George Preston wanted nothing more than to finish the library in his 1914 Tutor-style home. He fully intended to spend the rest of his retirement there, reading the books he'd been buying all his life. He had spent the last three years working toward that goal, and he was within days of being able to sit down in the comfortable recliner by the fireplace with a leather-bound copy of Moby Dick. Or so he thought.

The old den had been paneled in cherry, and he had carefully removed the boards―all three hundred and fifty-two of them. He had numbered the back of each one, and had stripped, refinished, and replaced them all. He had been as meticulous in his work as the original carpenters had been. Everything still fit perfectly. Then he'd built matching floor-to-ceiling shelves on two walls, and a ladder that rolled on a track so that all the books would be within reach. The library was almost done, and it was gorgeous. There was just one problem.

There was an empty space on one wall, with accompanying screw holes, where the old thermostat used to be. There was no way to hide it. He hadn't been able to completely get rid of the outline, or to fill the holes, and they were gnawing at his sanity. He had tried, and failed, to finish a new wooden panel to match the old. He'd considered hanging a picture over the mess, but it would not have been at the ideal height, and he would have had to put yet another hole in the paneling for the picture hook. Instead, he decided to find an antique replacement thermostat that would authentically restore the room to its original glory, without adding any new holes to the lovely paneled walls.

After considerable research, he discovered that what he needed was a Minneapolis Model 55 Heat Regulator. They were the first clock thermostats ever made, with a spring-wound, seven-jewel movement that was, in its day, one of the best timepieces available. He wouldn't need the thermostat itself to work―he wasn't going to hook it up to the furnace―but George decided that he wanted the clock to keep good time.

Obviously, neither the big-box home improvement stores nor the neighborhood hardware stores would be able to help him. George spent evenings on the internet, and weekends at flea markets, trying to track down a Model 55 in good condition. Model 77 thermostats were relatively plentiful, and once he found a Model 57 in the bottom of a junk box at a home fixture recycling store, but they weren't quite the right size to perfectly fit in to the outline that remained etched on the paneling in his library. Although the library was all but done, George found that he couldn't stand to spend time there. His attention was always drawn to the gap on the far wall. It mocked him.

He redoubled his efforts to find a Minneapolis Model 55. The search for the thermostat became George's grail quest, and it started to consume him. He took to driving around in older sections of the city, looking for houses under renovation. He made a pest of himself with every antique dealer in the five-county metropolitan area. Twice he bid more than he could afford in auctions on eBay; fortunately for his finances, he lost to antique dealers on both occasions.

George realized that his search was rapidly becoming an obsession, but he could not help himself. Although he was not a religious man (he hadn't set foot in a church in years), he decided as a last resort to offer a prayer to the patron saint of lost causes. As he entered the local church, desperate and depressed, he was dumbfounded to see that his prayers had been answered before they had even been offered: There was a Minneapolis Model 55 on the wall of the vestibule, and in exquisite condition!

George told his story to the elders of the church, and all agreed that they'd witnessed a miracle of sorts. A deal was quickly struck: George would finance the installation of a state-of-the-art electronic thermostat, and the church would give him the Model 55 in return. At long last, his quest was over.

After meticulously cleaning and polishing the antique thermostat, George carefully attached it to the wall, using the original screw holes. He wound the clock with the big brass key. He then eased himself into the recliner by the fireplace, and smiled as he finally opened the cover of Moby Dick. As he began to read in the quiet of the library, he became aware of the ticking of the clock.

Only then did he realize that it was the most irritating sound that he had ever heard.

My cat is really the one to blame for the whole plumbing disaster. I could have just applied one of my usual quick-fixes if her litter box hadn‘t been kept in the bathroom. After all, most problems can be solved through a combination of ingenuity and willful ignorance. Car engine making odd noises? Turn up the radio. Cracks defacing a load-bearing wall? Hang a picture over them. Shower dripping loudly enough to prevent any hope of falling sleep? Close the bathroom door at night.

Unfortunately, keeping the door closed meant my cat couldn’t get to her litter box. As everyone knows, cats are the very model of patience and understanding, but she did not approve of my solution. I doubt it mattered whether she actually had to use the facilities; she just wanted the option to be available at all times. Her displeasure was expressed through a long night of intermittent yowling and one carpet surprise for me to find the next morning.

I could have moved the litter box, but in my studio apartment the only other choices were the bedroom or the kitchen. Since I cook in the kitchen and eat in the bedroom, having a feline toilet in either seemed unsanitary even by my standards. Getting rid of the cat was never an option; she would not have allowed it. My finances and my pride kept me from calling in a plumber for what I was sure would be a simple fix. After briefly weighing the possibility of sleeping in earmuffs, I broke down and got to work.

Armed only with a few mismatched tools, I bravely ventured into the shower stall. I had read in my rarely touched copy of "Home Repair for Dummies" that most drips are caused by an easily replaceable washer. Within thirty minutes the showerhead had been disassembled with a minimum of profanity and flesh wounds, and I even managed to find a washer inside. Bursting with pride in my handyman skills, I drove over to my local hardware store. It is one of those behemoths with 100,000 square feet of floor space but only three employees, all of whom are always busy helping other customers. Twenty minutes of aimless wandering finally brought me to the Plumbing Supplies aisle, and it only took an hour to find a new washer that bore a passing resemblance to the one I was replacing. Mission accomplished.

Or not. It took a bit longer than expected to re-assemble the showerhead with its nice new washer, but I still felt an immense satisfaction when done. The only thing that tempered my pride was the steady stream of drips coming from the showerhead. If truth be told, the dripping was noticeably faster than when I started.

Time to bring out the big guns. A thorough reading through my never before opened copy of “The Idiot’s Guide to Plumbing” indicated the problem wasn’t the showerhead, but something called a valve stem. My first repair attempt had more than tripled my lifetime total of plumbing experience, so I was confident I could tackle this new task. The book certainly made it seem simple enough.

It was in fact remarkably easy to remove the valve stem. A later reading of the somewhat soggy instructions revealed that they had indeed mentioned turning off the water supply first. Anyone could have overlooked that step, though; the authors really should have stressed its importance. Granted, there was a big red star next to that line and the text was in bold, but that could have meant anything. Getting the valve stem back in place against the jet of water shooting from the wall proved impossible, leading to a frantic search for the main water supply shutoff. By law, those things should be labeled, and a map to their location clearly posted in all homes.

As I waded back across the bedroom, I wearily contemplated another search through my bookshelves. A few years back one of my less subtle friends had given me a massive tome entitled something along the lines of “Home Repair Tips for Brain-Dead Chimps”. Undoubtedly it held the answers to all of my plumping problems, but I was already tired, soaked, and more than a little discouraged.

That was when it hit me. I was trying to fix the wrong problem. My original solution had been correct all along. Keep the door shut at night; problem solved. All I had to do was take care of the cat’s concerns, and the solution there was simplicity itself. Cut a little square out of the bathroom door, attach a couple of hinges to it, and presto, instant cat door. I would have soundproofing against the insomnia-inducing drips, and the cat would have around the clock access to her litter box. Everyone would be happy, and all it would take was a bit of carpentry.

And how hard could that be?

Removing the tub from a bathroom is an arduous and painful task that is as close as your house can come to giving birth. I didn't realize this last year when we decided to change our bathtub. I wanted to keep the house undamaged in the procedure, but after a several hours of labor, I just wanted the intractable thing out.

When homes are built, the bathtub is not put into the house. Quite the opposite, the bathtub is placed in the empty lot and then a house is built around it. This is a sadistic conspiracy of home builders. The wooden framing is exactly the size of the tub, so already it can't even wiggle a millimeter. Then tile or drywall is added around the tub, so it cannot begin to move without first vigorously applying a sledgehammer to the walls. At first I thought I'd cleverly just remove a little section of the wall by the tub, just enough to get it going, then later I'd patch over it. But I ended up removing more and more of the walls as the day progressed, until I had carved a swath of destruction across the entire room.

To actually get the tub moving out of its wooden womb, I needed either a car jack or several large sweaty men. I opted for the car jack, because I was almost out of beer and wasn't about to share. The reason you need the hydraulic car-lifting power of a jack is that tubs are made out of cast iron, another sadistic joke perpetrated by home builders. Your entire home is built out of wood, and all of your heavy furniture does just fine sitting on it, but for this one tiny space where you stand naked for a few minutes with water spraying on you, they felt you needed the protection of 3/4" steel that could deflect an artillery shell. Your typical home tub therefore weighs more than your SUV, so it's going to take the SUV's jack to get it moving.

With the pipes disconnected and a tiny patch of drywall around the tub carefully and lovingly removed, I was ready to induce labor on this 300lb baby. There is a cold chill of excitement you'll feel when you insert a hydraulic jack between your cast iron tub and the framing boards that support your house. After a dozen pumps on the jack's handle, enough pressure was on the tub to make it lurch one tenth of an inch from its 50 year resting place, and it produced such a crack of sound that I was certain the tub had stayed put and the bracing wall moved off the house's foundation in the other direction. But after checking that the ceiling was still properly supported and that my home insurance payments were up to date, I continued inching the tub out of its place. For every inch it moved, I tried turning or twisting it to slide it up and out, pushing and straining, but the drywall always had it pinned in place. So I would bludgeon out more of my beautiful walls with a knife and sledgehammer, and pump the jack further.

It took six hours of heavy labor to get that breech baby out into the open. In that time I was also forced to removed the toilet and the vanity to clear a path, several floor tiles are now adorned with attractive gouges along their length, and I acquired a few scars whose origins I will have to lie about to my friends. Bulk trash pickup in our area is every four weeks, and the following day was scheduled to be a pickup day. It was 1:30am when I finally deposited that crusty, scarred derelict on my front curb. That demon child was NOT spending a month in my garage waiting for the next bulk pickup day.

It began with the hole in the wall in my son's room.

We had bought a century home, and were going to fix it up. My four year old said that we needed to start with the hole in his wall. I agreed because my wife pointed out that the draft that came through the hole wasn’t healthy, and she was tired of replacing the crayons that disappeared through the cracks in the lathes.

The book said it was an easy fix. My wife said I should hire someone to do it. My son told me to be careful of the monster in the wall. The first step was to remove the loose plaster. I carefully tapped at the wall. Nothing happened. I tapped a bit harder and heard a bit of rattling. I tapped a lot harder and a chunk of plaster fell to the floor with a bang. Easy. Calculating the angle and force carefully I banged on the plaster at the edge of the remaining loose part. What sounded like a bag of marbles rattled inside the wall. Then slowly the entire wall leaned out and crashed down on top of me. Muttering loudly, I struggled out through the rubble. I think the entire house shook on its foundations.

I brushed the dust from my eyes to the sound of falling marbles, but it didn’t stop. Then to my horror one wall after another collapsed into rubble and dust. A horrible buzzing noise grew with each crash. I saw the bee’s nest just as the plaster from the ceiling fell on me. The door was jammed by fallen plaster. There was no escape for the bees or for me. As the bees began their attack, my eye fell on the window. With a wild yell I threw myself out of the room onto the porch roof. Unfortunately, my momentum carried me over the edge. A wild grab at the eaves slowed my fall briefly before I landed in the roses tangled with eaves trough. A black cloud of bees flew out the window, but no matter how I struggled I was trapped. Miraculously the swarm flew off leaving me swearing and cursing at my rapidly swelling stings. My son looked at me with wide eyes, and his mother’s hands over his ears. She took him up to her mother’s until my renovations were done. My vocabulary had made a deep impression on him, and she didn’t want him learning any more new words.

After waving goodbye, I let the smile drop from my face and went back into the house to do battle. The first was a shower to wash the dust away, and a long soak to ease the bruises. I stood and let the water run off me carrying the dust of my defeat away. All the dust plugged the drain. So wrapped in my towel I wielded the plunger. Finally with a bang and a gurgle the water drained away. Shutting the water off, I got dressed. Out in the shed I found a can of insecticide. Pushing the door open to the creak of strained hinges I found it wasn’t needed. The monsters had all left, leaving the sticky mass of wax and honey to mix with the rubble. It was shovel and wheel barrow time.

By nightfall I had the roomed cleared, but the dust was everywhere. Tomorrow I would have to clean. I needed another shower to wash away the newest layer of dust and ease the muscles that ached from moving two tons of plaster, honey and dust.

I stood in the shower bowed under the pounding water, completely unprepared for the tub to drop through the floor, landing on the dinning room table and smashing it to splinters. Yet again the house shook to its foundation. All around me I was hearing those damned marbles. Then the walls began falling. All through the house tons of plaster crashed to the floor - each crash starting the next. I lay stunned in the bath, muddy water dripping on my head. I imagined geologists faraway looking at their machines and pointing out the earthquake centered on my house. Finally it stopped.

The air was thick with dust. I sneezed, then again, and again. With the dust out of my nose, I could smell the smoke. My ears still hissed and popped from the after effects of the tremendous noise. Well, that’s what I thought until the explosion in the kitchen. Only the thick steel of the tub saved me from the flying fragments of century home. As flames climbed up the walls, I howled and threw myself out of the tub and staggered out of the house.

Standing naked and bloody on the lawn I watched the house burn.

That’s when the neighbours phoned the police.

According to their friends, J&J’s Heating/AC Repair was the best choice for fixing all heating and air conditioning problems. Elmer and Nora felt confident that this company would be able to solve the malfunction that they’d been experiencing with their system for nearly a year.

They sat casually in their living room shouting out bids at the Price is Right show while J&J’s repairman worked on the unit just outside the house.

Suddenly there was a loud pop and, what sounded like, a man’s scream. In less than a minute, the repairman burst through their front door and shouted, “Get yerselves out NOW! I’ve done caught yer house on fires!”

Nora and Elmer paid immediate heed to the repairman’s alarm, and prepared for evacuation.

Nora had been lame in one leg since birth, and had been bound to using a walker for years. However, to save time, she gave her slow moving crutch a fling and fell into a fast military low crawl out the front door. Elmer was hot on her back feet.

Arriving to safety across the street Nora thrust herself, with bloody elbows and skinned knees, breathlessly onto the soft grass. When she caught her breath, she turned back to look for her beloved Elmer. To her horror he was nowhere to be seen.

Elmer had made it as far as the threshold then came to an abrupt stop. He let out a loud shriek and hollered, “I ain’t leavin’ this house without my guitar!” Nora, in her emotionally charged plight, hadn’t noticed that Elmer had turned tail.

The repairman had tried to grab for the back of Elmer’s shirt collar in an effort stop him from heading back into the eye of the flame. Elmer knocked him away and leaped off in a fast dart. There was no chance of anyone being able to catch him.

Elmer quickly realized that the billowing black smoke was going to be a problem. He tucked his nose into the top of his shirt and began wildly flailing his arms in circular motions to fan away the smoke. He felt his way down the hallway to the room where he kept his beloved mint condition Gibson guitar – circa 1957. He fell to his knees when he reached the closet where it was stored. He was holding his breath and was completely blinded at this point as he felt through his closet. Hot ashes singed his arm hairs as he frantically felt around for the shape of his Gibson’s case. Mercifully, his fingers found the handle. He latched onto it and sprinted out of the house with a speed so fast that he felt could only be credited to the Lord.

Elmer collapsed just outside of the front porch coughing and wheezing, still not letting go of the handle to his guitar case. He looked like a discarded rag doll thrown askew onto the lawn.

News traveled quickly of the fire. Elmer and Nora’s two grown daughters arrived quickly at the scene. They both ran to give their crippled momma a hug. Then, almost at the same time, they caught sight of their dad on the lawn. They looked at one another and rolled their eyes. Without words they calmly walked over to him, each took a leg and pulled him out of the way of the firefighters. The guitar remained tightly in his grasp.

Nora sat watching in horror as the flames engulfed their house. She sobbed hysterically as the firefighters put it out. Everything they owned was gone.

J&J’s repairman had been walking repeatedly around the house in an aimless fashion ever since he’d set their house aflame. It was apparent he was wishing real hard that he could make some sense of where he’d gone wrong. People would later describe him as looking downright pitiful.

As the fire trucks pulled away, he hesitantly walked over to Elmer’s steaming body. “Sir, I’m real sorry ‘bout what I done to yer house. It woulda happened no matters what. It was a accident jest waitin’ to happens.”

Elmer squinched one smoke sore eye open enough to look up at the simple repairman. “It’s OK. We don’t blame you. Don’t you worry yourself about any of this for one second.”

“You really mean that?!” the repairman asked, scratching his head.

“Of course, I do. Accidents happen. Nora and I will be just fine. We have lots of insurance and lots of family. All is well.” Elmer calmly explained. He turned his head and smiled at his precious wife of 46 years. She smiled back sweetly, expressing her agreement.

***********

The fiery event was featured in the local newspaper the following day. It read, “Man Attacks Repairman with Antique Guitar”.

I’ve always thought Mr. Emmonds a bit strange and I found out just how right I was when I asked him to fix my stove…

Let me start from the beginning.

Mr. Emmonds is the town’s general repairman. He lives in a finely built log cabin on the outskirts of town. Strange noises can often be heard coming from his house late at night. Everyone is convinced that he sleeps with all manner of wildlife in his cabin, but he’d always paid his store tab on time, so I could care less what he does in private. I mean this is West Virginia.

It all started at Henry’s Bait and Tackle. That’s my store by the way, and if you’re thinking that Bait and Tackle means fishing store, well let me tell you that I don’t just sell fishing supplies. I also sell general store items like chicken feed, three-gallon cans of beans, and squirrel traps. Squirrels need Tackling too you know. Get it?

Anyway, Mr. Emmonds comes in looking like he wrestled with an electrical outlet. His normally immaculate tie and suit displayed numerous singe marks. His hair stood up in all sorts of different directions. This is distressing since he should have just come from my house where he was supposed to be fixing my stove.

“Good day to you, Mr. Podun.” He said slightly out of breath.

“What happened to you?”

Without even acknowledging that I spoke he gets right down to business. How very Mr. Emmonds-ish of him.

“Things are not going quite so well with the repair.”

“What?” I ask.

“Well, your stove has been a difficult fix, so I called in some outside help.”

“I’m not paying extra for that! And what’s wrong with it that you couldn’t fix?”

“Well. I’d rather you come over and see for yourself.” His eyes glance downward and he kind of shuffles his feet.

Mr. Emmonds is never off kilter. This must be serious.

“Hokay. Let’s go.”

It only took eight minutes to walk to my humble abode and when I opened the door…

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

The Governor could have declared the place a national disaster and the FBI probably should have arrested someone—presumably Mr. Emmonds.

A large oak desk lay in pieces on one side of the room. The curtain rods hung twisted and bent, while the curtains themselves were nowhere to be found. Burnt paper lay scattered everywhere. Several pots and pans had teeth marks—that’s right, teeth marks—and all I could do was stare, slack-jawed.

“What… what happened to my house?” I shrieked.

Mr. Emmonds cleared his voice.

“Have you ever heard of gnomes?”

“Sure. The creepy little statues you put in gardens that always look like they are watching you?”

“No. Those are garden gnomes. I’m talking about real gnomes that fix things.”

“Um.” What was I supposed to say? What do you say when someone tells you something like that? He might as well have said that he went to church with Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.

I’m sure he thought I was looking at him like he grew a second head.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“Very. As I said before, I couldn’t fix the stove myself, and I just happen to know a few gnomes who owed me a favor.”

“Are you absolutely nuts?”

Mr. Emmonds drew himself up, burnt hair and all.

“Listen here!” He yelled. “I’m not crazy!”

I put my hands up like I would to calm an outraged gorilla. Not that I’ve ever had to do that before, but I’m sure that’s how I would.

“Alright, so you hired gnomes to fix my stove?” I forced a smile and nodded my head at him.

“Yes, but the gnomes that showed up had been drinking the pond water, if you know what I mean?”

I was about to actually throw a punch at the guy when a little man, no taller than fourteen inches, walked out of the kitchen eating a raw chicken leg.

“Howdy. Henry. We fixed yer stove good we did.” He sounded like an Oompa Loompa.

“Oh… my… God.”

The tiny man chuckled.

I just stared, slack-jawed.

“We’ll getcha all setup with a new place. It Mort’s fault, truth be told. Totally drunk. He’ll be punished doncha worry.”

I just turned my head to look at Mr. Emmonds, my mouth still hanging open, in case you were wondering.

Five more gnomes came out of the kitchen just then.

I think that’s when I passed out.

When I awoke I was in my bed. All was quiet. I strolled through my house, marveling that everything was fixed and in proper order.

I still work at the Bait and Tackle, and Mr. Emmonds frequents the store quite often, but neither of us has ever talked about “that day”.

Back in 1974, my parents rented a big house in the woods that was actually two houses that were sort of pushed together in a more or less permanent way. It had two floors, and a front door that no one ever used. You could drop ten marbles, and each one would follow its own serpentine path across the warped wooden floors to other parts of the room. The previous owner was taken away to Concord State Mental Hospital, because she thought the house was haunted.

1974 was also the year that we first encountered the gypsy moth caterpillar. These hairy little creatures would defoliate trees and build large web like structures for their nests. Supposedly birds wouldn’t eat them because they tasted so bad. Companies that sold foil and repellent goop made a lot of money that year.

My father loved working on the house, and my mother equally enjoyed giving him all sort of new projects for the two of them to work on. Their most ambitious project was adding a little belfry to the roof of the house. The hope was that bats would move into the space, and perhaps take care of the caterpillars naturally. After only a month, we did begin to notice that bats were in fact living in our belfry.

Then one hot summer day, the caterpillars took action. Some scaled down the trunk; others repelled their way down on strings of invisible webs. Once grounded, they turned toward the house and began to march. I just stood there and stared while they made their way around the big hole, under the car, and straight on to the house. I called my mother to the door, who took one look at the approaching army of little hairy green caterpillars, and screamed a note that should have shattered all glass for a mile around. It even woke up Dad. By the time Dad came to the porch, the caterpillars had already started their climb up the sides of the house. My father tried to remove the little creatures with a broom, and then the hose, and eventually decided that the best thing to do would be to seal up the windows, take my mother out, and hope that she wouldn’t make a decision to “never go back into that house again”.

He took us out to the Milford Drive-In, where we stuffed ourselves with popcorn and soda-pop, and by the end of the second movie, my mother was too tired to care about the caterpillars anymore. It was too dark to see them, but you could hear the caterpillars on the roof. Not an unpleasant sound, just enough to remind you that they were still there. My mother slept on the couch, and my father and I gathered up some flashlights and headed outside to see if we could spot the caterpillars in the dark. Before we could open the door to go out, we heard a large crash like a crate falling off a truck. “Stay on the porch!” my father yelled, and went out towards the car. Through the screen, I saw my father pick up the pieces of his belfry that were lying next to the car. Out from the pieces of wood, a bat stumbled out, and after what looked like a few drunken attempts at flying, the creature did eventually take to the air and escape into the trees.

It seemed pretty clear that the caterpillars had an opinion about the belfry, about us putting it there, about the bats that it attracted, and about what should be done about it.

By morning, the caterpillars were back in their own tree. The roof itself suffered no damage, and actually looked a little better than it did before. In fact, many things in the yard looked or worked better than it had the night before. The broken mailbox was now fixed. The gutters were as clean as when they were new. The garden was found to have been recently weeded. The entire property looked fresh and new, so much so that it was easy to forgive what the caterpillars did to the belfry.

Come winter, we received a notice from the landlord that the land was being sold to some developer and that the house was to be torn down to make room for a small upscale office complex. And so we moved, to a nice little town just a few miles away.

About 15 years later, we took a drive out to see what’s become of the old property. What was once was our driveway was now a small cul-de-sac with a sign at the entrance that read “Technology Acres”; two bleached concrete bunkers with tinted windows that housed four offices, though only two were actually occupied. A large Scarlett Oak stood at the center of the rotary. And to our delight, it was draped with large sheets of silver webbing and busy with a new generation of gypsy moth caterpillars.

I recently read a newspaper article about a young man, only nineteen years of age, who was transformed from homeless drug addict to featherweight boxing champion in merely one year. He had no qualifications to speak of, nobody to help support him and not a penny to his name. Now he is a household name. Knowing this, you would think that a man with too much money for his own good, a PHD in engineering and a loving wife and daughter would be able to put up two shelves in the bathroom in, say, thirty seconds at the longest, right?

Wrong. After two months of sweat, blood and lots and lots of tears we have a broken window, no toilet (we did have a toilet two months ago), a garish (pink) wallpapered floor and an unconscious builder. You may have noticed that there was no mention of shelves. That is because my husband is an idiot and cant read simple instructions written in bold type on a piece of A4.

****

My wife was telling me just the other day about a boy who had managed to become a boxing world title holding champion (or something to that effect) and a household name in just one year. How can she compare him to me, I’m barely a household name in my own home. Then she proceeded to moan the face off me for a few hours whilst I sat there and nodded my head in a ‘yes dear, of course dear, whatever you say dear’ kind of way. The reason that he has managed to achieve so much in so little time is because he has nothing to loose, he was the lowest of the low before he started. He had no money, no home, no education so he couldn’t get a job and nobody nagging away at him every waking hour of the day telling him that wallpaper doesn’t go on floors.

I had actually put up one of the shelves already when things started to go a little wrong. It was a domino effect really, where one bad decision led to a stupid mistake which led me to make another bad decision which led me to hit a stranger over the head with half a wooden shelf (he was asking for it). My first bad decision came was agreeing to try putting up shelves in the first place.

****

So he manages to erect one shelf, after about two weeks of trying, and is really quite pleased with himself. So much so that he decides he doesn’t need the instructions anymore and will be able to put up the second one himself with the same results. He was wrong. He ended up nailing himself (by the finger) to the wall and, to apparently attract attention to his situation, smashed the window and began yelling “fire!”

He spent the best part of an hour doing this and was only freed once I got home from work. He had also, in his haste to break the window with the hammer, hammered down the first shelf he had put up successfully and had to start all over again. Week six and, during one of his many breaks, he decides to do an experiment. He wondered if a nail would sink even if bits of polystyrene were taped to it to help it float. The answer - n/a. The nail might float if the person carrying out the experiment didn’t have a brain the size of a goldfish and didn’t think standing on the cistern was a good idea.

I decided to call in a professional builder to do the rest of the job, but my darling husband was threatened by another man trying to finish the ’work’ he started, so he struck him on the back of the head with what was left of the first shelf. Thats how it all started.

****

After reading the instructions carefully I got the first shelf to stay up, without me holding it, in about half an hour. I figured that the other shelf would be a piece of cake now that I’d done one, and I was right. At least I would have been right had I not nailed myself to the wall, which wasn’t my fault. The blood was gushing out my finger and going all over the floor so I decided to shout for help. The problem was that “help I have nailed my finger to the wall, the door is open so just come in and un-nail me, thanks” is a bit longwinded, so I thought “fire” was the best way to go. I still think I was right.

There was an embarrassing incident with the toilet that I’d rather not discuss and then I accidentally knocked the builder out with a plank of wood. The wallpaper on the floor was just to cover up the blood. Thats how it all started.

****

“I’m afraid we’ve just about run out of time Mr and Mrs Haberdasher, that’ll be $84.95.”

“Watch it with those crates!” Hal roared, causing everyone nearby to flinch. This included the person holding said crates, which then toppled over and crashed on the floor. Everyone besides the wide-eyed culprit suddenly remembered some urgent task that needed doing inside the house. We scurried away, eager to avoid Hal’s inevitable tirade.

It was going to be one of those days.

I glanced around the room we were working on, and immediately felt a wave of pity for our current employers, a meek little pair of newlyweds. They were probably intimidated by Hal’s overwhelming personality, and definitely beginning to have second thoughts about hiring our crew, despite high recommendations all around. Truth is, our finished work is always a beauty to behold, but to look at the work in progress, you’d never know it. Right now the house’s living room looked like the aftermath of a miniature hurricane. Papers were strewn everywhere, furniture upturned (carefully, despite what it looked like) and shoved into the center of the room, and dust covered every surface.

The newlywed couple had quietly slipped away for the day, professing not to want to get in the way. I’m sure that their real reasons were just as much to avoid looking at the mess that was their living room as to avoid our crew.

The crew- we were an odd kind of family, with our share of in-jokes and petty squabbles. First there’s Hal (he’s always first). He looks the way he sounds: Big and bulky, with the beginnings of a pot belly. Dom, the man who dropped the crates, is our plumbing guy. He’s tall scrawny, timid and jumpy as a mouse, but don’t get him started talking about Warcraft unless you’ve got a few spare hours. Red and Mike are like smaller versions of Hal, sans the belly. They’re alike as two raindrops, with easygoing grins and crinkled eyes. There’s Kevin, our electrician, a tiny little fellow and as fast as lightening. He doesn’t do much of the heavyweight work, but he’s always the one who remembers to do all of those little things that you keep forgetting to do but you’d never get a thing done without them. Lastly there’s me. I’m the only girl on the crew, maybe because not many girls are built like a wrestling champion. Despite my stocky appearance, I’m actually quite shy and as bookish as you please- whenever there’s a spare moment, you’ll find me in the back of our van, my nose in a book.

I quickly busied myself mixing paints, while Red put tarp on the floor and Kevin put protective coverings on the light switches and electrical sockets. Dom was supposed to have brought in the crates with the brushes, one which held the more delicate stuff I used to make patterns on the walls. I particularly disliked the colors and patterns that our employers requested, but, hey, weirdos will be weirdos. Dom trundled in, his burden shared by Mike, who had braved Hal’s wrath to help Dom. As they unpacked the brushes and rollers, I finally got the right mixture of mauve for the background and I started working on the foreground color- a violent green color that reminded me of the neon lights in front of Hal’s favorite artery-clogging all-night diner.

“Are these folks nuts?” exclaimed Kevin, staring in disgust at the colors I’d mixed. The others murmured their agreement and I could do nothing but shrug helplessly. Dom squared his shoulders and picked up a roller and a tray. The rest followed suit- the sooner we got this awful mess over with, the better.

I headed out with the van to pick up coffee and sandwiches for all, letting the boys start ahead on the background- they wouldn’t be needing me until the first coat dried. I dawdled a bit on the way- now that I was out of the house, I didn’t feel so pressured to get the job done quickly, after all, we were the best home renovation crew around and we were- typically- ahead of schedule.

An hour later I pulled up to the house, but as I walked in, I dropped the sandwiches and let out an uncharacteristic screech of surprise.

“What the hell is wrong?” exclaimed Red, as Dom bent to retrieve the brush he’d dropped.

“Th- th- the…” I trailed off, pointing a trembling finger at the half dried, decidedly green walls.

“Oh my,” murmured Kevin quietly, “I think I see the problem here.”

I finally found my voice. “Problem? PROBLEM?? This is way more than just a goddamn problem you idiots! What the hell are we gonna tell our employers when they get back tonight and they see their goddamn green walls? You know the first coat won’t have dried enough by then to repaint…” I trailed off, realizing that their attention was no longer focused on me, but on a point somewhere behind me.

There stood the dreaded employers in the flesh.

“Actually,” said the girl, “We think it’s rather nice.”