He's Mr. Right - really he is

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

Of course he was telling me a better way to prune the rose bush. That's what he does. He's Mr. I Have a Better Way of Doing Everything, a man with vision, practical in his assessments and, as he likes to remind me, always on target with his recommendations.

"Just get a saw and get rid of the whole bush," he said last Sunday afternoon as I belatedly attempted to tend to a wild mass of dead wood and thorns that I hadn't bothered to look at all year. I had killed my rose bush with inattention and was now determined to bring it back to life with a little pruning, a little Miracle Grow and a lot of love. "There aren't any flowers on that bush. There aren't even any buds. It's dead. Can't you see that?"

I refused to see. I put on long pants, a long sleeved shirt, work boots, a hat and heavy-duty work gloves, which I borrowed from my neighbor, Al. And on a hot, sticky, lazy summer day, instead of sitting on my deck and reading about the bad news of the world, I went out to save the world - or at least the small part of it that was dying of neglect in my yard.

Not dying. Dead, my husband insisted, as I pruned away. An hour later, he was proved right. I had cut. I had trimmed. I had pulled branch after branch away from the fence the rose bush had commandeered, looking for a pulse in the ruins. I found none. "I told you," he said. "You could have cut it at its roots an hour ago and saved yourself all this work. Why don't you ever listen to me?"

Why don't I? Every time I start a project, my husband appears with some practical suggestions, which instead of accepting graciously or at least listening to objectively, I refute or worse, ignore. It's not as if the man has a bad track record. He was right about the mulch we had dumped in the driveway one June, which was still in the driveway in August. ("I want to spread it," I'd argued. "Why would you pay someone to do yard work when you know that yard work is my favorite thing?") "It's not as easy as it looks," he told me. "How difficult can it be?" I countered.

He was also right about my garden full of dainty, pretty perennials. "Wouldn't you be better off with something bigger in that space, like trees or bushes? Molly digs and sleeps there." "I'll keep her out of the garden," I said confidently. "You can't even keep her off the couch." He was right, of course. I haven't seen an upright peony or daisy in years.

He was right about the siding on the house, too, which I didn't want, but which has saved us from endless repainting. And he was right about the air conditioning, installed last year after a lifetime of my saying, "We don't need air conditioning. It's hot only a few days a year. I like being hot." It's been nice not being hot this week. So why do I fight this man at every turn? Why don't I listen?

Mr. Why Won't You See It My Way bought me an electric staple gun in April. "I don't need it," I said. "It'll make covering those dining room chairs a lot easier," he explained. The material for the chairs is thick and he had seen that I was having a hard time working the old staple gun. "Look. Just try it. If you don't like it, I'll take it back." I tried it last weekend. And got five chairs done in less time than it took to do one the old way. "You were right," I told him. "I'm going to be right about the fence, too." He's insisting on maintenance-free plastic. I want stockade wood. "Trust me," he says. I want to. But a plastic fence?

"It's PVC," he explains, as if this will impress me. "You'll thank me when you see how nice it looks." You know what? I'm sure I will.