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Forget the big white castle and picket fence. Reality hits regardless if you want it to or not.

Before the marriage took place I began noticing other things about Alan that caused me to wonder if he’d been dropped on the head as a child. (Side note; don’t ask soon to be mother-in-law if her child HAD been dropped on the head. I did. Fortunately she didn’t get angry, but her face expression told me I shouldn’t have asked.)

I’d told Alan there was no way I would be moving into that apartment with him after the marriage if a) I wasn’t allowed to clean it up. b) The bathroom wasn’t remodeled.

Folks, I am not a spend money like crazy kind of person. And I’ve never had to have the best. I don’t even like jewelry and his folks owned a jewelry store. I certainly wasn’t asking for a complete new bathroom because I was the Wicket Witch of the North but my lord; that floor in the bathroom was squishy. The ceiling was pealing, the sink and toilet bowel had calcium deposit and inch thick and don’t forget the stench I mentioned earlier. The bathroom was where the over flowing litter box was located, although I doubt very much his cat had used it in the past decade.

You get the picture. It was bad. Soon to be husband couldn’t fathom what in the word I was talking about. Honestly. He simply cannot SEE issues involving garbage. I also suspect he was afraid he’d have to get his hands dirty. He is not a labor intense person, and as the years progressed it was to discover he has Obsessive Compulsive Behavior. (Not the DISORDER. There is a difference and I’m still learning how to understand that.) Oh yeah, and he’s Attention Deficit too. These things were diagnosed years after our marriage.

We’ll go back to the bathroom, if you can stomach going there again. I finally convince him to allow a friend of mine to look at it who was a contractor, and we would abide by his decision. When my friend arrived and he stepped into the bathroom—by the way, I HAD warned him ahead of time but sometimes seeing is believing—he told Alan within two seconds, “Alan, buddy. This floor is rotted through and the only reason it hasn’t broken through is because hey, you’re already in the basement. It can’t go any farther.”

To save money I gutted the place out by myself. Every inch of plaster and plaster board was removed so Mark (my friend) could put in the new floor and sheetrock. Now, I mentioned the calcium buildup. Mark suggested we get a different toilet since the one there was, to his eyes and mine, way beyond salvation. Alan wouldn’t hear of it because to him, there was nothing wrong with it. In an attempt to find a way to restore the poor commode I discovered a product that did the trick so well that when Mark saw the toilet he honestly believe it was brand new one.