But wait…there’s more
Holy. Cow.
Man, did I have an annoying past coupla days – where to begin?
I have a metal gate, which leads to two blue metal doors that then lead to my apartment.
Used to paint them every few years but the last time I painted them was a decade ago in 2014 for reasons I’m sure you can guess.
All three were getting pretty worn and rusty so, I decided to paint them with the help of my buddy Wally.
He actually did the heavy lifting and took off the rust and some of the flaking paint and we both painted.
Initially, I just wanted to paint the clearly rusted and chipped areas.
To this end, I got paint mixed that matched the paint on my doors and gate.
Unfortunately, because of sunlight hitting different areas of the doors and gates, the colours were all off.
It looked worse after painting because all the colours were all slightly off – so then we had to paint EVERYTHING.
So, the small project went from two hours to…four days.
The Firecracker ended up having to help out for several hours across two days.
It gets worse though.
While painting the gate, I had to remove the lock and I found out that two screws rusted through, which meant that that I had to manually remove them with pliers.
That took over an hour as I went a 1/4 turn each time for these 3.5 inch screws.
Then, when I brought them to the hardware store, the guy told me.
Him: Those are specialized screws. We don’t carry them here; you gotta go to a locksmith.
Me: Goddammit.
So, off I went to find one but then he said.
Him: We don’t have these screws, you have to buy the whole lock again.
Me: Goddammit! How much is that?
Him: $80.
Me: Jesus Christ!
Ended up buying it online for $45. For two screws.
It took two days to get to me, so we had to find different – and novel – ways to lock the gate for those two nights.
Because I was worried about the kid, didn’t sleep a wink.
But wait…there’s more!
In the middle of alla this, Wally tried to install a garbage disposal for me AND – because I run the building – I also had to replace alla the garbage cans for the building.
Welp, the replacement garbage cans never arrived and Wally didn’t get it all right the first time (which is no real fault of his own) which meant that we ended up getting water everywhere and had to dismantle the whole thing.
The garbage and garbage disposal are much more involved stories, which I’ll save for the next entry, but it meant that for three days:
-
- I had no locks on my door.
- No working kitchen sink.
- This meant that the kid and I had to eat out for every single meal for two days.
- Paint and plumbing supplies everywhere.
- Garbage and garbage bags everywhere.
- No garbage cans for myself or anyone in my building.
To say that I was irritated is the same as saying that water’s wet.
I’ll wrap this up in the next entry.
I need a drink.
Location: early this morning, the courthouse, telling someone she’s an awful person for cutting the line
Mood: So. Irritated. Man.
Music: gonna build castles from the rubble (Spotify)
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