Two Weeks! Two Weeks!

If anyone reading this hasn't seen The Money Pit (old movie with Tom Hanks), let me briefly explain the battle cry "Two Weeks!" The movie is about a couple who are remodeling (or building a home from the start? can't remember) and they keep being told by the contractor that the job will be done in "two weeks". Naturally, that's a hysterical joke and thus follows a not-fiction-enough experience. Remodeling is not for the fainthearted.

So our two weeks has extended into, let me see, about six years? That might be right. It might be a little more. We've done it in fits and starts, and we're actually on the last leg---extending our kitchen. At any rate, the roofer came this morning to do the dab of roofing that needs to be done. Maybe a little more than a dab but not an enormous job. About two hours ago he arrived, realized he forgot a tool he needed (??) and left. He'd be back soon. Has there been any sign of the roofer? No. Did he leave his tool in Minnesota? Do we want to know anything more about his tool? Probably not.

My kids don't even remember a time we weren't remodeling (maybe the oldest one has vague memories). They think it's normal to live in a house that has weird splotches of sheetrock here and there, where baseboards are either not on or not painted. Where rooms are half-done. I make it sound a little worse than it is----at a first glance, these things wouldn't be that noticeable. But I know they're there, and they drive me crazy. Sometimes. Other times, I don't give a rip. Whatever. It's just a house. It'll never grace the pages of any magazine anyway. The kids are happy and don't care. We aren't starving or living on the corner. So who cares if the sheetrock is entirely off that one wall? And who really sees any more or notices that the beadboard in the bathroom still isn't painted? Who cares that my counter in the kitchen is really melamine and has figures written on it indicating where this and that will be going? Doesn't matter in the whole scheme of things. Good friends don't notice or care.

I just hope that if the roofer returns he isn't drunk or stoned. That would be a plus.