In-law visits cause more sparks than usual because my father-in-law is a retired electrician. My wife always finds something for him to do. Deemed his “apprentice,” I was subject to the 95-degree heat and other elements while my wife sat inside looking at pictures with her mom.

Fishing a wire through an exterior wall of the house was the low point of this apprenticeship.

“Go down into the crawlspace, tie the wires to a hanger, and pull them through the hole,” he instructed.

Our cricket-infested crawlspace resembles the end of the Blair Witch Project. Lying on my back, I fumbled in this dim cave until I realized my wire was stuck. After some time, my father-in-law appeared in the crawlspace.

“You did it all wrong,” he informed me before shimmying into the space to do it himself. I rolled out of his way in shame.

After a short break, we moved on to the bedroom light project mandated by my wife. While the crawlspace task drained me physically, the light project would torment me mentally.

My wife bought this bulbous gold light to replace the flat light at the entrance of our bedroom. This light also happens to be next to my closet.

Her dad—ever the professional—confirmed the logistics.
“It looks like his closet door might hit the new light if we install it.”

“Well, I measured,” my wife declared.

And then, one of the more unbelievable things my wife has said so far in our marriage: “Install it. Rich will have to be careful when he opens his closet door.”
It was almost a test. Can my husband refrain from shattering the new light every morning?

“No way.” I surprised myself at my ability to speak up.

“You think I want to walk on eggshells like that? You, waiting to yell at me when I shatter the light? Talk about not being put in a position to succeed!”

“We could put a stopper on his closet door,” my father-in-law posed. While I felt somewhat betrayed, I did understand his desire to get on with it.

The installed light now prevents my closet door from opening more than 2/3 of the way. Also, the light hangs so low that my door blocks the light. So I can’t see in my closet.

Several times, the door has whipped back at me in the morning, meaning I would have shattered the light upon multiple opens.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve done enough walks into potential houses and apartments with my wife and a realtor (doesn’t matter what gender) where everyone jokes that my wife will get the huge, nice closet, and I will be relegated to a dungeon for my closet. But I’ve never had the door to a closet restricted.

Recently, in a moment of poetic justice, my wife flung my closet door open to show me something. The door breached the stopper slightly and gently tapped the glass producing an echoey chime off the glass. We looked at one another, cringing.

Sacrificing in a marriage knows no end. I guess I should have known I was on my way to sacrificing my closet when she put all my pants in a closet in another room.