Yesterday my husband went out to burn boxes in our burn barrel. I asked him if he wanted me to stay and help, but he said he was fine.
I went inside, taking some time for a bathroom break. When I came out, I saw he wasn’t back in the house yet. I went out to check on him.
The burn barrel had smoke coming up, but all the boxes were gone. My husband wasn’t there. I started looking around.
I found him, and wanted to kill him. He was lying on his back on top of the roof of our shop! (He has had several mini-strokes, just celebrated his 77th birthday, and we have agreed that we are too old to be up on roofs anymore.)
I tried to remain calm while talking to him. He wasn’t hurt, but he realized the ladder was rickity when he was on the way up. (He went up anyway.) He wanted to re-attach a wire to the power pole thingie that is attached to the front of the shop. He had gotten the wire re-attached, but realized the ladder might not stay where he needed it when he tried to get down. So he decided to wait for me to come ‘rescue’ him.
I held the ladder (and my breath) while he came over to the edge of the roof and got onto the ladder. He got down safely.
I reminded him that we had agreed that we weren’t going up on roofs anymore. He huffily told me that this job was ‘within his capabilities.’ I told him that I needed to be able to trust him not to do things like this without at least letting me know. He said he knew I would come out to check on him and would ‘rescue’ him then, even if he was lying on the roof all day…
He is lucky to still be alive today.
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