Sweetie and I are good at the blast and bomb kind of boat projects. I hope my he doesn't get mad if I tell you this story, but it had me giggling the other day when I thought of it. He is a generous man by nature and bought me a JRC radar for Christmas a few years ago when we still owned the sailboat. Being a handy fellow, he did every bit of the installation by himself. Having a husband who can fix things is a blessing, especially when you live on a boat, because things always seem to break.

Anyway, Sweetie bought one of those nice stainless steel mast mounts for the stern of the sailboat. He wanted the mount to serve double duty as a hoist for his humongous 15-horse Honda outboard.

We emptied the aft cabin after the mast arrived and Sweetie went to work, drilling holes and running wire, setting screws and all the bits and pieces that go along with a big installation. I love him dearly, but he doesn't have the calm temperament that his name implies. By the end of the long day, he was cursing and swearing, as usual, which is why I always abandon ship when he is working on those thankfully infrequent big projects. We measure boat jobs by the number of swear words it takes to complete one.

I came home a little early and noticed that the new radar mast was leaning far over to one side, rather like the famous leaning Tower of Pisa. After 25 years of marriage, I know better than to say anything that might be construed as criticism, and so simply admired the new addition, knowing that I would eventually learn to accept or ignore it.

Sweetie stepped off the boat and looked back to admire his days labor. I'm laughing again as I write this. His eyes kind of squeezed down tight, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing, and said with a roar, "IT'S @#^(@@#$!!! CROOKED!!!!!" Needless to say, I made a quick retreat and left him to finish his project, and improve his vocabulary.

I'm not entirely innocent either. If something doesn't work right the first time, I just start pushing buttons randomly. Needless to say, my success rate with this method is not very good. A few days after we moved on to the trawler, I was making breakfast when the circuit breaker kicked out. I know enough to flip a switch, but each time I did, it kicked off again. I shut down all of the lights, heaters, the toaster oven and coffee pots on that side of the boat and the darned thing still kicked off. Frustrated, I used a few choice words of Arkansas mule talk that I had learned from my dear husband and then stomped off with my nice little toaster oven under my arm, all the way up to the dumpster and chucked it in, complete with untoasted bagels. Sweetie came home from the gym and, wondering where his breakfast was, asked what had happened. After a lengthy explanation, he told me that the new boat is wired diagonally and the circuit breaker for the port side is in fact on the starboard switch. It was too late to save my toaster over though. At least I didn't have to clean it...