Do you DIY or HAP?

Ken and I spent part of a rainy Saturday this weekend washing windows indoors. We discussed whether we should hire someone to wash the outdoor sides or if Ken would be the one to shinny up the ladder to do it. That got us talking about DIY (Do-It-Yourself) families vs. HAP (Hire-a-Pro) families.

As it turns out, ours is a blended family.

Ken comes from a DIY family. His Mom painted and wallpapered like a decorating pro. Ken and his brother fixed dryers and lawn mowers and toilets. They spent their youth in theatres working as stage hands and technicians which taught them electrical and carpentry skills. Today, Ken only shies away from projects that require advanced, technical expertise or tools that we don’t own. Then, we’ll call in an expert. In other words, it’s nice to have a man around the house who fixes things!

That’s because I’m the opposite. I hate home projects. My M.O. is the temporary fix. I did a stint in the 80s in a major retail store working as a display person –  the job was a perfect fit for me.  I excel at projects that require a staple gun or push pins. I have cushion covers on the porch chairs that are merely tucked under.

I think this all stems from my family – a definite HAP group. They hired somebody for every job. Dad mostly brought in people that he knew. The furnace guy was Uncle Bob’s brother-in-law. The electrician (Dad called him “Alec Tricity”) was a friend of a friend. The Industrial Arts teacher (“Sprocket Lockett”) was from my brother’s school. He came in to build our basement rec-room. Freddie, the one-toothed elevator operator from my Dad’s office building, came in spring and fall to wash and install storm and screen windows. All of these people were provided with lunch on their work day and ate with our family at the kitchen table.

My Mum had a cleaning lady all the years that I lived with my parents. The first one we had was Gladys. Mum called her “Gladie” and was very fond of her – and protective as well, as Gladys had told Mum about her abusive husband. She was a stocky woman of European descent whose accent was so pronounced that I could not understand her. She wore her hair in long braids that were wrapped around her head. When Gladys passed away suddenly, Mum heard that she had stuffed her mattress with $5,000 worth of the five dollar bills her customers paid her – an attempt to hide her earnings from her husband. That sounded to me, a kid of seven, to be a lot of money and it struck me as a shame that Gladys never got to spend any. Mum thought it a shame that the husband got it.

Our next lady was Frances, who was also stocky and who wore “house dresses,” men’s slippers and stockings rolled down to just below her knees. She got on my mother’s nerves because she whistled all day with a hollow, breathing-in-instead-of-out sound.  It might have been the whistling that got her fired.

Next was Marie, who came from the French Canadian section of town, which did not necessarily endear her to my mother who was herself half French Canadian.  Marie’s particular vexation for my mother was that she had to have soup AND a sandwich for her lunch. And being a short individual, Marie sat side-saddle on the kitchen chair and swung her feet as she ate lunch. Why that irked my mother so much I will never know.

I inherited Marie when Ken and I got married. We lived in a smallish one bedroom apartment, but I was working full time and Mum thought I should start married life off right by having hired help. I would leave a sandwich in the fridge for Marie and a can of soup on the counter with a pot and a can opener laid out beside it.

It has been a slippery slope ever since. I have hired bi-weekly cleaning services for most of our married life and am not the least bit ashamed of it. I learned at the age of eight (between Gladys and Frances) to hate dusting. Oh, sure, I’ve DIY’d the house cleaning when one or the other of us has been unemployed or when we’ve been expecting company on a non-cleaning-lady week. But otherwise, I really prefer the HAP.

On Saturday, I was in favor of doing an HAP and calling a window washing company on Monday to come on out. But as soon as it stopped raining, Ken was up the ladder before you could say “DIY!”  As I said, we are a blended family.