Category: Going for Broke

It depends on what you would characterize as “working”. If by working you mean putting an hours worth of work every six months, then yes – I am still working on the Pergo. Hey, all of our floors are covered. We just need a little touch up. Cheryl got excited when I told her I had done some work on the floor on Saturday while she was at work. She was a little less excited when she saw how much I got done.

10 p.m.: my normal bed time.
11:30 p.m.: I go to bed.
Midnight: I go to sleep.
5:45 a.m.: I reluctantly wake up.
5:50: I reluctantly get out of bed.
6:50: Cheryl and Beth leave the house.
7:50: I leave the house.
7:51: car doesn’t start.
7:52: I return to the house.
7:53: I leave the house with my bike.
8:05: I arrive at Beth’s school five minutes late and awfully tired.
9:00: I return home.
9:10: car still won’t start.
9:15: Share news with Cheryl.
9:16: share news with AAA.
10:16: car still won’t start.
10:45: car starts.
10:46: tow truck arrives.
11:00: drop car off at Marvin’s Auto Service.
11:30: mom drops me off at work.
12:30 p.m.: ready to go home.
4:30: Cheryl calls to say she is ready to go home.
4:40: depart from office parking lot with Cheryl.
5:00: depart with $700.
10:00 my normal bed time.
10:15 decide to write this entry, deja vu sensor kicks in.

How long do you expect things to last? Have you ever bought something new and been disappointed right out of the box? At what point do you decide to give up and start over with an alternative?

What if it was a car? What if the replacement to this hypothetical car would cost more in monthly loan payments (than the annual accumulation of repair bills), but the sight of this car drove you to a rage? Would you keep the car, but give it a good cathartic kick each morning?

When last I wrote, (or was it the week before?) I mentioned that all of our material possessions were crumbling around us. This week my car got into the act. Yes, my beloved Civic had to go to the shop for repairs. I feel betrayed. How could it do this to me, and at a time like this no less? Our relationship will never be the same.

Did I mention last week that we were painting? Well, we are. Did I mention what we are painting? We are painting our living room, dining area and hallway. Did you hear what color we are using? We’re painting the living room a light shade of green, the hallway a darker shade of green, and the dining area blue. Well, Cheryl THINKS we are painting the dining area blue. I’m not to sure about the whole blue dining area concept. When I tell people what color we are using the reaction seems to be universally unenthusiastic. “Oh.” “Green? . . . huh.” “Hmmm.” “. . .” (the blank stare)

What is it about green that seems to bring out such apathy from so many? Does anyone really like green? How many people do you talk that admit their favorite color is green? Now that we’ve finished the living room, the green is starting to grow on me. Now that we’ve started the hallway I know that the darker green will not. Even though we haven’t started the dining room, I still feel strongly about no blue.

The upshot to all of this is that we may have saved some money repairing our microwave instead of buying new. The dang thing was only two years old, so we figured it ought to have more life left to it. Plus, repairing it only cost 1/2 the cost of a new one. I told Cheryl this when we were deciding whether to repair it. It was a verbal exchange that, to me, spoke volumes about our personalities. I’m thinking to myself, “hey, it will only cost 1/2 to repair it, that’s 1/2 the cost of a new microwave saved – let’s repair it.” Now, I didn’t say all that, that’s just a summary of what was going through my mind when I actually said, “it will cost 1/2 the price of a new microwave to repair it.” Apparently what Cheryl heard was, “that’s 1/2 the cost of a new microwave to keep the piece of crap that broke after only two years.” I guess I was sending the wrong nonverbal signals. We repaired it. It works like a two year old microwave again.

We made up for the savings on the microwave with the DVD player (I’m not even going to talk about Cheryl’s car … that piece of #$%^ is off the charts). The DVD player was not immediately repairable. I called tech assistance with the manufacturer, and they suggested a “DVD lens cleaner.” They said that if that didn’t work, it would be time to call him back to find out where the nearest authorized manufacturer service provider was located. Yeah, right. The lens cleaner was not successful, so I went off in search for a new one. Why repair the microwave and not the DVD player? What may seem contradictory on the surface, is only somewhat conflicting once you dig a little deeper. Since it seems that no one is waiting outside my door with shovels, I’ll spare you the explanation. I will say that replacing the DVD player became somewhat more important over the weekend. My iBook was filing in admirably as a replacement DVD player until I heard a suspicious thump in the family room while Beth was watching The Wizard of Oz on Saturday. I got worse when, as I approached from the other room to see what was wrong, Beth immediately starts franticly asserting, “I’m sorry daddy, I’m sorry.” There on the floor was my recently plugged in, formerly open and sitting on the counter, iBook. This prompted the end of the iBook’s career as a complete home entertainment system, while at the same time increasing demand for a dedicated DVD player. My search for a new player was an epic tale of travels, lies, deceit, and redemption. It gets less interesting when I get to the details, so I’ll just leave it at that.

May your work week be short and your weekend even shorter.

Sure things break, but do they have to break all at once? Here’s this week’s tally: Cheryl’s car (twice), our DVD player, the microwave oven, and my patience. Oh, I forgot to mention the rotting trim on the front porch. Cheryl’s car is not a surprise. I’ve regretted that purchase for 5 years now. The other things are relatively new, so they shouldn’t have broken. Appliances should last at least five years, in my humble opinion, but we’ve been lucky to get two. Oh well, things could be worse. They could be better too.

This weekend “we” made a little more progress on the Pergo front. “We” tackled the dread step project. The details are too dry to discuss here (like that has ever stopped me before), but I will go so far as to say that it was good for a full days worth of fiddling around. Cheryl’s just happy that she won’t have to look at the exposed green Pergo padding on our step anymore.

Well, we finally put that baby to bed! I can now say that the floor is mostly done. You may think that being mostly done is a dubious accomplishment, but it is significant. We can now reclaim all of our space as living space (as opposed to construction space). Most of the furniture has been recovered from the spare room. The doors have returned to their proper place in the doorways. We can walk everywhere we could walk two months ago. Now we just have to finish the molding around the doors and finish a step, then we will be ALL DONE.

Yes, I’m going to talk about Pergo again. Our Independence Day weekend was filled with work, flooring work. Wednesday night we pulled up the carpet. Thursday we pulled up the tack strips and put down floor planks. Friday we put down floor planks. Saturday we finished off some molding and moved back into our living room. Sunday we hung closet doors and collapsed. I’m afraid it does not make much of a story. We woke up. We worked. We went to bed. Then we did it again. Then we did it again.