Oh dammit all to hell — the contractors, the ever-elusive contractors we’ve been waiting for, nigh on three months now, finally, magically, reappeared today. It’s like having a vision, really, when you’ve been waiting for someone for so long and voila! There he is: The Contractor. He had a certain aura around him, a halo, glowing, and he said the magical words, “Hey. We’re ready to put up the scaffolding and get going.”

Then the Nasty Neighbor yelled at him and next thing you know — whoosh! He’s gone.

Fucking hell. Geographically speaking, we are too close to each other. (As in, I’m doing the dishes and wow! there she is in her kitchen window, doing the dishes! What a quincidence. I long for a kitchen window that overlooks the backyard. As in, we walk out to the yard and YAP YAP YAP goes her dog, as if he’s never seen us before in his life, and his addled little puppy-brain goes INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!) And I swore I wasn’t ever ever going to blog about this, because we’ve Mended Fences, the Neighbor and I. We’ve come to terms with things. Agreed to disagree, etc. etc.

But the contractors were talking about putting up the scaffolding and possibly blocking her driveway, so we had to talk to her about it and the response went like this…

“AIIIIIIIIIIIIII NO NO AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII YOU CAN’T BLOCK THE DRIVEWAY! WE HAVE TO PARK THERE! WE CANNOT PARK IN THE STREET! THE CAR THIEVES MIGHT COME BACK AGAIN AND AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII WHAT IF THEY STOLE HIS CAR THIS TIME???????”

Etc. (The dog? No, he did not bark when actual intruders did come by. Idiot.) Could she move her car and park it in the street? No, of course not. That would be considerate.

How I long to plunk her down in the middle of the East Village — well, the East Village isn’t icky anymore — Queens? South Side of Chicago? Detroit? Pittsburgh? And hand her a fiver and say, “You have no car. Go catch the train.”

Next thing you know, the contractors are hauling the scaffolding to the backyard, where it now lies in a heap, and they’re leaving. Leaving. I wanted to say, “Don’t leave,” but knew how pathetic and desperate it would sound.

“We’ll start on Monday,” they told me.

Fucking dammit all to hell. Will we ever see them again? And the painters? Yes, the house is almost painted — they were here all week. Then yesterday they said the words I was most afraid of: “We’re starting another job tomorrow. We’ll be back on Monday.” But will they?

(To be continued…)

Later, that same day…

So, I’m vacuuming the living room and notice Wacky Boy waving out the window. At the painter. Up on his ladder touching up the front windows. Fantastic! And the other painter is shop vacuuming/power washing something like that out in the driveway, cleaning up the mess. Really, this gives me hope. Have a superwonderful day.

WM