The Beginning. Kind of.

My dad, The Professor, has a theory. It states that you can cut a board shorter but you cannot cut a board longer meaning you should err on the side of caution where power saws and lumber meet.

I have never seen my dad do this. We have a pile of slightly-too-short lumber a mile high, each piece thrown with staggering precision to the top of the heap with a trail of expletives streaming behind it like the polutants following a jet across the sky.

Occasionally, I have even seen power tools fly toward this pile, often with blood-sweat-and-tear-drops vaporizing into the air like something in a Marvel comic book that would have word bubbles containing various onomatopoeia like "Pow!" "Biff!" and "WHACK!" scattered among them.

My dad is brilliant. He is a chemist, professor, consultant, polymer science guru and occasional home builder. What he lacks in singleness of focus, he makes up for in determination and Jedi mind tricks (which he only thinks we don't recognize as such).

This month, in what can only be described as an Odd Coupling, he and I are beginning to build my new house together. He, the National Merit Scholar/Ph.D./Popular Science reader and I, the barefoot chicken farmer/high school drop-out/bagpiping single mom, are embarking on what can only be described as a terrifying, exciting, bloody knuckles and thrown power tools extravaganza. Okay...hopefully no power tools will be hurled but that always remains a distinct possibility where hot-headed, untrained homebuilders are concerned. Consider yourself warned.

Join us next time when we hear The Professor say: "Are you sure you need toilets?"