A couple of days ago, I wrote about the status of my garage and mentioned that the electrician was supposed to come and garage door delivered on Thursday. Well, here it is: Thursday. I paused here to check to make sure it was Thursday. Considering how easily I lose track of the days, it could have been any day, but yes. It is Thursday. But no garage door and no electrician.
Apparently, because of The Bob, the lumberyard has no delivery people available. (From what I gather, the delivery guy is making twice on unemployment than he would make if he were working.) And the electricians — who knows. Maybe they want a four-day weekend for Memorial Day. (Yep, Monday is Memorial Day. I had to check that, too. Seems way too early to me.) A greater problem is that all the electricians in the area are backed up for months. The contractor had to beg them to come. It used to be that he’d do the work himself and then have the an electrician check his work before the inspector came, but the new code enforcer has vetoed that. (Weird that a such a small town has both a code enforcer and a building inspector checking everything and each other.)
So, we’ll see. The contractor is planning on being here most of next week, and if no emergency jobs come his way, maybe part of the following week. It should be interesting to see how many of the started jobs they can finish in that time — not just the garage, but the basement (fixing the cracks in the walls and painting them, concreting the last section of the floor, installing a sump pump), as well as myriad less vital jobs.
I’m in a dilemma here — he’s worried about having no other jobs lined up (he’s usually far behind, but too many people have cancelled out on him, not wanting non-family members around the house) so I’d like to send good thoughts and best wishes his way, but I am also aware that if he has no other jobs to do, he’s more or less stuck with me. Not that he minds doing my work; I think it’s more that I’m patient and forgiving of delays as well as affording him a bit of an emergency cushion, so if he finishes my work, there goes the cushion. But from my point of view — how wonderful it would be to have a garage, a basement rather than a dungeon, a yard that isn’t cluttered with building materials. (Though I have a hunch the things will be there long after the garage is done. The lumber yard overestimated some of the materials and underestimated others, so they will have to come pick up a bunch of leftover stuff, and since they don’t have a driver . . . Well, there’s not much I can do about it.)
Despite The Bob I’m not at all worried about having the workers here, even if they do some jobs in the house (after all this time, the contractor is like family). Besides, it will be good to have people around. I really am too much alone.
I did have an amusing thought today — with all the contact tracers that are supposed to be hired at an average salary of $65,000 a year, I wondered what it would be like if I applied. Even though normally it would an intrusion into people’s lives, it wouldn’t matter to me or anyone I know. I mean, I hardly ever see anyone, and I hardly ever go anywhere, and if I do, I forget my phone half the time. So they’d be paying me for nothing. (Just a joke. There’s no way I’d ever do something like that. There’s too much surveillance now.)
For weeks now, the plan has been for them to do my garage “next week.” Maybe next week, “next week” will actually get here.
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.
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