Fun with contractors, day eight million.
The patio is done, save for a finishing touch or two, and only a month after our optimistic contractor informed us that the job could be done in a weekend. We added a small job–new lights in the kitchen, which also involved filling in the ridiculous boxes that the fluorescent lights had originally been set into (in the process of losing the lights themselves).
For the past week, we’ve had the new lights up, and gaping holes in the ceiling. On Saturday, contractor dude floated the drywall patches and announced that he would be back today to sand and add the texture and that, we were told, would be It. This project would be done.
I ran into one of our faculty this morning — one of the Arabic faculty, who, under orders from the Drill Seargant whose class boot camp I audited last year, now speak to me only in Arabic, and was lamenting the war-zone state that the kitchen has been in for the past month. “But tonight,” I said, “It shoud all be done, insha’allah.”
“Insha’allah,” she echoed. If God wills.
This is what you do in the Middle East — everything in the future depends on God willing it. Doesn’t matter whether you’re Muslim, Jewish, Christian or atheist–it’s become as much of a cultural expression as a religious one.
Sadly for me, God did not will the completion of our kitchen this evening. And how.
While I was on my way home from work, Ray phone, asking whether I had seen the contractor’s manual sander (I hadn’t). I got home to discover Ray rummaging through the pantry, still looking for it. At this point, however, contractor dude had already resorted to the circular sander, and a fine layer … OK, a rather thick layer of fine powder … covered the floor, the counters, and every other imaginable surface.
Ray and I went outside to get away from the flying powder, and we collected the remaining detritus from the construction and got it out to the curb for pickup tomorrow. We came back to discovered contractor dude at the back door.
“Um, the spray texture kind of got on some stuff,” he said, a bit sheepish.
We went inside to discovered that the stuff to which he was referring was everything in the kitchen. The stainless steel fridge. The serving bowls that I had put on the counter to get them out of the way. The limes in the bowl. The antique brass coffeepot I bought in Riyadh. The brass lantern I bought in Morocco. The laquer bowl I bought in Zanzibar. The floor. The cabinets. The wine glasses hanging under the cabinets. The bags of chips on top of the refrigerator. The chips-and-salsa bowls on top of the refrigerator. The postcards affixed to the side of the fridge (along with a couple of takeout menus). All of it was splattered with white orange peel texture spray.
For the next hour, we scrubbed. I pulled out the FloorMate and had to hose it out twice–top and bottom–in the yard. I managed to keep from making caustic comments during the process, but those who know me know that when I’m upset, I snap, but when I’m truly angry I fall completely silent.
At some point, I had the presence of mind to order a pizza so that we would have food when we were finished with the process. Then contractor dude discovered a problem with one of the drywall patches. Yes, folks, that’s right. We’re going to have to do this again tomorrow.
So, on Wednesday, when I’m in jail for physically assaulting our contractor with the business end of a ShopVac, act surprised, ok? :angry:
