I'll never wake up in the middle of the night and you're trying to sneak some 30 year old hot-momma through the egress window in the basement.  Not on my watch!