How Do You Keep an Old Man Off the Roof?

I’m out of ideas

Not my old man but he looks at me like this when I tell him to stay off the roof. Photo by Abstral Official on Unsplash

The best way to keep a man off the roof is to not have a roof. The next thing is to not have any trees that drop leaves in the fall. But I messed up and we bought a house with a roof that’s surrounded by trees. So how do I keep my stubborn husband — who is not a spring chicken — off the damn roof?

We have this argument over and over again and it goes nowhere and we both get mad and he goes out on the roof anyway. We have a low-pitched roof, that’s true, but it’s 30 feet off the ground. One slip and he’s dead, or worse, debilitated and I have to take care of him. Dead would be better.

But I really don’t want either. I want him to stay off the roof.

“I am NOT going to fall off the roof!” he shouts at me for the hundredth time.

“Says every man who’s ever fallen off a roof!” I shout back.

And then he crawls out the upstairs window and gets on the roof with the blower and blows the leaves off. When he comes back in he says “See, I didn’t fall off the roof.” I want to kill him right then and there. Why do men think they’re invincible?

When my stepdad was about 80 he had some work that needed to be done on his roof and he had his son come over to help him. My mother gave him strict instructions to let…