Dealing With A Man Crisis

**Note to Reader(s): I have in the past referred to my husband as Hubbie, but CMGD's linked post below made me appreciate her use of Mr. NATUI. I rather like that, but I do have to say out of respect for Hubbie's homeland I ought to use the correct form of the title. From here on out he will be referred to as Herr NATUI.

Herr Natui is having a man crisis. He arrived in the DC area late Saturday evening. He was scheduled to meet with our landlord-to-be Sunday at noon. We were hopeful that she had not run off with our cash, and I could not with any certainty say the house would be ours to rent until the keys were in his grubby little hands.

He calls me on Sunday in a voice filled with tightly controlled panic. The house? Is small. Very small. Like, she didn't quite represent the square footage as correctly as she might have small.

Over the course of the afternoon the story evolved.

The largest of the three bedrooms is 12 x 9. Take that in folks. Pace that out in your living room and see how big that really is. That is the largest.

The furnace is in the kitchen. The washing machine is in the hall closet. The dryer is on the other side of the house.

Walking through the backyard, I hear him suddenly exclaim Is this a WELL? Turns out there was a piece of carpet over some kind of well-type hole in the ground. The landlady will be checking this out for us. I refuse to have a Jessica-down-the-pipe incident with my kids. At that point he had to call me back before he stroked out on the phone.

The bathroom is a 1950s bright turquoise with black trim tile. We cannot update the vanity or sink because the hot/cold faucet handles are in the wall above the sink.

At this point in the conversation, I busted out laughing. I just couldn't help myself.

I keep telling him, it's only for a year. We can totally make it work. It will be a fun adventure. That the house has character. He is slowing coming to think a little more positively about it, but then again I have not yet seen the place.

To do a little damage control, I had my girlfriend's husband call Herr Natui to get a guys perspective on things. My man did feel better after speaking with him. Even though FriendsHusband said the exact same things I had, there is something about hearing it come from someone who isn't your spouse. Shitty, but true. I guess we chicks do it all the time when we bitch to our girlfriends. I guess I can't expect him to be any different.

So goodbye to the High Sierras with our snowy adventures and hello NoVa with 12 crazy months of minimal-renovations-to make-it-livable adventures.

Does anybody know a good plumber?