Squashed Dreams

My husband is a techie. Give him anything with a microchip, wires or a hard drive and he can install it, fix it, build it, or wire it to something. Our downstairs set up includes a 60” HDtv with a sound system receiver, digital cable receiver, Xbox360, PlayStation 2, DVD player and surround sound. From the remote, you can run all of this plus the space heater, the ceiling fan, the media center on the computer and dim the lights. (“You” is a relative term; I mean “He” can do that. I still can’t figure out how to just watch TV down there).

For as long as I’ve known him, which is more than a decade, he has always known that his calling is installing home theaters for people (preferably in new builds where the people have no limit on their budget). He’d pick out all of the components, install and wire them up and train them how to run it. Eventually this would lead to installing for businesses, schools, etc and he’d have a business. For now, he’s a sought-after consultant for all of our family and friends.

Last night, everything changed. I came home from an appointment and found him talking on the phone, with a website pulled up, scrolling through it with a tape measure in hand and taking lots of notes. I didn’t bother to ask and proceeded to put the children to bed. Two hours later, I went to bed, still having no idea what he was up to really, except that I’d learned he was talking to his mom. I knew she’d planned to get a new TV, but the plan had grown into something larger and more complicated. Enter my husband. When he finally came to bed, he shook me awake and said “She squashed my dreams.” Ok, I'm awake.

“I know now that I could never do this as a full time job, because if I ever had a customer as complicated as her and who changed their minds as often as she does, I’d have to harm them. Then I’d be in jail and my reputation would be ruined.”

Today, he and his dad drove to Wichita to pick everything out, take it back to his folks’ and install it – and none of “it” is what she had initially picked out when the conversation started last night! My daughter told me when I put her to bed last night, “Grandma needs help. I take her shopping.”

If only she knew.