Sorry, Flounder - I can own the "OH BOY" part of your iconic line, but I'm not sold on "THIS IS GREAT!" - yet. Maybe another National Lampoon scene better sums up where I am in my head:
"THIS IS CRAZY, THIS IS CRAZY, THIS IS CRAZY."
(You'll have to imagine me as Clark Griswold, warming up my upper body as I get ready to jump into the pool - except the pool is actually the "Money Pit" from the Shelley Long movie of the same name. Too many 80's film references? Okay, I'll stop.)
So there's precious little of my actual house left. Walls - yeah, we have those. Well, except for the large penetrations in the hallway and master bedroom where the plumbers have been working. The upper cabinets are in place in the kitchen, and the ceiling molding.
Yup, that's pretty much it.
Floors - gone. Baseboards and quarter round - gone. And giant cast iron tub - gone. As in, no trace that it ever existed. They must have pulverized that sucker to bits. Spouse said that he expected to see large pieces of it in the construction trailer, but no large pieces to speak of - just tiny ones.
I take Spouse's word on these things, because I don't venture near the job site. Issue #1: I am a klutz. Chance of me falling into the space where my subfloor used to be: 100%. Chance of me being irretrievably traumatized: also 100%.
Issue #2: I don't want to see how the sausage is made. Period. Paragraph.
Not that Spouse doesn't try to force me to look at how the sausage is made. He takes all kinds of pictures with his Google phone, and he texts them to me. Fortunately, more often than not, I cannot make out what they are pictures of, so they don't traumatize me too terribly much. To me, they are the functional equivalent of sonogram pictures. I know that I am looking at - something. A work in progress. Or part of a work in progress. I just can't figure out which part, and - quite honestly - I don't care to expend the brain cells. I will take your word for it: that's a baby. Or, you know, my HOME. And it's developing, and eventually that process will be complete, and all will be revealed to the world.
All I know is, as of yesterday, the tub is gone. And, with it, the surrounding tile. Not just the immediately surrounding tile, but, basically, all of the tile in the room. Um, not sure why all of THAT got demo'd. Because some of it got damaged in connection with the tub, and - because some of it got damaged, it all comes out, and we get an allowance to replace it? Or because at one point in time I advised the contractor that, probably, we would want to replace the tile no matter what. But then I recall asking for this little thing called a BID. Which I have not received and, therefore, have not reviewed or approved. So, yeah, small problem with the removal of the tile if it didn't have to come out as part of the insurance work. That would be like me saying, "Hey, I know that we theoretically discussed you forming a limited liability company to lease some space in a shopping center at some point in the future after some other stuff happened, so - as a time-saving measure - I took the liberty of forming your LLC and picking your lease space and negotiating a lease with the landlord. And now you have to sign this document, and here's my bill. AND YOU'RE WELCOME."
Haven't really had the time to get angry about the tile demo, on account of how work has exploded all over my desk. That's always the way it goes, right? But it's good - I need the distraction. Also, it is heartening that a number of "on-hold" deals are suddenly poised for resolution. It signals that, one way or the other, things do resolve themselves. You just have be patient. And take a deep breath before saying, "So . . . about the tile . . . ."
Back to the grindstone.
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