Friday, November 10, 2006

Tadpod's Eleven

Yes, at one point during the carpet installation, there were 11 people in my house. Picture pandemonium, with many people asking me questions simultaneously, and me running around to different parts of the house trying to answer them.

Flashback music, with Martin Short doing the swirly hands as we go back to the morning. The Head Installer Guy for Flooring of Any Type and Color assured me that sometimes the phone line can be affected if they “tweak” the wire in the wall and they can just “back out the staple” and it will be fine. He said that he would ask Carpet Guy if he would mind having a look when he comes to install the rug, even though it wasn’t his crew in the kitchen. Otherwise, he would ask the wood crew to come and remedy the problem, as they installed the floor. Fine.

Carpet guys arrive and they speak as perfect English as you would expect from guys who lay carpet. I’m thrilled. They are nice and they are funny. They cannot find what is wrong with the phone, so they call the HIGFFOATAC and he says he will send “Eddie” from the original crew. Fine.

Carpet guys are fast and efficient and make good jokes. I needed carpet guys or I would have to take a “calm me down” pill. Then one of them says, “You’ve got company” and my Dad and his wife walk in. My Dad is, to use a phrase from Praxia, ‘starvin like Marvin’, but he is going to play the martyr and says he will “wait”. He goes in to inspect the phone line. I won’t even go into how that went, so I’ll let your imaginations go “doodley doo” with Martin Short. I finally herd him and his wife, A. to the room with all of my remaining furniture and we’re sitting among the couches, tables, lamps, etc. like the middle of the scratch and dent department of Seaman’s. Finally, I ask one of the carpet guys if they know when Eddie is coming, and the doorbell rings. Only it’s not Eddie, it’s my cousins J and L, who were off from work today and made the very poor lack of judgment to drop by and see how this was going. J went to the phone line, and he and carpet guy pulled off the baseboard and the wall trim and out popped this big, CUT wire. No wonder I had no dial tone. Apparently, the guys yesterday skill sawed through and didn’t worry about what was behind it. I asked if it could be fixed and he said he was sure Eddie could fix it.

Meantime, J takes the door off going to the basement that wouldn’t open all the way and asks me if I have a plane. When I said, “I think I do” I could see his face fall, because he thought he might have made a quick getaway. So I produce the plane, and it looks like, as J said, that it was used in the building of the Ark. He futzed around with that door for a long time, with Dad giving his helpful hints, which are always good because he did build our house. Then, a green van pulls up and it’s Eddie and the two guys from yesterday and another younger, sullen kid who did not smile once the entire day, and was pissed off that they had to come and fix this bitch’s phone (my interpretation). So now the count is eleven. Carpet guys doing their thing. Four guys in the doorway trying to fix the phone wire. J in the other doorway, trying to rehang the door. A was smart. She grabbed her purse and said, “I’ll be right back, I’m going to Chino’s” which is “Chico’s” a clothing store. Before she left, she got my father to eat a liverwurst sandwich before he fainted.

Then Eddie comes to me and says, “Can you do without your phone for a couple of days?” and I said, “Why?” and he said, “Because we can’t repair the wire and have to get a new one” and I said, “Hey, guess what? There’s a Radio Shack a block away. Can’t you get the wire now and fix it?” And he had the same look on his face that J had when I told him I actually had a plane.

They sent mini-me to the store to get the materials, and were able to do the job, from the basement, with drills, cursing, and at one point, a lit match. But we had ignition. And J finally, after many tries with that rusty, dull plane was able to get the door to open all the way. They hot-footed it out of here to try to enjoy the rest of the day. The carpet guys took off. A came back with a lot of shopping bags from Chico’s, refreshed from retail therapy. And then there were three. We went down to Fratello’s to grab a bite, relax and say goodbye, because they are headed to Florida tomorrow.

This was a BLOG, sorry it was so long. Believe me, it could have been longer had I told you everything, but you are too much of a gentle reader for that.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Get a "hendy men"

So, day one of the two day floor installation from hell has begun, not on time, but one hour early…and after I begged the scheduler for the later time. But, that’s not bad so far. So, two people with very limited English, I think they are Russian, barged in, have left the door open in the rain now for quite some time, and they basically told me to “don’t worry” in broken English and snarled. Of course, the “don’t worry” was premature because I soon heard, “Please to come here” and he said he could not do the transition between the kitchen and the dining room threshold because the kitchen floor was higher and I should get a “hendy men” to make a special piece. No, no, no…no more “hendy men”!

I made them call the store, because I couldn’t possibly be the only person in the universe with such a mind-boggling floor situation. He eventually told me that the carpet guys, who were coming tomorrow, would bring the correct piece. (Sigh) So I won’t have my floor all done today. And I am not too happy with the prospect of them not having known that….what else don’t they know?

Oh, the freaking skill saw is screaming in the kitchen…I am so afraid to look.

Well, they have left and this is the scorecard. Chopped ends of the floor and no threshold piece. Piece is now on order, no date for installation set. The phone jack in the kitchen is dead. I believe they may have shot the nail gun through the wall wire when they reattached the baseboard. I am now operating from the phone line in the bedroom, which is fine.

And one last thing. They reattached the door from the kitchen to the basement and now it only opens halfway because "floor too high". You know, with the floor shouldn't be the only thing that's high, at this point. And of course, "we don't fix". I could picture myself using a lubricant to get through the door while holding a basket full of laundry. The horror. The horror.

Carpet-bombing guys are scheduled for tomorrow.

Monday, November 06, 2006

The File Cabinet



Z-line, makers of the light cherry wood file cabinet extraordinaire, should have all their teeth rot and fall out while they laughingly pack up the six trillion pieces, hardware, and LAME instructions for other unsuspecting buyers.

Yes, there was an injury. Some of the holes were not hewn correctly so I had to lean with my entire weight to get the cam screws screwed in, and during one of those sweating, grunting forays that sounded like I was wrestling with a Yeti, the phillip’s head slipped and went directly into my pinky. Wee, wee, wee, all the way home.



So, all told, with major parts of the directions, um, left out? , I figured the damn thing out in under 4 hours, but close to it. There’s four hours I will never get back. Sort of funny that M came over after that and we went to see “Running With Scissors” with my big band-aid on my finger.

So I did it. I hate those blood-sucking, sadistic Cantonese at Z-line, and I now know they truly hate us.