I shoulda put a ring on it

Raising Mark is a daily living example of Newton's third law of motion: For every action, there is always an equal and opposite reaction. No matter what I say, Mark says the opposite. No matter how strong my opinion, Mark has an equally opposite and strong opinion. Whenever I say black, Mark says white. Or, to paraphrase the Beatles, I say stop, and he says go, go, go.

This weekend was a prime example of that law. I let Mark practice his "manly" work skills by putting together a new bookcase. At first, he was all excited. His voice dropped a few octaves, and he grunted a la Tim Allen in Home Improvement when he answered that yes, he wanted to put the bookshelf together. He told me exactly what kind of tool he'd need (a Philips screwdriver) and lined up all the screws and book shelf pieces in order before he started.

Mark was excited because he digs anything that involves tools, right up until he realizes he's doing manual labor. With this realization comes the whining about how hard the task (whatever task) at hand is.

He was 10 minutes into the bookshelf when the whining started. I was about to shoot him a steely mom glare, when he suddenly perked up.

"Do you hear that?" he asked, jumping to his feet.

Our neighbors were having their wedding reception next door, and it was time for the bouquet toss. The DJ summoned all the single women to the dance floor, and in the background, Beyoncé was singing about all the single ladies.

"All the single ladies!" Mark repeated, in a falsetto singing voice. "Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh-oh, oh oh oh oh!"

And before I fully realized what was happening, he was doing a spot-on, hip-shaking, finger-waggling version of the single ladies dance. Right there, in the middle of my living room, among the loose screws and various shelving pieces, was my very own male Beyoncé impersonator.

I watched him for a moment, then burst into laughter. The more I laughed, the more he exaggerated his booty shaking and the higher his voice became. Finally, the song ended, and Mark fell to the floor, also laughing.

"Come on, Boy-oncé," I finally said. "It's time to finish building the bookcase."

"OK," he answered. And so he set about putting the pieces together, all the while humming about the single ladies.