So Much for "While You Were Out"

At this point, I'll take "While You Were In," and I don't care when it is - you want to come at midnight, that's fine. You want to come at six in the morning? That'd be fine too.

I went to the Commissary first thing this morning - knew I needed to be home when Revano and his crew showed up at 9; the pre-scheduled time that some relatively minor construction work on my closet in the bedroom was supposed to start. There was some little annoying voice in my head that said to me when I was getting ready this morning, "Don't bother emptying out the closet because your construction work is NOT going to happen today." Cannot say what it was that made me think that my closet wasn't going to get slightly remodeled, but I just had that "gut feeling." Anyway... Left the house at 7:45 and on my way up the street I see Rev driving down - I stopped - he stopped, "Hey, Rev, you're coming to my house in an hour, right?" "Oh, yes, Madam, we will be there at one o'clock." "What? One o'clock? You told me nine o'clock when I talked to you the day before yesterday." "Oh, yes, Madam, we cannot come until one o'clock." "Fine. See you at one o'clock." My gut feeling was right!

I did not empty out the closet. I just knew it wasn't going to happen. Revano is a very nice man. He is like a "general contractor" for a lot of us on this compound. He certainly takes care of a lot of things for us and he really, really does try to - oh, let's say - appease me. He did go and get the paint for me after I had my little "fit" at Jotun's and vowed never to go back there because the asshole working the other day wouldn't mix me ONE quart of paint. It isn't Rev's fault that the color is so dark that the bedroom will look like a cave. Now, I need Rev to go and get me two more colors that I want to try, and he will take care of it for me. Maybe not "right now" like I want, but it will get done. Rev's problem is that he is stretched too thin - he has six or eight guys working for him - one of which is our pool guy, who comes three times a week. Rev has already done construction work for us in this house; it was Rev and his crew that did all of the tile around our pool. His guys painted the living room and dining room. He and his guys built the extension on our wall so that the neighbor's can't look out their windows into our back yard when we are in the pool. He has changed locks for me, bought plexi-glass for me, and taken care of numerous other "odd jobs."

If he would just be honest with me and say, "Oh, no Madam I cannot do that until July 21st," I would be a lot happier than him saying to me, "Oh, yes Madam, we will do it today at one o'clock." I just got off the phone with him. I've been trying to call him since about 1:30 to find out where he was. I need to empty the closet out for him and his guys to get in to do the work I want done and I've already taken the closet apart once - when I started my "While You Were Out" project - and I don't want to take it apart and pull everything out if the work I need done isn't going to get done. What cell phone doesn't have caller I.D. these days? Like I said, I started calling him around 1:30 and have carried the phone around with me and called him every ten minutes since then. He knows that I was trying to call him. He also knew that he wasn't going to be here working on my closet today like he told me he would when I saw him first thing this morning! Rev just told me that he and his guys will be here tomorrow at "around eleven o'clock." Umm-hmm. Right. "Tomorrow is Friday - that's your only day off." "Yes, Madam. We will work over-time." [I am not paying any more than I we have already agreed on, so if Rev wants to pay his guys over-time, that's fine by me, but he has given me a price and that is what I am going to pay.]

When Rev and his guys show up tomorrow, I will empty out my closet. But I am not doing it until they are actually, physically in the house with their saws and hammers! I do know that he didn't get my other paint yet - I won't have that until Saturday at lunch time. Damn. I really wanted it today so that I could put the test color up and see if it was going to work. Now, if I don't have the paint until Saturday, I won't be able to get all of the paint until Sunday, which means that the bedroom won't be painted until Monday or Tuesday - provided I can get Revano locked into a specific day of the week and an "approximate" time to actually get the work done.

That is just the way things are here. Nothing, and I mean absolutely NOTHING, gets done as planned or scheduled. If you think that this is accepted effortlessly by a very high-strung, high-maintenance, impatient and demanding woman, who also happens to be a perfectionist and who may have [some slight] obsessive-compulsive tendencies, you would be wrong.