And I’ll concede that she made some valid points.
Not only was the bathtub a color charitably described as “battleship gray,” it was roughly the size of one. A metal strip designed to keep water from flooding out of the shower had fallen off and was clinging to the bottom of the shower door with duct tape. The counters had been installed in a decade when the height of the average American man was similar to that of Gary Coleman.
So I caved in, and we went to a remodeling company in December to order custom-made cabinets. Apparently they are custom-made by craftsmen whose religion permits them to work only on Tuesdays between 10 and 10:15 a.m. because the cabinets didn’t arrive until last week.
The day they came in, our contractor called and said we needed to clear everything out of the bathroom because the demolition crew would be there the next morning. So we spent that evening moving out the stuff in the cabinets.
In my case the stuff consisted of a razor, a toothbrush, a deodorant stick and 12 years worth of tiny motel shampoo bottles (all of which now are scattered in boxes throughout the house). I’m not sure what her stuff consists of, but moving it involves a wheelbarrow.
The crew showed up the next morning, sledge hammered our bathroom to death and hauled away the remains, leaving behind an empty room with pipes connected to nothing.
Fortunately, we have two other bathrooms. Unfortunately, they have problems of their own.
There’s a powder room downstairs for guests when we entertain. But we haven’t entertained in quite some time because the faucet developed a pretty impressive leak a few months ago and I had to turn off the water. I considered calling a plumber to fix it, but I knew that would be a waste of money and cell time. I’ve been married long enough to realize we’re going to remodel that bathroom as soon as we finish the other one.
In the tiny upstairs bathroom, which only gets used when we have out-of-towners visiting, the faucet works fine, but the commode not so much. A balky toilet is a good way to keep out-of-towners from staying too long, but not real useful otherwise.
So now we have a bathroom with no running water, a bathroom with no trustworthy commode, a bathroom with pipes to nowhere and bathroom stuff all over the house.
The contractor says the job should be done in six to eight weeks — which may be enough time to find my razor.
Contact D.L. Stewart at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com.
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