No. 6 Tinkle: The Hole in the Floor
December 2006. I came home from my morning Rotary meeting fired up. Our club volunteered to participate in Group Study Exchange, a vocational exchange program for non-Rotarian professionals ages 40 and younger. We had the opportunity to host someone from Wales in our home for a week, and my brain was spinning with the musicality of the variations of that accent. Visions of a young Tom Jones danced through my head. Maybe he would even sing and wiggle his hips, and let me invite my girlfriends over to toss our underwear in appreciation of his efforts.
Only one thing separated me from my foreign accent lust-fest: our guest bedroom boasted a lowly half-bath. Making a guest, especially one of such possible prestige, traipse downstairs to take a shower simply wouldn’t do. It was inhospitable. Not Southern.
MTM was already on the job, though. His architectural genius concocted a way to fit a shower stall into that microscopic space and still have a sink and a toilet. In fact, he’d already removed the fixtures to get started ripping up the floor. The Welsh team wasn’t scheduled to arrive until April 2007, giving MTM four whole months to complete the Grand Expansion of the Bathroom Project. Even he said four months would be more than enough time to get everything done.
In mid-January, I knew we were in trouble when I caught him balancing on the exposed studs with a Shop Vac, sucking every mote of dust generated since 1851 into the hose. A perfectionist, he had to turn the machine off umpteen times because it overheated. But, I can’t put the floor back on knowing all that stuff is down there, Andra. It will give me nightmares.
Riiiiiiiight.
By mid-March, the a lovely new charcoal grey tile floor was installed. Every square lined up infallibly. Nothing was uneven. No shortcuts were permitted.
I was having a nervous breakdown. Our possible-Tom Jones-lookalike guest will be arriving in less than two weeks, MTM. To quote my father, he doesn’t even have a pot to piss in. What do I have to do to help you get this bathroom finished?
Haughty silence expanded to fill the whole eviscerated space. Finally, MTM proclaimed You can’t help, because you won’t do it right.
My manipulative plan to fasttrack the bathroom expansion AND have a Tom Jones look-and-sound-alike backfired. When Leigh arrived, he didn’t look like Tom Jones, and he didn’t sing. He had to schelp downstairs to brush his teeth and take a shower.
But, I made sure he had a pot to piss in.
This post is part of the series My Top 10 Tinkles. If this is your first visit to this urinary extravaganza, please click here to start the series at the beginning. Thank you for reading my blog, for sharing it, and for spending time here.
Oh I am just so glad you invited Tom Jones into your post! I do so enjoy *thinking* about that man! Anyway…did you take any pictures of the finished room? I’d love to see the perfectionist’s final result. And you have me thinking about a post of my own. We had to remodel a bathroom after skunks had been living underneath the floor joists… it’s a mess of a story but I do have pictures. I’ll wait until you’ve finished your lovely series! I don’t want to be too close of a copy-cat! Your photo brought it all back to me, though. Once again. Thanks for Tom Jones!
Debra
MTM claims we have some. I will do a second post later today and show his handiwork. It was a cool bathroom in the end.
Glad you like a dose of Tom.
I, too, hope you’ll tell your story, Debra. And you, too, Penny.
Debra, you MUST tell your “mess of a story”. We had skunks living underneath floorboards as well and a very stinky story, indeed. I can’t wait to hear about it – and see pictures.
What amazes me about the whole Tom Jones video in the post, Debra, is that he gyrates around like that and never trips on the microphone cord.
Another great piece of writing today. I really enjoyed reading it very much. Thanks for sharing. Have a nice day.
Enjoy writing? Join Us Today!
Writers Wanted
I daren’t think what’s under the floor in my bathroom, Andra…
Ours had more than a century of old newspapers that were used as insulation and had disintegrated. No wonder that house was so dusty.
I admire any man who is capable of taking on such projects. My part of the project would have been the one to rip things apart and throw away the trash. I am good and pulling things apart. Not so good at putting them back together though. I did manage to replace the faucet valves in the bathroom yesterday without flooding the entire house or breaking the sink in two. I had to drag 10 different hand tools and a flashlight into the bathroom with me. I had no clue how to take the faucet valves off but I was determined to make it happen. Now, for the first time in 12 months the stupid sink does not drip and my water bill should have lower digits because of it. Yeah me!!
Bravo, James. Just don’t ask MTM to help you, unless you want your house to be torn up for a very, very,very long time.
I’d have to side with MTM on that one. Dirt is dirt, and no matter it’s provenance, I wouldn’t be likely to cover it up either. On the other hand, ignorance is bliss; if I don’t see it, I can live with it! Hopefully, I’ll never have to crawl under and see what’s beneath our floorboards (I’d call park ownership for aid first).
MTM used to crawl under that house all the time, too. Ick, I say. I could never go under there.
The beauty of DIY home improvements!
Wreaks havoc on many marriages.
My Mom’s neighbor panics and redoes a room whenever major company comes. Without FAIL.
Ouch. I hope they don’t have major company too often…….
Oh, Andra, I live with a very wonderful perfectionist as well and he almost always comes up with some sort of project that just has to be done right before a party or house guests. He did finish a bathroom, barely, before 40 women arrived one January afternoon for a baby shower.
Tom Jones reminded me of very funny, very sad, very short book called “The Mammy by Bendan O’Carroll”. Tom Jones plays a role in it.
It is funny how these things just have to be done, and they’re only going to be small projects – REALLY – and then they turn into monstrosities……Glad you got yours done before your shower, Penny. Forty women with no toilet could’ve been a very bad scene.
One of my Dad’s favorite sayings. I knew it related somehow to the chamber pots of yore, but I love reading the whole story.
Dust doesn’t give me nightmares, and that’s a good thing. You’d understand how good if you saw my apartment.
Ha. It doesn’t give me nightmares, either.
Ah, in the words of my Daddy (an architect as you well know), anything worth doing is worth doing RIGHT! Ha. Architects are more similar than I ever thought.
I think they are brainwashed to be perfectionists in college. Studio has to do it to them.