The sink in the downstairs bath has dripped forever. A few weeks ago, Doug decided to fix the drip. His “fix” was to replace the faucet. This was not a Doug plan that required any input from me. This was barely blue-green on the Doug’s “plan” scale. When he decided that the pipes underneath the sink should be replaced “as long as he was working on it anyway,” I gave him the one raised eyebrow face. We were in Doug’s “plan” blue. After leaving the sink with no pipes connected for a week so that I had to empty a bucket of water twice during every wash load and a basement flood that soaked every towel we own, Doug disconnected the washing machine and turned off the water in both bathroom sinks. When the washing machine blocked the path to our bedroom and the children were brushing their teeth kneeling at the bathtub, we reached yellow on the Doug’s “plan” scale. Both eyebrows went down and I looked at Doug through those eyebrows when I talked to him. As the laundry piles grew bigger with each passing day and the bucket filled with wet towels developed an odor, Doug started cutting holes in the walls to work on the pipes IN THE WALLS since, he “might as well replace those too.” Code orange! Now, I had to give him “the look” AND mumble every time I walked past the holes in the walls, the washing machine in the hallway, the piles of laundry, the mildewing towels or the waterless sinks. Even the children started grumbling about the leaky sink repair. We all started avoiding the downstairs and whimpered a little at the strange noises and smells that wafted up the stairs. As I was deciding between sending the children to school in shorts or outgrown clothes from the pile awaiting a trip to the Goodwill dropoff, Doug wandered past me and casually mentioned that he was finished fixing the drip and the washing machine was reconnected. I had to interrogate Doug. I thought he was joking. Surprisingly, he was serious. The sinks once again have running water. The washing machine was empty and happy to accept the load of jeans that the children and I will wear tomorrow. I am so happy that I don’t think I’ll even ask when the half a dozen holes in the wall will be fixed. At least not until after I get caught up on the laundry.