Carpet Oddities

Two guys are here installing the new carpet on the stairs, which Stanley has requested that we spend $2,000 on because he runs up the stairs so fast that he slips on them all the time. Horror, you might say, is the feeling you experience when you hear the paws thundering up the stairs, a skittering as he slips, and then the slap-slap of a little dog chest slamming into a step on his way down.

Now I’m in the dog bedroom with the dogs. The door is closed, but before I went in here, I told the carpet guys that they could just knock on the door if they needed anything, because I had to stay here to keep the dogs quiet.

Well, one of them knocked on the door a while ago, and said someone was at the door to see me. I went downstairs and found my realtor, who was removing the supra lock from our door that they used to let other realtors in to see our house. She’d been meaning to pick it up for a while, ever since we took the house off the market a month ago, but hadn’t had time until today.

While I was chatting with her, I suddenly heard our microwave go off. I glanced at it, wondering if I’d somehow turned on a timer or something, and then went back to talking to our realtor. Gradually, a smell of clam chowder wafted over me, and now I knew one of the carpet guys had used the microwave, because even though I might not remember setting a timer, I would certainly have remembered having food that I could reheat.

When I said goodbye to the realtor, and started back toward the stairs, the younger carpet guy (who looked like a high schooler) turned to me and mumbled something. He either asked if it was okay to use the microwave or asked if it was okay that he had used the microwave. I said, “Sure, that’s fine,” because what else could I say? I mean, he had already used it!

Back in the dog prison, I heard the nailing outside stop. There was silence for a few minutes. As of now, the carpet people had been in my house all of 15 minutes. I began to suspect that the carpet people were having their lunch in my house.

I walked out of the dog room and downstairs, where I picked up a book I didn’t need and went back upstairs. What I saw on this trip was the young doofus, drinking and apparently just finishing his lunch, while he sat in the front entrance of our house. The other carpet guy was sitting on the front steps eating.

Now, I understand that people who are out all day on this kind of work don’t have access to kitchens and bathrooms. But the carpet guy who came a week ago to install the lower stair carpets had asked Chris, very politely, to use the bathroom — and before he used it.

I probably would have said it was fine to use my microwave, had they asked, but now that they’ve used it without asking, I feel like my personal space has been violated. Which of course means that now I have to go downstairs and sit in the living room and pretend I’m not keeping an eye on them, which is what I’m actually doing.

Maybe this kind of behavior is normal and I’m just being picky. But my feeling is, if you need to have lunch, let me know you’re going to be taking a break. And if you’ll need a break fifteen minutes after arriving at my house, then take the break first. Eat your lunches, then start the work. And ask me before using any of my personal stuff, including the bathrooms.

Posted by: ssjane | November 17, 2006 | 1:18 pm
Posted in: Bits