Wisdom from my brother Rollo

My poor brother Rollo gets all my calls for help. This single girl can fish a small snake out of the pool but Rollo has been put into service to retrieve a larger snake and even a thoughtlessly released hamster. (It looked like a dead rat but happily, a live and grateful hamster.) I digress.

After hurricane Rita, it was Rollo scrambling on my roof as we attached a temporary tarp. Rollo hooked up my ceiling fan. Rollo rescued me twice this year, once when my truck slid off the road and got stuck in mud and later, when my battery died. Poor guy. He's not married but still doing all that stuff for his sister. And contrary to what you may think, bothering him frustrates me. I try not to ask others to do things I can do myself.

Aggravated by being forced to ask for his help yet again, I once remarked that maybe I should be married because my husband would be there. Drawing upon his once married experience, Rollo remarked that even if I did have a husband it didn't guarantee that my husband would do the things I needed when I needed. He imparted some wisdom gold that day. It's true. My married friends constantly bitch that their husbands don't perform the barest minimum of tasks so why would I presume that my experience would be any different? It stopped me from idealizing marriage, even if for only the honey-do lists.

All these years of being single and doing (mostly) everything alone would give a greater appreciation of a help mate. Can you read between the lines on that one? No? Okay, dummy: Dude does for me. I would do for dude.

My single friend Maura and I discussed that very thing but neither one of us are quite ready for commitment. She and I have concocted the perfect plan. We will both date a tradesman and then pass them on to the other. She dates a plumber, I'll date an electrician. Six months later, we'll switch then later it's a pool guy and a carpenter. We'll be nice, they'll be handy and nobody is hurt.