If you should ever peruse our “this is why we can’t have nice things” file. You will find a small cabinet with shelves that used to hold our DVDs. This wasn’t a terribly fancy cabinet, it was made of particle board, some assembly was required. It was nice enough, it matched the theme of our living room and we were satisfied with it.
Then one day, one of the doors was open and Regina thought it would be pretty cool to hang off that door, needless to say, it ripped off the hinge in such a way that it could not be repaired. However, the magnetic catch still held the door in place, so long as nobody opened it (or breathed near it), it had the appearance of being intact. It would do the job until we got around to replacing it.
A week later, the other door met an identical fate, this time Lydia was wearing the guilty expression.
“How did this happen?”
“Well…” (Oh boy. When she starts with ‘well’, her explanation typically has chapters) “Reg and I were playing with the dinosaurs. I was the blue dinosaur with the fin on its back and Reggie was the green one and we needed a shelf that we could pretend was a cliff…”
“Pause button! Did you do it?”
“But Reggie was being mean to me!”
“Did YOU break the door?”
She mumbled, “Yes”.
(Inspecting the door) “Well luckily the magnetic catch can also hold this second door in place until we get around to getting a new one. Now! Let’s talk about punishment…”

A few months went by where in order to get a DVD, the doors had to be pulled off and leaned against the nearest wall.
Then last week, the UPS guy dropped off a box from Target. (Hmm, kinda heavy). I brought it inside- Annie ordered a replacement cabinet and apparently she forgot to tell me. I emailed her at work, “Looks like I’ve got a cabinet to assemble!”
Annie replied, “Sorry! I meant to tell you but forgot. You don’t have to assemble the cabinet today. Sounds like your plate is pretty full. If I were you, I would put it together tomorrow when Reggie is napping.”
She went on to write: “Please do not feel like I am pressuring you to get it put together. If it’s together and the old one is thrown out by the time I get home from work on Friday, that will be perfect.”

Before I continue, please allow me to diverge. Newlywed Brooks would have read that email as, “You don’t have to assemble the cabinet today blah blah blah blah blaaah blah blabla…blah do not feel like I am pressuring you to get it put together. Blah blah blah blaaah blab la blahhh. You are perfect.”
Come Friday afternoon, Newlywed Brooks would find himself dealing with a disappointed Wife.
At the bottom of Lake Brooks and Annie, you will find all sorts of interesting things. One of them is the wreckage of a bold and stupid ship called the SS Newlywed. If you were to go diving, you would find it still fully stocked with rookie mistakes, insensitivity, eye-rolling regrets and a bag of marbles (I don’t know, I felt like buying marbles one day). The ship sunk eighteen, maybe nineteen months after we took our vows. Its sinking was nothing legendary, there was no blaze of glory, no cannons hitting the powder kegs. It was a long drawn-out slow sinking brought about by hundreds of thousands of small hits, each one created a small crack in the hull. These small hits were often due to dumb little missteps, for example, a tendency of turning the content of my wife’s messages into “blah blah blah”.
The SS Newlywed is long gone, it will never sail again, it was replaced by the SS Husband. That ship had a short, stable and successful career before it was retired and replaced with the SS Happily Married Dad.
That one is a sturdy ship. The captain of that ship is wiser than his predecessors. The captain of the SS Happily Married Dad was able to read Annie’s email word for word.
She was correct, I did have a full plate that day. But she would like to see it by Friday? That means it ought to be assembled by Thursday.
I replied, “Nah, I think I’ll make it a Thursday morning project. I’ll let Reggie be my assistant!”
“Really?”
“Yeah! She Loves assembling things, so long as I can keep an eye on the hardware and not let her run off with it, it ought to work out fine. If nothing else, by helping me, maybe she’ll assume a little ownership with it and not break off the door like she did with the old one.”
“Okay. You are a brave man.”
Thursday morning arrived, I handed Reggie a toy hammer and she used a toy hairdryer as her cordless drill. She followed behind me “checking my work”, making sure the screws and nails were tight. It turned out to be a pretty fun experience for the two of us. Reggie actually had the sense to rest her hands on her hips as she admired our handiwork and it all wrapped up with us fist-bumping.
The plan was to move all the DVDs into the new cabinet after supper, a job Annie was pretty excited about all day. After supper the girls were playing in the living room as we loaded up the dishwasher. It was then that we heard a cracking sound. We stepped into the living room and saw Reg on her back, the broken cabinet door, assembled only hours earlier was lying on top of her.
Un-Freaking-Believable.
Perhaps I should consider building a navy. The next ship will be christened the SS Incredibly Angry Dad.