A while back the beam at the apex of our ceiling slipped down several inches on one end. A chandelier was centrally mounted on the beam, and when the beam slipped the light fixture ripped from the dry wall of the ceiling, exposing the wires above. In fact, it looked like the wiring was all that was keeping the beam and the chandelier from crashing down. Furthermore, as the beam was lower on one side than the other, it seemed that if the thing slipped further and fell, considering the implied trajectory, it would take out the big window at the back of the house.
All very precarious and a cause for alarm.
David called a guy he knew through another guy he knew and explained the situation; and though the guy seemed indignant with David for calling it an emergency (“You’d be surprised how many people say they have an emergency when it simply isn’t an emergency!”) he said he’d be in the area that afternoon and he’d stop by and take a look. We were pleasantly surprised when he showed up. Bringing a tall enough ladder to reach the ceiling, he admitted that yes, this was an actual emergency.
He climbed his ladder and screwed two-by-fours below both ends of the beam to stabilize the situation until his guys could get by later in the week and do a more permanent repair. Then he decided to leave the ladder for them to use when they came.
The week went by, then the next week. No fix-it guys came. David left messages that weren’t returned. After about a month, David contacted the men he builds Habitat houses with and asked if, in exchange for a meal and copious amounts of beer (in other words, a party) they’d come take a stab at fixing the thing. They erected scaffolding in our back den and went right to work—and it’s mighty disconcerting seeing a bunch of seventy-year-olds balancing on a couple of narrow planks twenty feet in the air. They did an excellent job and we’re grateful.
And we still have the first guy’s ladder.
Along comes the next home repair. David and I attempted to redo our deck last year and we did an exceptionally shoddy job. So we hired someone to do it properly this year. The result is wonderful. All the mistakes we made last year have been smoothed away and the stain brings out the grain of the wood.
On a personal note, I don’t like it when workmen are hanging around. David’s involved out in the community, and more often than not I’m the one who’s at home to deal with these people. Oh, they’re polite, respectful, friendly; but they’re also intrusive. For instance, a month or so ago David arranged for someone to come have a look at the in-ground watering system, which was skipping stations and flooding in some areas. The guy came, and though he’d agreed to call David and tell him what work would be needed and to give him an estimate, he insisted on taking me from sprinkler head to sprinkler head to listen to his analysis of each one; then he lectured about the workings of the control panel, the electronics, and the switches. As for me, in one ear and out the other. The plumbers, the lawn guys, the septic guy, the roofers, the propane guys, the air conditioner guys—someone’s always seeing to things around here and they all want me to pay attention to what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.
Anyway, the deck. The crew was here for three days and they’re gone now. But they left a sander in our driveway. A sander! Not something we need or want, yet there it is, a blight that will have the neighbors knocking on our door with complaints if we don’t figure out what to do with it in the next few days.
Service people leave things behind on a regular basis. The woman who measured for the blinds left her measuring tape sitting on the window sill—a nice one. Workers have left wrenches, hammers, nail guns, saws, work gloves, and screwdrivers. Don’t these people need these tools to do their jobs? Leaving my laptop somewhere and never retrieving it is something I’d never do.
Also, we have enough stuff falling out of our garage without accumulating that of others.
We have a friend who often visited us in our various locations (good times) and after each visit she left something behind—her bathing suit, hiking shoes, a pair of earrings, the special spice she bought at the suq—and because these things were vital to her existence, I was inevitably requested to “send them on,” which isn’t a simple task in some countries. My thought about this was that she subconsciously wanted to make sure she was remembered when she was gone. I imagined her dropping possessions everywhere she went—a sweater here, a pair of sunglasses there—in the hope that, though she’d moved on, the memory of her would linger.
I can’t imagine my “being remembered” theory would apply to all the service guys who’ve left their work accouterments at our house. On the other hand, we have all the tools we’ll ever need.
The sander, sandpaper next to it. Surely it’s of value to someone.
The ladder. It’s simply too big to fit in the garage so we’ve got it on the front porch.
