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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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They're in to do the bathroom, at the behest of the landlord.
It's a small bathroom, easily improved with some cupboards and designer fixtures and maybe some tile, not a big job, 2 or three days at most I think.
Ha.
24 square feet, and they've now been in 4 days. Days off I leave the house to give them access, those rarest days off and I'm not home, an orphan on the street in the hopes they'll hurry up and finish and I can begin the long cleanup that will accompany their departure.
Friday they were in the entire day - I worked 11:00 - to 11:00, changed the faucets on the shower.
Saturday they cut a 36"X18" hole in the drywall.
Today they installed a 2X4 in the former cupboard behind the bathtub.
There is no measurable progress, and I need to compare the state of the bathroom each day to the photos I took the day before to see just what got done. This is fast becoming the job from hell.
I survey the work, I have no sink, have to shave, brush teeth downstairs in the kitchen, there's no electricity in the bathroom, just a spot lamp connected to the towel rack, and everywhere there's an increasingly thick film of dust, a few hours laundry, swiffer, dusting will be needed to make the house livable again. I'd shut the doors, but the cats would be creating their own mess. Another day off gone to rot.
Still they're working, when not here they're calling to see when they can next have access, I've given them my schedule, they wrote it on a pack of cigarettes and threw it away, they need to know it again. They have an unerring knack for knowing when I'm napping.
I've heard the stories, contractors from hell, thought they were making them up, they can't all be that bad, but I'm now living the dream and can say without qualification that if you can turn on a drill or saw you're now worth $45 or $50 an hour in the trades and can officially call yourself a contractor.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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J is starting to lose my sympathy fast.
Despite our numerous chats about his treacherous ex he's still texting her dopy things like "I'll miss you more than you'll ever know" and other such drivel.
"No, no" she texts back: "I'll miss you more...."
Now J's a good little churchgoer but somehow he can't shake off this little vindictive, petty fantasy he has, and insists upon sharing it with me:
"Maybe she'll end up getting married to a wife beater..."
I find these conversations, speculations painful to bear, not that I particularly care but they don't particularly suggest the enlightened spiritual view that churchgoers are supposed to have. He's starting to sense my disinterest, walking away before he finishes his sentence is one such cue, and now I'm limited to overhearing the failure of his great love (???) as he narrates it to the female staff.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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The owner has seated himself after lunch with a couple of older women in the restaurant.
One, perhaps mid 50's, looks like a realtor and somehow they have a prior acquaintance. The second, a tall, statuesque blonde in her 40's, is new, and the owner seizes upon the introduction to display his many charms.
And somehow, as they're sitting there chatting he discovers that she's single, and so decides that she might be a good match for a newly single friend of his, T.
Now T, he's in his mid 60's, short - in the area of five feet, bald, not exactly overloaded with charm but solvent, wealthy even.
This blonde, she's close to 6 feet.
It's not going to work, but I admire the owner's loyalty in trying to set her up with his friend. She asks me - "What do you think? Do you know him? Is he a gentleman?". I'm stuck, can't say anything, the owner saves me by cutting me off "Of course he is...put them in the book for Saturday night....".
She's been set up. The nephew and I are having a laugh, "She needs a bull, not a goat" he tells me, and I have to admire his phrasing, he's right, nailed it precisely on the head, but we'll see on Saturday night how the date goes....
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Friday night and there's a larger group of attractive Lebanese girls in the private room. 12 to be precise, all 20 something, with that dark-eyed and attractive complexion that comes of not immersing oneself too deeply in Western Culture.
Now they're all quite pretty, but I'm not interested. I'm far, far too old and I have this prejudice that pairs people of distinct cultural influences with like-minded people of distinct and similar cultural influences....
Some are still in the hajib, they're not eating pork or drinking liquor, but otherwise they seem to be having a good time.
I ask them what's become of the Talking Waiter, we still have no word as to his whereabouts, but that's a different table and they don't know him.
The boys - Nephew and G - keep swinging by the table, chatting to them, they don't, apparently, suffer my cultural prejudices, and eventually the Nephew adds one of them to his phone.
***
Now the Nephew, he's hung over, he had a crazy night on Thursday, drinking several times what was wise and today he's hurting, bad, he's not trying to pick anyone up for this evening, just keeping a door open for later.
But when he gets home the girl begins texting him, she wants him to come over, she's at a friends and they can have a spare room....
Nephew's hurting, not interested, not tonight anyways, but she doesn't give up. Maybe he'd like to split a hotel? She's only 16, and she begins sending him nude photographs of herself....
The Nephew, he tells me this, I believe him, never does he profess the slightest shade of integrity or virtue and nothing he can do or say will even slightly alter my perception of him, he is, in my mind, complete.
And as surprised as I am that people I'd consider to be - well, more morally congruous, are not so entirely, I can't help but to think that if you were to go off the Muslim bandwagon wouldn't it be a bit less taboo to have some pork or a drink? Certainly, comparing the Nephew to a pig, the Pig is a noble beast, the Nephew should have all of the unclean associations. But that's just me.
He's too hungover, the girl keeps sending him pictures of herself in increasingly spicy poses, he eventually blocks her on his phone.
Another one from the Nephew, long to narrate and completely without point but he feels compelled to tell me, only serving to somewhat dispel any illusions I might have harboured that other cultures and religions somehow harboured any greater or more solid values than those decaying in the West.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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