It’s amazing the lengths that Home Depot, Stanley tools and Benjamin Moore will go to make home improvement projects appear to be the ultimate in husband-wife bonding activities. According to glossy photos in their full-color advertising materials, laying tile, installing a bathroom fan and weatherproofing a deck together can do more for your marriage than a Mermaid Erotic Cruise. Last week’s newspaper circular featured models (who’d probably never met before) gazing happily into each other’s eyes as the wife seductively teased her man with a loaded spackling knife.

A Glidden paint color brochure I recently picked up, showed a husband bear-hugging his wife from behind while they painted the master bedroom, his hand clasped over hers around the roller as he guided her strokes. Her lips were parted as if releasing a slow moan. His face, of course, was turned inward perhaps kissing her earlobe as his solar plexus thrust forward in a way that made me look away bashfully, aware that I’d been staring at the page a little too long. My face was flushed. “Do couples really paint like that? Maybe I’m just old-fashioned and naive…and missing out,” I thought.

The paint mixer guy gave me a knowing look, as if to say, “I keep my own copy of that brochure behind the counter.

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