The Royal Stairs.

I have a good friend whose husband spends more time "playing" in his Ford Expedition Truck than he does anything else. He's in the movie business and carries all his equipment in the truck. Therefore it has to be ship shape for all his location work around the big city and environs. It has a better alarm system than their house. She is very jealous of the truck and has dubbed it "The Royal Truck." because of the lavish attention it gets. We have a set a stairs like that truck.

I was chatting with the Rebel on Saturday afternoon and we got into a discussion about her father, my spousal unit. She said she didn't like asking him to take her anywhere because:

"all he ever does is grunt when I am in the car with him. I just can't have a conversation with him mom."

And then it got into more interesting waters.

"What's his problem anyway? Why is he so grumpy all the time?"

"I really don't know, " I told her, " but it does seem that he is not a happy man. I'm sorry about that for you. Does it upset you?" I asked using my best counselling voice learned at the chair of my own said counsellor.

" It's just hard to know when he's okay and when he isn't" said Rebel " I mean. here's another thing that bugs me, and I don't know why you don't anything any more. He's stopped fixing things just as they started looking good. Like those stairs. Man he slaved on those stairs and didn't finish the last little pieces. What's up with that?"

Rebel was referring to Spouse's renovation of the staircase going to the second floor of the house. The spouse tore off the carpets, rebuilt the treads himself, and then mixed his own stain colour, stained and varnished the stair treads and banisters. They do look nice And he is quite proud of his handiwork and seems to think the only reason come to visit is to admire the staircase. But he didn't finish small bits of trim and repair work around the stairs. It's just typical.

"You know mom, Dad is so not part of this family. He really should just go find somewhere else to be, ya know?"

What's a spouse with ennuie supposed to say to that? Using counsellor technique again, I replied " well kid, I AM sorry you feel that way. I hope it doesn't hurt or make you feel too sad. I wish I could do something about how your dad feels, but I can't. He has to figure this out on his own. "

"Yeah, I'm pretty much over it ....but you know mom, when he goes, he's going to want to take those stairs with him."

This is going to be known in the end as the battle for the stair case -
royal or otherwise.