home improvement

grumpy about the construction project (oh god. financing. I think I’ll do that facebook list thing instead)

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Our renovation plan is SO BIG that we have to finance some of it, because we are not rich as Roosevelt. We’re using a curious mortgage product offered by Fannie Mae (which is to say, if a big bank gives us a loan that fits the profile, Fannie Mae will buy the loan and the bank bears no risk). It’s an interesting way to finance a large renovation. We’re basically refinancing our existing mortgage to a larger number, based on an appraiser’s assessment of the future hypothetical value of the home when the work is complete. There’s just one closing right before the work starts, instead of having to do a construction loan and then convert all the debt over to a traditional mortgage when the work is all done. It’s kind of cool, easier and a lot less risky than the more common construction-loan-converting-to-a-traditional-mortgage approach. There are down sides, but this is the right approach for us and with rates so low it was an easy choice.

Yaaaaaaaawn…. zzzzzzzz.

Hey you. Wake up.

I know. It’s boring. It’s a little technical for me too, but I’ve had my head buried in this shit for months now and I’m finally deflating like an old birthday balloon. Getting things lined up to close on this loan is starting to feel like putting the camel’s ass through the freaking eye of the needle, and I almost want to walk away. There’s all the financial documentation to collect, and there’s all the contractor documentation, and the appraisal, and the bid reviewer (aka, backseat driver on the project who works for the bank and controls the purse on draws), and dealing with the loan processor and (indirectly) the underwriter as well. It’s all so anal retentive. You’d think it would be easier for Anthony and me. We have good income, and even better debt-to-income ratio, i.e, our only debt is our modest mortgage. We have savings. We have incredible credit scores. But we still have to jump through hoops like circus animals.

There’s still the part of me that knows we have a 99% probability of closing on this loan in 2 weeks, despite my misgivings. Of course, I thought it would be in one week for sure, but now it’s not. So never mind that 99% certainty, which I felt just a day or two ago. Nix that. New 99% certainty on hand. Because once you’ve jumped in this rabbit hole, there are so many emotional, physical, and financial sunk costs that it gets really hard to back out. They have us by our figurative nuts. So there’s a 99% probability something will happen, whether it’s closing on this loan and getting the fucking project going already, or me bawling like a baby for three days straight because my dreams have crumbled to ashes.

At this point, I’m not sure which would be worse.

* * * * * * *

I was going to sit here tonight taking care of some paperwork relating to the construction project, but I’m just too depressed by the bullshit swirling around financing issues. Thankfully, my cousin posted up a viral list on Facebook.  “Every answer must start with the first letter of your first name!” I don’t know why, but I stared at that list with a stink eye for a good long while. Here’s what I thought as I stared at it, the line items commingling in my head with all the grumpy agite I feel about this stupid construction project.

First name : CARLA. Easy. that’s me.  That’s not a Challenging start. That’s stupid.

An animal: CATTLE.  AKA, people seeking financing for renovation projects.

A boys name:  CARL. Because C is for Carla, that’s good enough for me, OOOOH Carla Carla Carla starts with C.

A girls name: Hey wait a minute. How is this different from first name? Oh. Oh, my bad. Sorry, I lost the thread. First name Carla tells me what letter all the other words start with. Check.  ( … heeeey, that starts with C too!)

An occupation: Contractor. Duh. We have an awesome, awesome design/build Chick named Kristi driving our renovation train. Sure, she’s K — but very close to C really, it’s all there phonemically.

A color: Cream. The Color the prior owners painted all of our walls — brownish Creams, yellowish Cremes, greenish Cremes. It Could not be more depressing or hideous. The whole house is so boring Cream that it makes me want to sCream. I am renovating our entire house in order to justify repainting the walls some Color other than Cream.

Something you wear: Coveralls, because I’m painting the walls interesting Colors someday soon.

A drink: Caffeine. Yes, that Counts. It can be in Coffee or soda, I won’t Care when we’re in the middle of the Construction project. I’m gonna hit the Counter of whatever shop I’m at and place my order thusly. “I’d like a large double caffeine, please, no lid.”

A type of food: Damn, I can’t say Korean unless I misspell it. Ah. Carry-out. What we’ll be eating a lot of if my 99% probability Comes to pass.

Something found in the bathroom: Ceramic tile. Everywhere. Which I hope to lay myself unless the mortgage company requires that a bonded Contractor do it. Isn’t the fact that I live in emotional bondage enough to qualify me?? Apparently not.

A place: Cave. Where I will want to be in a Couple months. Oh, even better. Cape Hatteras. I hope to be there in July.

A reason to be late: Cholera. Really, that’s what I thought. That’s all I’ve got on this one.

Something you shout out: Collapsing! Collapsing!!! (while having a nightmare about what happens to our roof when they pull out the wall on that side of our house.)

I will take deep Calming breaths and try to stay Coooool for as many days as it takes us to get to Closing on our Construction loan.

Cheers.

Grumpy about the construction project

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In the eleven days since my last post, many amazing and spectacular things have happened in my life.  The most important is this: we are eleven days closer to the end of the school year. I just realized — as I stare at this rapidly diminishing glass of wine sitting before me (hiccup) — that I only have to make Jesse’s school lunch eleven more times. Since I’m likely to deliver carry-out twice in that time (I’m anticipating episodes of Extreme Laziness), that’s actually only nine more times.  I can’t even begin to find words to express my feelings, which lie somewhere on the boundary between relief and hysteria.

Meanwhile, for the past almost-four months we’ve been planning out a renovation project.  A big one. It’s taken several months to arrange it all, and I’ve been feeling weirdly superstitious about it — like I don’t want to mention it, except I have a big mouth, so I have, only with a coy hand. Which is lame, right?

Anyway, we’re at the tail end of the road, so I think at this point it’s less like a train pulling into the station and more like a rabbit hole into which we’ve already jumped. We’ve got the architectural drawings and bid in. We’ve got financing wrapping up as of today, and we’re 95% likely to close on the refi next week — unless something goes wrong, which hypothetically it could, because now I’m not being coy.

Hold on a minute. I have to take a break from typing because I’m having another anxiety attack about this situation. Just a sec.

* * * * * * *

Ugh. Hold on.

* * * * * * *

Okay, I think I’m back. I’ve got the gut pain under control, and I don’t think I need the brown bag anymore.

We’re knocking out an entire wall on one side of the house and pushing the house out by 8 feet. It’s going to be like a stretchy-dink job (the opposite of a shrinky-dink, get it?). There’s this little breezeway between our house proper and the separate garage. We’re going to fill it with house. In that two story expansion, we’re going to fit a mudroom, a new bathroom, and a workable kitchen (as opposed to the shit hole I currently cook in).

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Seriously, my kitchen sucks. I cook, a LOT, and I have about 2 linear feet of workable countertop, and a crappy sink, and my dishwasher’s been broken for about three years. Maybe longer, I’ve lost count.  And I hate the cheap tile on the floor. Something’s gotta change.

In anticipation of the Big Work, we’ve done some preliminary stuff, because we’re cheap. First we took out the wall-to-wall carpet. Look back a couple posts and you’ll see some photos of the room we were refinishing for starters. We got that done, and we’ve moved our beds and dressers into there. Then we pulled out the carpet in the rest of the upstairs area. Look at the difference it makes to take out shitty carpet.

Stairway before.

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Stairway after, and this isn’t even refinished yet.

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Yes, that’s some weird, almost-creepy head carved on the stair post. I have no explanation for it, except maybe it’s supposed to be some sort of ship’s gnome for good luck, because the house has a sort of ship theme to it. The carved head came with the house, it’s original from the 1940’s, and the kids aren’t afraid of it. They put hats and Christmas wreaths on it. Some plumbing or electric guy came in one day and said it was “occult.” I was like, dude, it’s just some head on a post, and he got all huffy and emphatic. “It’s OCCULT.” And then I was like, dude, get out of my house. Freak (the dude, not the head).

What in the world was I talking about? Oh. Carpet. Right, so we got the carpet out. Taking wall-to-wall out is hellish, or at least it was in our house. I think whoever installed it must have owned stock in a staple manufacturer. There were so many staples attaching the carpet to the stairs that the risers are practically shredded at their bases. Look at this staple gauntlet.

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Every time you get poked by one of these staples, blood flows like Niagara Falls. Also pain, much pain.

Then under the carpet is the true horror for sufferers of dust mite allergies. Carpet padding.

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This is the most disgusting stuff on the face of the earth, and it too is stapled in. Pulling it out is like, is like… pulling out a fluffy sheet of dust mites. I had to wear a crazy mask and crazy eyes to survive it without choking to death.

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Once all that shit was out, we had to pull out the millions and millions of staples left behind. Ugh.

Then we got  the dumpster.

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Twenty feet long. Four feet high. Looks to be about 8 feet wide.  You work out the cubic yardage. We need it for some demolition we’re going to do, but also to just get shit out of the house because the renovation is going to require a lot of space. We’ve given the house a colonic, and now the dumpster is half-full of the detritus of 10 to 20 years.

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More will go in before we’re done. It feels so good.

But this is all an aside, an emotional tactic my subconscious mind is using to distract me from the reality of what’s coming. Some time in the next week or two, large equipment is going to land in my driveway, and a wall of my house is going to be pulled off, and my kitchen will be gone for 3 months, and my life is going to be chaos.

Well… my life is already chaos. I guess it can’t get much worse. I’ll survive by telling you all about it.

Grumpy about the bad days 

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It’s been 21 days since I posted up a blog. I’ve been busy with other shit, as you may have guessed if you read my last couple posts. Anthony and I have been ripping out old wall-to-wall carpet in a room, and we sanded the floor and refinished it.

It looks pretty good. Here’s  the progression. What it looked like right after we lifted the carpet:

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Then after we sanded (with a 130-pound buff sander so unhinged that managing it was like dragging an unbalanced washing machine around the room):

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And then this:

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Oh. Wait. That’s the Spam I fried for Jesse that day. Hold on while I find the right photo.

Okay, here’s what it looked like after the first coat of varnish:

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And after two more coats:

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Anyway, there’s been other stuff to do as well the past several weeks, like feeding minions and trying to remember to have them bathe at least once a week. Also school lunches. Also tae kwon do shit. Also finishing pants and shorts that I’m sewing for Jesse and Nick. Also sitting on the sofa slothfully in a mild depression, staring blankly at dust bunnies floating in the sun, which I have to do every day for a little while after I take Nick to school.

Because Jesse has had a few ba-a-a-a-ad weeks and Nick is in the midst of a five-year-old’s equivalent of a mid-life crisis.

So it got under my skin when I saw that there were two new comments today on my most recent blog post and this is what they said:

“When will the next post come?” (Anonymous)

“Really how long do you expect me to wait for your witty and emotionally draning [sic] commentary?” (Anonymous)

I don’t get a lot of comment action on my blog because WordPress’s default is to require commenters to leave their email address and I haven’t figured out yet how to change it. Who has time for that shit? So most of the comments I get are like these — slightly off-kilter, weird things written by what I assume is some sort of translator spam machine, along the lines of “thank you for your insightful insights into the operations of things. I am look forward to reading much more helpful and useful iterations of your creativity.”

Still, it got under my skin. I read the comments and shook my head, thinking, “Listen, joker, it’s not my commentary that’s emotionally draining, it’s my LIFE.”

Nick is totally out of control right now. He’s going through the terrible twos, three years late. (My kids are late bloomers.) He screams frequently and at random moments, throws tantrums and hard toys at me, doesn’t do anything I ask, refuses to share anything with Jesse, beats her up and follows her around the house attacking her with imaginary weapons and then falls into bawling tears when she pokes him with a feather. He’s driving all of us crazy.

But who is Jesse to judge? She’s been throwing her own tantrums, and she’s turning 10 next week. It’s been day after day of horrifying, emotionally numbing outbursts and melt-downs. She’s a tornado when she gets like this, hurling random insults at others and herself, making threats to hurt others and herself, and unable to gather the reins in.

But who am I to judge? I’ve been following Jesse and Nick down the path of crazies. Instead of offering useful, mature parental guidance, I’ve been yelling at the kids every day for all their fighting and insanity. After nearly a decade, I still have limited reserves for dealing with Jesse when she detours into emotional oblivion. And Nick hurts too because I don’t have any reserves left for him. His sister uses them all up. I can’t tolerate his normal five-year-old shit with any equanimity lately. So I yell, I stomp and have hissy fits, and I complain about everything. I hate myself.

Rationally I know there are lots of reasons why Jesse’s negative behavior, which is rooted in her anxiety and self-loathing, is ratcheting up a million notches. Our house is a wreck because of the carpet ripping and floor refinishing; shit is in all the wrong places. We’re trying to get an even bigger renovation project going as well, and this is making Jesse feel very unsettled. Badger tests are next week. These standardized state-wide tests have no meaning to Jesse in terms of her development and potential, but they sure matter to public schools and their teachers, who make a big deal out of them. I keep telling Jesse they don’t matter, but she’s not buying my line; she’s totally stressed out about the testing. Last week we competed in tae kwon do tournaments, and Jesse (and I) sparred for the first time without adequate preparation. Major stressor. Next week is testing to advance to the next belt. Jesse’s birthday is next week, and for some reason she has a lot of anxiety about her birthdays. I think she’s expecting some sort of transmogrification to occur. “I’m ten today, Mommy! Look, I have wings now!” Or maybe she’s wishing, and preparing herself for the emptiness of another ordinary day. A teacher told her class that if it doesn’t rain soon, California is going to run out of water. She came home filled with trepidation about what’s going to happen to Grandma and Uncle Mark and Uncle Ted. Will they have water to drink?

So I get it. I understand why Jesse is emotionally in the red zone. But knowing that with my brain doesn’t make it any easier for my body and emotions to cope. Because Jesse is a terror when she gets like this, and our family is coming unhinged.

This morning Jesse woke up and started right in. She came to my bed and head butted me on the nose. When I told her to go back to her own room, the whining, ululating, and rage bursts started. Before I even made it to the bathroom to pee she had thrown her first real punches at me and screamed at me about (a) what an awful parent I am, and (b) what an awful child she is. She hit a clean emotional blow when she screeched that all I’ve been doing is yelling and screaming at her every day.

“Huh,” I thought to myself as I brushed my teeth. “That’s pretty accurate.” I made myself a promise, one I’ve made hundreds and hundreds of times before. I didn’t yell.

Eventually Jesse made it downstairs in a quieter mood, but instead of coming to breakfast she decided first she needed to finish her homework. I asked her to eat breakfast first, but she settled into her work instead with weird humming and moaning noises, which continued helplessly as Anthony tried to say good bye to her.

I dug deep and kept trying not to yell at the kids as the morning progressed. I snapped to be sure, but I didn’t descend into the crazies. I sent Jesse to her room a couple times for screaming insanely and picking on Nick. I ignored her best I could. And after she cleared her plates from breakfast (assisted by some snapping from me because she was definitely going to break something with all the slamming going on), she disappeared for a good long while.

After washing dishes and pouring another cup of coffee, I settled on the sofa and stared glumly out the window into the spectacularly beautiful woods in our back yard. Nick, who was in pacifist mode, played quietly by himself. A few minutes passed, and then Jesse came tip-toeing down the stairs, dressed and ready for school. She settled silently onto my lap for a snuggle, without a word. There we sat, an emotionally broken woman and her equally lost daughter, holding each other like lifelines. I continued to stare out the window, preparing myself for whatever Jesse might throw at me. But all she threw was a glance up at my face. I could tell out of my peripheral vision that there were question marks and longing in it.

So we sat a moment, and then Nick came over and snuggled in. And there we sat in silence, Jesse on my lap with her head on my left shoulder, and Nick pushed in against me with my right arm wrapped around his still-tiny body.

So we sat a moment, and then our diminutive dog came down the stairs and joined us. Madeline sat her fluffy six-pound self down on my tummy, and still we sat quietly, enjoying our mutual company in silence. Love blossomed up around us. In that moment, it was enough to crowd out those awful weeds of anxiety and self-loathing, the stupid bickering and fighting that inevitably accompany a life shared in minutiae.

If you saw us then, you would have said we were a picture-book family, a vision of joy and happiness. (Unless you had seen us about 45 minutes earlier as well. Whatever.)

So an ordinary day passed, and many good things happened. Anthony decided to come home early to be with Nick while I worked out. I realized later that he was just being excessively nice to me because he gets it — the kids have flayed me. After I picked the kids up from school, I dropped Nick off with Anthony and headed to the gym. Jesse’s swim team worked for an hour and a half and I worked out too. Jesse wanted to have dinner with just me at a park, so we picked up some carry-out and did that, enjoying a quiet meal under some trees without the noisome energy of Nick drowning us. I could tell Jesse was just trying to reconnect with me, trying to show me she deserves my love. I realized I was doing the same thing. It was all good, and we didn’t have to debrief any of the big issues that haunt us.

We got home and the peacefulness continued, except we saw that slightly depraved look in Anthony’s eyes that told us he had been alone with Nick for more than three hours. As we snuggled down in bed to watch an episode of Odd Squad, Anthony spoke out of the blue, with a sly smile on his face. “So Carla… Did you like my comments on your blog today?”

grumpy about Home Depot

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I hate Home Depot. So I can’t explain why I called my local Home Depot this evening to find out if they carry a random orbital floor sander. The Home Depot website says I can rent one from locations that carry rental tools, and I really want to rent one to refinish the fir-like softwood floors we just exposed upstairs when we ripped out the wall-to-wall carpet.

Home Depot’s tool rental info page had a spot where I could enter my zip code and it would tell me which nearby locations had this particular sander in stock. But I was on my iPhone and here’s a news flash: the zip code widget didn’t work. Not to worry. I decided to just call the store. How long could it take them to tell me if they have a random orbital floor sander in stock for me to rent?

Here’s how the call went. More or less. It’s hard for me to remember all 33 minutes verbatim (my finger did not twitch and accidentally hit that number key twice), but I have the sequence of events exactly right:

Br-r-r-ringgg, br-r-r-ringggg.

“Thank you for calling Home Depot. If you know your party’s three-digit extension, please dial it now. Please listen to the following options, if you are trying to reach a department. For flooring, press one. For kitchen and bath, press two. For gardening and outdoors, press three. For lumber, please press four. For additional options, please press the star button.”

I press star.

“For electrical, press five. For plumbing and heating, press six. For windows and shutters, press seven. For tool rentals, press eight.”

AHA! I breath a sigh of relief and press 8.

Br-r-r-ringgg, br-r-r-ringggg. I count five rings. There’s a pause, and then two more rings.

“Thank you for calling Home Depot. All of our customer service representatives are currently helping other customers. Please stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly.” Eighties rock-style music kicks in with an emphatic, macho male voice overlay. He says all sorts of exciting stuff along the lines of, “you want to fix your house, and we want to help. LET’S DO THIS.” I’ve stumbled into a monster truck rally. It’s a repeating loop.

Click. “Hello, this is Mary. How can I help you?”

“I’m trying to find out if your store carries random orbital floor sanders that I can rent.”

“Oh, you need the rental department. One moment please.” Click.

Damn. I know exactly what she’s doing, but she moved so fast I didn’t have time to stop her. She’s transferring me back to the rental department.

Br-r-r-ringgg, br-r-r-ringggg. I count five rings. There’s a pause, and then two more rings.

“Thank you for calling Home Depot. All of our customer service representatives are currently helping other customers. Please stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly.” Rock-style music kicks in with macho male voice overlay saying stuff empathically along the lines of, “you want to fix your house, and we want to help. LET’S DO THIS.” Monster truck rally continues.

Click. “Hello, this is Mary. How can I help you?”

“Hi. It’s me again. Still trying to find out about the random orbital floor sander.”

She speaks cheerfully. “Oh, I’m sorry. I know they’re back there. They must not have picked up. Hold on.” Click.

DAMN. Too fast. I know exactly what she’s doing.

Br-r-r-ringgg, br-r-r-ringggg. I count five rings. There’s a pause, and then two more rings.

“Thank you for calling Home Depot. All of our customer service representatives are currently helping other customers. Please stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly.” Rock-style music kicks in with macho male voice overlay saying stuff empathically along the lines of, “you want to fix your house, and we want to help. LET’S DO THIS.”

I breathe.

Click. “Hello, this is John. How can I help you?”

This is new. I must have finally gotten through. “Hi John! I’ve been on hold a long time. I want to know if you carry random orbital floor sanders to rent.”

“Hold on, I’ll transfer you.” Click.

GAAAH.

Five rings, pause, two rings.

“Thank you for calling Home Depot. All of our customer service representatives are currently helping other customers. Please stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly.” Rock-style music kicks in with macho male voice overlay saying stuff empathically along the lines of, “you want to fix your house, and we want to help. LET’S DO THIS.” 

I breathe some more. Also I groan and start pacing.

Click. “Hello, this is Melanie. How can I help you?”

I can’t hide my irritability. “Melanie. You’re the third person I’ve talked with. I just keep being transferred and put on hold. I think they’re trying to send me to the rental department. Who were they, and who are you? Where are you in the store?”

Melanie laughs. “I’m at the customer service desk, ma’am. What can I do for you?”

I grit my teeth and speak politely, because I know it’s not Melanie’s fault and I’m not irate yet. “I want to rent a random orbital floor sander. I’m trying to find out if you carry them in this store. My phone tells me I’ve been trying for 12 minutes. Please don’t just transfer me back to the rental department, because they’re not picking up.”

Melanie is relentlessly polite. “I’ll transfer you to a manager.”

Br-r-r-ringgg, br-r-r-ringggg. A gruff, rushed, and self-important sounding voice answers. But the man is not clear-spoken. “hewwo ths ess Brfs, wu cu I dfya.”

I can’t make out his name. It doesn’t matter. I figure out that he’s asked me what I need. I tell him.

“You need the rental department.”

“I know. They’re not picking up.”

“I know they’re there. They’re probably helping other customers. I’ll walk back there ma’am, with you on the line. Hold on.”

I wait. I continue to hear human sounds, and the macho man truck rally doesn’t come back on, so I’m happy. Sort of. The human sounds are muffled, as if the manager is holding the phone against his body as he walks, so I can tell he’s got a mobile piece. There’s a lot of talking, but I can’t tell if he’s talking to me, so every 20 or 30 seconds I say hopefully, “hello? Hello? Are you talking to me?” I can’t tell if I’m getting a reply, because all the noises are incoherent. After about 7 minutes of this (the iPhone call timer does not lie), suddenly there’s silence.

I wander into the kitchen and mutter to Anthony, who’s doing dishes. “I think he hung up on me.” Huh. But the iPhone doesn’t think the call has ended. I put the phone back up to my ear, just in time to hear…

“Thank you for calling Home Depot. All of our customer service representatives are currently helping other customers. Please stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly.” Rock-style music kicks in with macho male voice overlay saying stuff empathically along the lines of, “you want to fix your house, and we want to help. LET’S DO THIS.” 

Now I’m irate.

Click. “Hello, this is Melanie. How can I help you?”

“Hello Melanie. I’m back. I’m trying to rent a random orbital floor sander. You transferred me to the manager. I have no idea what he’s doing.”

“Oh. Did you speak with him?”

“Yeeees. He said he was walking to the rental department.”

“I’ll get him again for you.” Click.

BP meds kick into action on my end, stopping the stroke I can feel rising up in my brain.

The manager answers the phone again. I remind him who I am. He’s practically nonchalant, and this is when it all falls apart, in my mind at least.

“I’m sorry ma’am. I was helping a customer. What is it you need?”

“A random orbital floor sander! If you had been listening the first time we spoke, you would know that!”

He’s still nonchalant, and apparently indifferent to the fact that we’ve travelled this path before. “I’ll walk back to the rental department right now.”

“That’s what you said you were doing last time I spoke with you! What were you actually doing??”

“Ma’am, a customer on the floor needed help. I stopped to help that customer.”

“With me on the line? What am I?? Aren’t I a customer??”

“Ma’am,” he says suavely, as though he’s explaining to me how to wipe my ass, “I had to help the customer.”

My decibels are rising now as I sass back at him. “You could have at least told me! I was just waiting on this line listening to you help another customer?? No wonder your staff act like this!! WHY DIDN’T YOU AT LEAST TELL ME?? YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS. YOU’RE HOME DEPOT. I’ve been listening to your stupid macho man recording tell me over and over again that LET’S DO THIS!! Are you gonna DO THIS??? COME ON! YOU CAN DO BETTER!! YOU’RE THE HOME DEPOT!!!”

And so on. Manager maintains his dignity. He finds the rental department and we settle down to business. Then it goes wrong in a whole new way.

“Do you want the sander with a round sanding pad or a square sanding pad?”

???

I don’t know what to say, so I reply as clearly as I know how. “I don’t know what the pads look like. I know I found the product on your website. It’s called a random orbital floor sander.”

We go back and forth in a completely senseless conversation that I can’t even repeat here, because I can’t remember it clearly. It’s like we’re speaking different languages, but eventually I decide the manager is trying to unload a drum sander on me. But it’s really hard to tell. What IS clear is that the manager is full of shit and doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I’ve completely lost it by now (though I’m not yelling anymore, yay for therapy!), so I speak in my best suave and didactic voice, as though I’m explaining to him how to pick his nose. “There’s a drum sander, which is too aggressive because I have soft wood. There’s a buffer, which is too light because it’s really just for touching up floors. And then there’s the random orbital floor sander, which is just right in the middle. I don’t want a buffer, I don’t want a drum sander, I want to rent a RANDOM ORBITAL FLOOR SANDER. It’s sort of TRIANGULAR. Do you have something that’s TRIANGULAR?”

There’s a long moment of silence.

“We don’t have it in stock tonight.”

“You don’t carry it?”

“No, we definitely carry it! It’s just been rented out.”

Yeah right. I try to hide my snickering and I end the call as fast as I can.

I hate Home Depot.