Saturday, August 19, 2006

Day 21, Friday- "Know when to not do-it-yourself."

After visiting the nice insurance lady at the office (free bad strawberries!), I got to work at the house on some electrical work. Changing out plugs and replacing cloth-wrapped wire were the orders of the day. This is an old house, but so far I’ve only found a couple of old wire runs- and all have been easily replaced.

I also tested the circuit breakers. You can too- just try to strip wire without cutting the power. It is like a little tiny-bit of personal lightning. You even get a little thunder. Need a little workout? Just wash your hands- leave them damp- and strip the wire. A half of a second of 120v is like 50 pushups.

So anyway- visitors came! They brought Bowpicker! They brought Diet Pepsi! They brought Bowpicker! We ate perched on a lovely dinette set made of upside-down Tillamook Ice Cream buckets while they carefully observed the “do not put anything on the floor that might come within 2 feet of your mouth” rule.

I would like to point out that these visitors got the deluxe tour. One person will even receive a lovely parting gift (a big cabinet that is going away). Everyone who comes by gets a tour- but the best tours are reserved for people who bring Bowpicker. No Bowpicker, no deluxe. It is truly that simple.

Unless you are the acting HR director and other upper-echelon types- you get the deluxe tour too. Really, I mean it.

What is the difference between the standard and the deluxe tours? Two things:

1. I tell you where NOT to step
2. I point out the places that I hurt myself and/or did something especially dumb
3. You get mentioned in the blog

Isn’t that worth the price of a half-order of fish and chips?

Thus, Leslie, Deb, Mike, Lorrie, and Andrea- so ends your deluxe tour. Thank you for keeping your hands and arms inside the ride at all times.

After everyone left, I finished up the electrical chores and moved on to the most hated of all jobs- linoleum removal. No easy way to do it- but you can make it fun by making it dangerous. I got a floor scraper with a four-inch razor blade. Yeah, baby- I’m using tools that you can’t even bring into the Courthouse.

I went home for dinner and found a package from dear-old-dad on the front steps. A plastic TLC Life Lessons figurine entitled "Know when to not do-it-yourself." He features two missing hands and a saw on the ground beside him. Gee, thanks, pop. The wife laughed for a good twenty minutes and put it on the mantle.

We then made our last supply run. We were talking about how I was going to put a door on the Harry Potter room (a small room under the stairs) for the girls, when my bride remarked on how she might like to use it for storage. This upset my eldest (who had been planning to use this space as an Abby-free reading zone) a great deal. I tried to comfort her.

“Don’t worry, sweetie, the door is kind of small. If mommy tries to use it she’ll get stuck like Pooh-bear in the rabbit hole.” My little girl started beaming. I glanced back at my wife.

Oh. Dear. God. That did not go over well. It was explained to me later.

“So, you sell me out to the kids, and you talk about how my big fat ass will get stuck in the doorway,” she whispered through gritted teeth.

“No, I said you’d get stuck like Pooh-bear.”

“Pooh-bear got his big fat ass stuck after eating too much honey. They had to starve him to get him out. So, how big do you think my ass is? Huh?

This was it. I was going to die. Better try something, or it’s a closed-casket for me. “Oh. Um. Well. Errrr. Well, Pooh got stuck because he was a bear going into a rabbit hole. If he went into a bear hole, he would have been fine. See, the space under the stairs is kid-sized, but you are adult-sized, so you’ll get stuck!” I scooted as far away as I could.

“Pooh got stuck because he had a big ass! Never tease a woman about her age, or her weight. Not. Funny.”

I may be celibate, but at least I’m alive.

Total costs: $1,500

4 Comments:

At 12:07 PM, Blogger Undercover Mother said...

You're only alive because you haven't completed the low-cost labor portion of the renovations yet.

By the time you're done, we'll be 60. So that alone saved you.

But that alone.

 
At 7:45 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

So Bowpicker would cancel out the fact that I am the acting HR director and get me the deluxe tour? How about something else ? or must it be fish? And was this on a Friday? I thought you were only catholic by proxy, and only sort of.....

 
At 9:52 PM, Blogger Tom said...

You were mentioned! You get the deluxe tour not BECAUSE you are the HR director, but BECAUSE of who you are...

The acting HR director.

 
At 4:33 PM, Blogger Miss Sassy said...

How did you manage to make a redhead smile and another fume with the exact same comment??
You're so special I just want to pet your head and call you pretty.

 

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