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Remodeling
Your House
by
Peary Perry | |
Have you ever seen one of those charts that show you what certain stressful situations
do to you and to your body? Things like the death of someone close, losing your
job, a terminal illness of some sort. Well, I haven’t seen one of these in several
years, but I’d bet remodeling your house while living in it has to rank right
up there with the worst of them.
Moving into another house can’t be this
bad. Moving into a tent can’t be this bad. Moving to Iraq can’t be this bad. Moving
into your mother-in-laws house can’t be this bad…Well… we might rethink that one…
Moving somewhere else at least affords you the opportunity to throw something
away if you don’t want to take it with you. Staying in the house does not give
you this option. You keep everything, because…well, because you’re still in the
same house and you might need whatever it is that you’d be inclined to throw away.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve never used the item or only used it once…it must stay.
It’s an unwritten law of some sort. So, nothing goes.
I think this is
the third house we’ve remodeled in our 35 years together. We always vowed never
to do another one, but somehow we forget what we said. This must be a indication
of old age or stupidity, I can’t figure out which one. I’m hiding out here in
our guest house, 800 square feet of stuff, a bed, a couch and two dogs. Did I
mention we got another dog? Just what we needed. Our youngest son bought this
beautiful Golden Retriever, but he forgot that he was 28 years old with a active
lifestyle and a dog is a 24/7 type of living breathing, eating, pooping animal.
Not really a problem, I just like to grip about things in general.
Back
to the project. I guess we’re fortunate to have someplace to hang out while the
workers work. We don’t have to be in their way while they do whatever it is they
are going to do. I don’t really know exactly what it is that we’re doing, but
a major clue should have been that a group of movers came yesterday and moved
all of the furniture out into the garage. Everything in the cabinets and closets
is either in boxes or stuck out here with the dogs and me. Then some delivery
guys in a really big truck showed up from some plumbing supply company and loaded
God knows what into the remaining space in the garage. Looks like we’re getting
new toilets, sinks and who knows what else?
I didn’t see anything wrong
with our current toilets or sinks but then mine is not to reason why, just pay
the bills and die. Is it possible to wear out a toilet? I guess so, but I haven’t
ever thought about it. I asked my lovely bride about it and she merely told me….”We’re
updating the house.” What does this mean? I mean this must be one of those women/men
things. Men don’t look at their toilets and think….”You know those could use updating.”
Nope men are just happy to have one that will flush when you pull on the lever
and the stuff goes away without overflowing and destroying the bathroom floor.
My wife and I have a democratic marriage. I make the money and she spends
it. I tend to stay away from her when she’s in one of these… what I call ‘nesting’
modes. I find a place to hide and just try to stay invisible. Nothing I could
do at this time would do any good, so I just make myself scarce and will probably
get a lot of writing in over the next couple of months. Men should never get involved
in any kind of remodeling since we don’t have the genes and inherent ability to
do it properly. Most of us can’t figure out how to match sinks with faucets and
tile with carpet and flooring. Men who think there isn’t anything wrong with wearing
a striped shirt with plaid pants cannot be trusted to make major decorating decisions.
We need to step out of this process and leave this to women who have thousands
of years of experience in decorating and remodeling.
To prove my point,
look at military camps over the centuries, you ever see a tent that was designer
inspired? I don’t think so. Look around the next time you go to some social function,
the guys standing over there with a really bad tie and shirt combination or some
other guy who needs to rethink his entire wardrobe is probably single or his wife
is out of town.
So, here I am sitting at this computer writing more than
I can think of so I can stay out of the way for the next couple of months. Perhaps
this is the time to knock out that great American novel….if only I could find
my notes, which are in one of those boxes out in the garage. I’ll just have to
start from scratch; I’m not going out there. | | |
