Thor to the Rescue!

"More coffee?" I said noticing the empty cup on the breakfast table.
"Please," Mr. Wonderful said handing it to me.
"More bread?"
"Please."
"More procrastination?"
"PLEASE!"

It had gotten to this point in our lives. Mr. Wonderful, the ultimate DIY die-hard, was tired of DIY-ing. More correctly, he was tired of breaking up concrete having already devoted two days of his life to it and knowing he'd have to do at least one more but… he just didn't want to so he was looking for methods to stall, to put off the work, to play hooky.

I have to admit, I didn't blame him. The reason for the procrastination was that after breaking up all that concrete we'd found another concrete structure located under the previous concrete slab. This structure had four walls and was built as: 1) The dump bucket for the pool's original filter; 2) A support for the pool; or 3) A hiding place for pirate booty. Anyway you looked at it, the structure resembled a sarcophagus, you know, the thing they used to bury England's dead kings in.

"Maybe Richard III is buried in our backyard!" I said hoping to move my spouse to break the thing down.

"They already found him last year. Under a parking lot. In England," Mr. Wonderful said putting his feet up on the table and sipping his espresso. It's hard to trick a well-read spouse but I kept trying.

"Maybe pirates buried gold doubloons in our backyard! Arrr!" I said limping across the floor with a fake peg leg.

"I'm glad they used concrete bricks manufactured in the 20th century to hide their 18th century booty in," he said without looking at me. It's hard to trick a spouse who knows his history but I kept trying.

"Maybe I'll just do it myself," I said marching outside with a hammer.

"No way!" he said chasing after me.

After descending into the pit, I swung a hammer at the sarcophagus wall only to have my swing interrupted by Mr. Wonderful's arm. 

"I'll do this," he said.

"I got here first." We debated who would do the arm breaking hammer work and who would do the back breaking rubble removal work. What a toss up. He wouldn't hear of me hammering and instead insisted that I continued removing concrete chunks. Since the amount of rubble in our backyard rivaled that found in Dresden after World War II, I didn't argue. Like the sarcophagus, the rubble, too, had to go.  

As I removed wheelbarrows full of rubble, Mr. Wonderful swung at the sarcophagus's walls to no avail. The thing had been built to last and it was outlasting Mr. Wonderful's strength, stamina and interest. 

"Let's switch jobs," I said. Mr. Wonderful kinked an eyebrow. "I want to hammer," I said. "Please?" Finally we swapped tools. Gripping the hammer I swung it like Venus Williams at Wimbledon and BAM! Part of the wall broke off. I swung again. WHAP! More of the wall fell. Again, THWAP! And the walls tumbled down like Jericho. Mr. Wonderful paused to look at me with shock.

"You're good at building things," I said gritting my teeth. "And I'm good at breaking them."

"Don't let me stop you."

I swung again this time with a smile. There's a time to procrastinate and there's a time to channel your inner Thor. What comic book, fanboy geek doesn't want to pretend to be a Norse god making the world right by breaking things with a cool hammer? I confess to being one of those comic book, fanboy geeks. BLAM!

By the end of the day, the sarcophagus walls were gone as were my arm muscles. Ahhh, it's not hard pretending to be Thor if it'll help your spouse. POW!