The Fixer

When you live in a house consisting of all men, there are bound to times when the testosterone levels become out of balance, the minds and the mouths are on different playing fields, and no matter that you have your face-mask strapped on and your catcher’s mitt adorned for anything that comes your way – you’re gonna make a bad call or get hit in the face with a missed word-punch meant for someone else. 

My sister and I are five years apart, me being the oldest. From the time I was an early teenager, we would stay home together after school and during the summers, and we would have chores assigned for our age capabilities. I’m here to tell you, that girl ALWAYS welshed on her chores and I ALWAYS covered for her. Because you can believe, more than just she was gonna hear about it if her responsibilities were not taken care of when our parents got home. I’m sure her side of the story would be different, but I’m the oldest, I’m re-living the memory, and this is my story.

Suffice to say, I learned from that early age how to keep people calm, how to please people, and basically, how to keep the chaos to a minimum. Because I deplore true chaos and loud, frustrated people; it all works my nervous system to no end. I know it’s not a fairy tale world, but dang it, I strive for it to be, I dream of it all the time, and I do my dead level best to make it so.

But let me tell you the downside to all of this: grown people don’t always appreciate peacemakers or all we seem to accomplish. Now my sister did of course, because I did her chores as well as mine so it would all get done with no fussing. Heck yeah she appreciated me! She KNEW in the end I would take care of it all, despite the fussing and bickering that went on while I was doing it. To say she had me pegged would be an understatement. She worked me like a fine-tuned banjo no doubt, but I knew it and did it for the greater good.

But grown people, they don’t see it that way. That you see two grown men battling for the most strength or power, each refusing to give or budge, to apologize or admit a misunderstanding – none of that matters when you try and intervene or to help. They see that as meddling, butting in where you don’t belong, because “they didn’t ask you to”.

Well I like peace and quiet in my home. I generally wake-up happy, and I like for it to stay that way, and whatever it takes to make that happen, that’s what I’ll continue to do. That I turn out to be the “bad guy” in these situations, well it sounds ridiculous, but it sure can happen. No matter, I’ll keep sprinkling my fairy dust, wishing for double rainbows and pots of gold, cause that’s how I roll.