I think a couple's true colors come out when they tackle a project together. Projects so often become tests in problem-solving, and how a couple handles those says a lot about the couple. I think, anyway.

Soon after Rob and I were married, we bought a big metal storage shelf. You know, the BIG ones you put in the garage. We had to assemble it ourselves, and the pieces were long and heavy and pretty much created for the sole purpose of outsmarting two smarter-than-the-average-bear people. There was much grunting and cursing and FRUSTRATION. Our frustration with the shelf soon turned into frustration with each other. I think I may have even knocked Rob upside the head with a metal shelf beam at one point. Accidentally, of course. As they say here in Redneck Valley, we just about lost our religion over that dang shelf.

Since them, we've found our rhythm in working with each other. We've undertaken several large home improvement projects and, happily, haven't lost our religion over any of them. Until yesterday. Yesterday we came close. Yesterday there was religion slippage.

We are (and have been for the past year) renovating our pantry, which is a small room off our kitchen. We work on it maybe once a month if there's time. So far there hasn't been a lot of time. Currently, the walls and ceiling are all torn out and the floor is bare concrete. Insulation has been stapled in and we are ready to install drywall. We've never done drywall before, but how hard can it be, right?

Our first mistake was to initiate ourselves in the drywall process by starting with the ceiling. Clearly that needs to be done first, but the ceiling is HARD, y'all. Our second mistake was to think we could drywall the ceiling ourselves. As in, just the two of us. My big strong brother has been helping us with this whole thing, but he was busy yesterday and Rob and I actually had time to work so we said What the hell! How hard can it be? Let's try it ourselves.

I'm not going to describe exactly what all went wrong because it would take too long and frankly, it's too embarrassing. But suffice it to say that measuring for a ceiling is damn hard when the room is not quite square and the two people must lift and re-lift and re-re-lift the (increasingly heavy) piece of drywall to see if it fits YET. Suffice it to say that in such a small room, even figuring out how to manipulate the damn piece of drywall so that it is facing the right direction takes a fucking degree in engineering. And geometry. Suffice it to say that two not-stronger-than-the-average-bear people cannot lift over their heads a hefty piece of drywall while one of those people also attempts to screw it in place. And suffice it to say that just when those two people think they have outsmarted the drywall with their awe-inspiring intellect, said piece of drywall will come crashing down upon them in all its heavier-than-thou glory. THREE TIMES.

Throughout this, we had remained a team. It was us versus the piece of shit drywall. The drywall was clearly winning, but we hadn't lost our religion and that counts for something. But at some point, I noticed that the drywall was not flush against a board that it needed to be against. And I pointed this out to Rob.

"Hon, when we were holding it in place, the drywall wasn't even touching that board over there."

"Where?"

"Over there." And I gestured to the board.

"Which board? Which board wasn't it touching?"

"THAT one."

Exasperated sigh from Rob. "WHICH board? The board that goes THIS way, or the board that goes THAT way?" He was motioning in the air to define THIS and THAT, but I'll be damned if I could see the difference.

"Um, THAT one." I pointed again in the general direction of the board in a Seriously, how can you NOT see where I'm pointing? way.

"WHICH ONE?!"

"You're being mean," I whined.

"Well you're pissing me off," he responded. The look in his eyes told me he was mad. Well, not mad. I've never really seen him mad. But he was frustrated. Frustrated with the drywall and frustrated, at the moment, with me.

We both sat for a minute to regroup and then moved on to the next thing without another word and without any grudges. The drywall kicked our ass repeatedly until we finally gave up.

To celebrate our utter defeat, we shared a Corona out on the deck. The bruises of the ass-whooping already starting to heal, we relived the worst moments and laughed. We discussed the fact that the only thing we had learned was that two people cannot do this alone. We had lost 4 hours and the piece of drywall, which had suffered too many battle wounds to be used. We had absolutely nothing to show for the experience. "Well," I said, "I find it encouraging that despite how terrible it went, we're still sitting here laughing about it over a Corona."

"True."

"And next time, I'll say the board along the dining room wall, 'kay?"

"Ohhhh...you meant THAT board?!"