God Help Me

There are contractors in my house doing a complete renovation of the bathroom in our master bedroom.

Now, I am not naive. I steeled myself for the obvious inconveniences this would cause. My wife and I set up temporary shop in the outer hallway bathroom and made sure that everyone's morning shower time was scheduled to avoid conflict. We took our clothing out of the closets that were being re-modeled to expand the existing bathroom, hung them on temporary clothes horses and protected them with plastic. We explained to our somewhat paranoid teenage daughter that the construction would be noisy and there would be all manner of characters blasting in and out of the house all day tracking dirt and carrying menacing looking tools. We were fully prepared.

But this is like saying - "I am now fully prepared for my barium enema." No matter what you do, it's gonna suck. So the first thing that happens is, the contractors come in and shut off the main water feed, open up all the pipes, then leave at the end of the day without closing up the pipes and turning the water back on. No showers, no toilets, nothing. Our daughter won't even pee because she's grossed out at the prospect of not being able to flush.

Next, the design begins to change midstream. "How about if we put the tub over here, instead of over here? We think it will be better for you." (Translation: It's less plumbing work for us.)

"Yeah, but if we move the tub over there, then the toilet has to go over here, and that's where the towel rack was going to be", I say.

"No problem, we'll put the towel rack where the sconce was going to go."

You see where this is going. If I go to my office, I'm needed back at the house to clear up a problem or make a decision. If I stay home, they don't need me for anything, so I sit in my freezing cold house (the heat is off because they've got the radiator pipes all chopped up) listening to the sweet sounds of hammers and power tools and hoping I can hold off on going to the bathroom for a while. My precious vacation time is being swallowed up by the Seat-Of-Our-Pants Construction Company.

Then there's the money thing. After we agree on a price, the price begins to undergo fluid adjustment. And unlike the water that hopefully will flow through my plumbing again someday, the price fluctuations defy gravity, preferring in all cases to move upwards.

"Sir, since you got through-wall faucets, we'll need to buy special plumbing fittings for those." Cha ching. $300 bucks.

Did I want 4 inch hi-hats in the ceiling or 5 inch? I wanted 4-inch. Good choice, I'm told. Cha ching.

"Sir, you and your wife are both tall. You should consider a higher toilet. It's so much more $comfortable$." My wife, unfortunately, is present when this is proposed. She nods, enthusiastically. I wonder to myself - did she have a problem with the throne she's been sitting on all these years?

So how long will we be subjected to this? I'm told a week, but I have no faith. It's now Thursday and the area still looks more like downtown Bhagdad than a bathroom.

And, God help me, there is no Green Zone here.