Mr FD has a vey old wheel barrow.

Perhaps I should start at the beginning.

Mr FD is not a man to expend energy where he doesn’t consider it necessary. Some might say he was LAZY, but not he.

Back to the wheel barrow.

Mr FD has a very old wheel barrow and it has a squeaky wheel. A very squeaky wheel. Mr FD has been doing some landscaping in the back garden. A project that he has been planning for the last few years, but has only embarked upon as we are readying the house for sale. (We won’t embark upon the discussion of the 583 more important things that require doing inside the house before we call the realtor, or you may just see blood upon the screen.)

Sunday afternoon I was at my domestic goddess shrine, the kitchen sink, peeling potatoes (we were having the gourmet delight of Shepherd’s Pie for dinner) and Mr FD’s task necessitated him wheeling the barrow to and fro in front of the kitchen window to collect pebble.

I swear that he somehow increased the volume level of the squeak, not only to prove to the neighbours; in particular the male neighbours, that he did indeed go out into the sunshine once or twice a decade, but also to get my attention. A bit like a child calls out to his mother for her to watch “no hands, ma!” The squeaky wheel gets the attention. I swear he wanted me to note how hard he was working. He even feigned a limp whenever he thought I was watching.

It was a “sad little squeak” and such an old wheelbarrow deserved more respect than to be used in Mr FD’s foul ploy, so I ignored him.

He was not to be deterred and so upped the ante and proclaimed he was in bone crunching pain (knees). It appears that his only means of coping with the pain would be through the infusion of a large cup of coffee. Please. As if I was lying on the back deck drinking cocktails and having my feet massaged by a muscle bound serf! (Of course that was next on my to do list.)

I peeled another potato and considered silencing the squeak for ever by putting it somewhere the sun don’t shine, but it did seem a little bit hasty to remove him from this mortal coil before he had at least completed the landscaping, so I gave him a twenty four hour reprieve.

Tomorrow is another day and “The squeaky wheel doesn’t always get greased; it often gets replaced”, and so may husbands.