Plumber arrived. Contradicted plumber from night before, said he’d do something else. Then remembered he needed something “ASAP” from the office, and would be back in five minutes. Disappeared for an hour. Returned and removed water heater, began looking for leak. Found leak in pipe that runs through concrete. Made shamefully obvious attempt to upsell to new water heater. Finally convinced her she needed one. Plumber then very slowly worked away at something or other back there. Took a long lunch. Came back and tried an obvious upsell to a $10,000 repipe job. Was asked if new water heater would be Energy Star compliant. Didn’t know, and didn’t know model of heater. Finally gave up model number. Investigation showed it was not Energy Star compliant. Job unfinished at end of day. No hot water available, and no single-tap faucets can be used, so only one sink available for 5 people. Says he will be back at “8 or 9” tomorrow. Leaves old water heater on porch because not enough room in back of truck.
Carpet guy arrives, is efficient. Cuts out dead carpet, sets up drying mechanism for overnight. House now sounds like the inside of a jetliner at cruising speed. Cat locked in study cowering.
Decision made to cancel new water heater first thing a.m. Decision also made personally by me to make this plumber guy’s life a kind of hell on earth if he does not finish job by C.O.B. tomorrow. Plans include looming over him Alpha Male style, telling him he’s ruined Thanksgiving for my extended family, telling him he made the old lady sick, calling the office and telling them he’s smoking speed.
Insert people on the internet telling me I’m an asshole who doesn’t understand things and is worthy of his own suicide in the middle of this. Also other interpersonal angst I am not at liberty tot disclose. Also rising sensation of irritability, fear, and depression from NFB rebound. Also, mom slowly losing her shit because household stress. Also, concrete drilling noises. Also, no running water for 4 hours (1 flush per toilet).
Small respite at D’s. Only had one self-hatred attack. Good to be outside. Still feel like I wish I could leave town or everyone else would, knowing this is irrational.
Now waiting. Supposed to do build at 2230. It is now 2255 and other person has not showed or answered her cellphone. For about the fifth time.
Be My Blog 
Ug.
We’re building a shed for my wife’s kiln. The guy who is doing the work is a really good guy. I’m pretty certain he is not a drug addict. If he’s an acoholic he waits until well after work and doesn’t come in smelling like the night before.
After a day of work my wife says “He’s really disorganized.” I told her that disorganized was good… because we found a guy who was willing to build a shed in the middle of November. There had to be some explanation. If he wasn’t disorganized he’d be building houses. Hopefully he is not batshit crazy.
“Being pecked to death by ducks” is one of my favorite phrases.
LikeLike
Hate the upsell schpiel. They do it in a way that you end up feeling dumb no matter what.
LikeLike
Life as a Jacques Tati Film
Or:
As the guy says at the end of Bridge Over the River Kwai: “Madness! Madness!”
Mike
LikeLike
Re: Life as a Jacques Tati Film
That’s what I’ll do this weekend.. build a gigantic, pointless bridge! THANK YOU!
LikeLike
Re: Life as a Jacques Tati Film
While whistling:
The Colonel Bogey March, I should hope.
If that’s what that piece is called… I just remember in high school marching band, we accidently whistled it while going through the judging area instead of playing our actual competition march and still won 2nd place…
Mike
LikeLike
Re: Life as a Jacques Tati Film
CAPTAIN QUEEG IS IN THE HOUSE
You have an eccentricity of putting lots of nonbreaking spaces in your replies… why’s that?
I ask because it makes it very hard to read until I go to the actual page.
LikeLike
Re: Life as a Jacques Tati Film
I’m sorry:
I didn’t realize the ampersands and all were carrying over into the e-mail versions. I’ll try to remember to leave them out.
It’s just I always like to indent five spaces at the beginning of a paragraph, and that little bit of code is the only way I’ve found that’ll sometimes work on “the web.” It’s the anal-retentive idiot in me, I think, mostly… 🙂
Mike
LikeLike
Re: Life as a Jacques Tati Film
aaah okay. I think you can get the same result by enclosing everything in the tag <pre> and then typing as you want it to show up, or in the livejournal checking the box that says “don’t auto-format” may work.
LikeLike
Re: Life as a Jacques Tati Film
Oooo: This {pre} tag is interesting-- I like how it changes everything into Courier, too. I'm gonna hafta experiment with this... The "don't auto-format" thing, though, that starts getting the paragraphs all wonky. I only want to be a _little_ eccentric, after all... MikeLikeLike
A friend of mine calls it ‘being nibbled to death by weasels’. I shall forward this alternate to him.
LikeLike