I'm Not Sure Why I'm Shocked By This

I'm sure she always thought of herself as a modern, independent woman. How I learned to mow a lawn for the first time (in my 40s) | The Seattle Times

The author of that article had to learn a lot of things since getting divorced, because she can't just assume that "the guy in her life" will take care of it.

Hear me out: For the first half of my life, I lived in apartments, where containers of lush flowers magically appeared, tended by maintenance teams I never saw. I never even thought about it. For the second half of my life, I had a partner who mowed the lawn, planted the garden and hung the tree lights. I never really thought about it.

While she was busy spending half-her-life not mowing the grass, or changing the furnance filter, or any one of half-a-dozen other things she's had to learn about since getting divorced, I wonder if she insisted that the ex-husband "did his fair share" by doing things like the laundry or the dishes.

Funny how that works out.

Next she'll discover that the oil in the car needs changing, or all those other things that "she never thought about."

Things I've had to do, in no particular order. Some of them are related to owning my own home.

• Change a Tire (my father insisted I know how to do this)
• Change the oil in my car (my father again - though I pay others to do this now)
• Jump start a car on a winter day
• Replace a sump pump
• Change the oil in the lawn mower
• Cut down a tree
• Replace a toilet
• Replace the flush valve in a toilet
• Replace a ceiling fan

I could go on of course. I could have paid people to do these things, and when I was working 60 or more hours a week, I probably would have paid to have people do some of it. I would call the motor club to deal with a flat tire.

But that doesn't always work out either. I paid to have an electrician at a house once; he was a union electrician, from a reputable firm. I had the fire department at my house in the middle of the night. That is when I decided that I could burn the house down for less than union wages. And that isn't the only story I have like that, though it is the only one that involved the fire department.

I don't do everything myself of course. I recently paid to have a plumber install a new water heater. (I prefer soldered copper over Sharkbite connectors, and I don't have confidence in my ability to solder copper pipe.)