My four and a half hour test yesterday was a real brain drain and left me worn thin the rest of the day. Which is why I wasn’t so happy to come home and find, A)our old dishwasher sitting in the front yard, B)our new dishwasher dented and scratched and sitting loose and unconnected in the base cabinet, and C)a note from the plumber asking me to call him. Turns out he had some questions and tried calling me but had the wrong number, so he left without finishing the job. That’s funny! It turns out there’s a little technological advance called caller ID, where you can see that a client has called you a dozen times over the last three weeks to get you to finish the job. Hee hee ha ha!! My ribs are cracking from the strain of laughing!
I think the home improvement gods hear me complain about going in the crawlspace, which is why I found myself on all fours in the cold mud last night, shimming up the dishwasher. It was so much fun, I would be happy to go down there again for any reason. [do you hear me, repair gods? DO YOU?!]
[deep breath] I am sure it will all be worked out today. And again I am reminded that past behavior is an excellent forecast of future behavior. The first three times this plumber didn’t show up, or came and didn’t do work, I should have pulled the plug. Forewarned is forearmed, and now I’d like to swing my forearm at…well, I’d better stop. It has taken three weeks and over seven hundred dollars, and we’ve seen a quantum improvement from an old dishwasher that worked until the line clogged, to a new and dented dishwasher that will work until something goes wrong with it. Hooray home ownership!
It seems that every year there is a “perfect storm” convergence of stressful things: work deadlines, tests and studying, home improvement disasters. This year I’m going to beat the odds and not get sick because of it. And I will somehow muster the energy to finish painting the bedroom so I can close the book on the mold remediation project. I’m crossing my fingers I get that done before something else goes wrong.
Oh! I forgot the punctuation mark on the day yesterday. Amidst all this, I was setting the dinner table and stood up suddenly. My head smacked into the chandelier and knocked loose candles and glass bobeches, which crashed to the floor and sent shards of glass all over the room and into the Christmas tree. But I’m not worried. Baby Harbat’s bare feet will find that broken glass soon enough. Just like the neighborhood kids always find the razor blades I put in our Halloween apples. Ha ha hee hee, just kidding everyone! Merry Christmas!
Writer, architect, father, husband.
Jesus.