LJWorld.com

I don’t mean to brag, but as a wife and housemate, I’m just about perfect.

I possess a sunny disposition (except for the occasional trip to the dark side) and am considered by family and friends to be “low maintenance,” emotionally speaking.

I make precious few demands of my husband. I’ve written exactly five “honey-do” lists in our 30-year marriage (each one of them as preparation for a big party and, thus, not unreasonable, according to Honey.)

I strive to keep nagging to a minimum.

I tolerate unsavory male behaviors that many of my female counterparts would not, like leaving the toilet seat up, beer belching or the occasional when-will-he-ever-learn-this-is-SO-not-funny “pull my finger” routine. (Or maybe, after three decades, the bar is just “limbo lower now.”)

My housekeeping skills have improved greatly over time. Sure, it can get messy on my side of the bedroom (bathroom sink, closet, car, couch ...) but, generally speaking, I tidy up pretty well.

I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and (except for that little dry spell from ’87 to ’93) I never, never, never let him forget he’s a man.

Simply stated, as a spouse, I’m all that AND a bag of chips. I’m practically flawless.

Except for one little thing: I can’t back out of the garage to save my life.

This negligible deficiency reared its ugly head this week when, while attempting to back out of the garage into the pouring rain, I tore the entire bumper off the front of my car.

Actually, “bumper” is a bit of a misnomer. It was the whole shooting match — bumper, grill, everything but the headlights — dragging the driveway, holding onto the front end by a thin, plastic thread. (Did I mention it was raining cats and dogs?)

Unfortunately, this is not the first time my car has been introduced to the side of the garage. The corner of my right front fender and the trim of my garage door are best friends — blood brothers, if you will. They have shared red exterior trim paint for as long as I’ve owned the vehicle, the result of countless bumps, scrapes and other close encounters. For months, my bumper has been hanging loose on the right side, like a torn fingernail waiting to be ripped off.

On Monday morning, I let ’er rip.

The problem seems to be two-fold.

Fold No. 1: I am a terrible backer-upper, the world’s worst. This has been true since 1972, when the Kansas Department of Motor Vehicles foolishly granted me a driver’s license.

“Use your side mirrors!” my husband will plea, but to no avail. I can’t do reverse. It’s that simple. I get dizzy and dyslexic and it just doesn’t work. I’ll start out fine then, for no reason at all, turn my wheel the wrong way and end up farming my own yard.

Instead, I must use the old right-hand-on-the-passenger-seat-headrest/looking-through-rear-window technique. Hey, it’s not easy to assume that position anymore! The range of motion in my neck is half of what it was in 1971. Sometimes, my head just snaps back uncontrollably, and crashes happen.

Fold No. 2: Due to its funky design and multiple parked car capacity, our driveway provides an inadequate turning radius — for any driver, much less a terrible backer-upper. Standard turn-around driveway design calls for an arc with a 10- to 15-foot radius. I’m working with 8 feet max and 3 additional vehicles to dodge. I never had a chance!

For two days, I drove bumper-less around town, no plastic or chrome obscuring my car’s guts from public view. At first, I was embarrassed. Then I noticed how pedestrians seemed to clear out of my way without provocation. Fellow drivers yielded to me, even when they didn’t have to. The youngsters at work said I had “street cred.”

I felt fierce.

On Wednesday night, my husband had collected himself enough to hit the garage floor and replace the missing piece — red paint, dings and all. I Googled “scraped bumper” and found a way to repair scratches with a crayon. (Still looking for my old jumbo box of Crayolas.)

Maybe I’m not the perfect wife and housemate, after all. Maybe I’m all that, without the bag of chips. Maybe I owe my husband a favor.

(OK, honey. But I’m giving you only ONE more “pull my finger.” Until I wreck the car again!)

— Cathy Hamilton is a 53-year-old empty nester, wife, mother and author, who blogs every day at BoomerGirl.com.