I got home last week, and my husband was soot from head to toe.
I asked what he had been doing with his time off.
He told me he was cleaning the fireplace chimney. I knew we had a chimney sweep that cleaned the chimney, and I couldn’t figure out why he was doing it. He told me the fireplace chimney wasn’t hard to clean, but I begged to differ. From the looks of him, he was looking up when the soot broke loose. I was worried he may have inhaled some of the soot. I asked him to please let the chimney sweep clean the fireplace chimney from now on. He was taking the man’s job. I knew my husband was bored with retirement, but I would be joining him at the end of the year. We had plans for travelling next year, but that wasn’t helping him now. I told him he should go back to the HVAC company. They were always looking for mentors. He could also go to the college and see if they need HVAC instructors for their HVAC classes. Our son thought this was a good idea when we approached him. He said he could use dad as a trainer and he knew the school was looking for instructors. I knew my husband wished he had waited until I retired to hand the HVAC company over to our son, but what was done was done. There was no turning back. A week later, I got home to a husband that was whistling. He was going to spend the week with a new HVAC technician, and the following week, he was starting his position as assistant HVAC instructor at the local community college.