Not Even He That Hath Her

He did it. I nagged and shrieked and generally shrewed myself into a Katharina frenzy until he had to do it just to shut me up.

I’m talking about the caulk.

He said the stuff we had was probably not good enough. I said “Is there silicone in it? Then it’s fine!”

He said the marine caulk he was talking about was specially made for just this sort of thing. I said “I don’t believe there’s any such thing as marine caulk!”

He said John B. told him that some showers aren’t designed to be caulked, and that we’d best be sure that this one was or else it might just wind up trapping moisture. I said “Oh yeah? You think there’s meant to be booger-strings of mold creeping down from behind the plastic when I’m in the shower?”

He said – oh my god – he said I should remember that I also had to clean the shower, that maybe the mold I was talking about could have been prevented with a little, you know, elbow grease. I said “I only didn’t clean the shower because I was waiting for you!”

And then I said:

“If you’d done what you were supposed to instead of pissing around and talking to everyone about it, it would be done by now and we wouldn’t have all these asshole opinions to consider!”

He said fine, he’d do it. But if it turned out, next week or next year or later, to have been a bad idea, then I should take note of this moment and remember: Whatever damage happened after this would be entirely my fault.

That gave me pause. For a moment. Then I remembered Kate and shouted “No! You’re the one who told me that it should have been done in the first place! Two years ago! And you’re the one who said we had to do it now! You’re the one who said you would do it – on Saturday! All I’m responsible for is trying to make you keep your word!”

Well, you don’t impugn Johnny’s word-keeping integrity and get away with it, so at this point he shut up and caulked the shower. And while he did, Muskego Jeff left a comment here telling me that there was, in fact, such thing as marine caulk, and that he’d heard it was particularly good for use on shower pans – by which I assume he means (although I haven’t looked it up) the floor part of an insert, standing shower.

The job took Johnny all of twenty minutes, and when he came out the fight was over. Not only had I won, but I’d also eaten a bowl of his homemade turkey soup while he was in there (I’d been hungry when I shrewed him – is anyone surprised?), and I had been proven ever so very slightly wrong. He didn’t know this yet, and with any luck he never would, but the combination humbled me enough to hug him and thank him and tell him I was sorry, that I loved him, and his soup was really good.

He said he'd put another coat on it tomorrow morning (which is now, although technically right now he’s still asleep) and then it would have to cure three days before I could start to use it. And then he sighed and, when gently prompted, confessed his fear that when I did start to use it – as soon as I should set foot in the shower – the floor part would separate instantly from the wall.

I said “Oh.”

I said “I think it’s called a ‘shower pan.’”

And I said “If that happens, we’ll get the Special Marine Caulking that you wanted.

“Okay, hon?”

Isn’t Katharina just the best wife in the world?