The House on Nostalgic Ave - How we spent New Years Day 2007

As 2007 dawned our new house was a mess. The contractors had begun demolishing the only existing (and water damaged) bedroom on the second floor after Christmas, but much of the work throughout the house was on hold until we removed the accumulation of personal effects and furnishings left behind by the previous owner.

In this, the last few months before the discovery of Craigslist, I had no outlet to get rid of the  hundreds of 1980's era Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, Time, and other mags that were boxed throughout the house.

I ignored Lisa's pleas to throw them out and instead spent New Years Day 2007 hauling them to Half Price Books to sell. The price quoted me? Nada. Not one slim dime. So I loaded them all back up, took 'em to the house . . and then out to the garbage.

Meanwhile Lisa and I had switched off spending evenings at the house, trying to sort through the mess. I'd been so gung ho for the junk before the sale, as if it was an elaborately expensive rummage sale. I had my eyes on a few Time Life WWII books, a few art books, an old push mower in the basement, etc. etc.

Then I bought the place and every item was just one more thing to move and dispose of, and Time Life be damned. Oh, and the lawn mower? It disintegrated in my hands when I tried to move it, just plain rusted through and through.

Sometimes my Dad helped, sometimes my sister Katie, and once my friend Tre. You never spent the evening there/here alone at the time. It was just too dang creepy to do that - dim light from spastic light fixtures, whistling wind through the windows stuck that were stuck inches open, the all-encompassing smell of decay and neglect and abandonment.

[True story: with my sister Katie with me at the house we  heard a door slam shut upstairs. Remember, we both heard it, and it was a clear and distinct sound, not something that could be mistaken for any other. The problem? The only two doors still hanging in the house were the front door a few feet away and the back door, visible to me from where I stood. My sister shrieked and I myself was in no hurry to stay]

I think it was Lisa who eventually got most of the kitchen lineoleum up.

That exposed some heavy water damage from where the ice box - no,not a fridge - had once stood.

My Dad and I removed the threadbare wall-to-wall carpeting in the dining room. I mean 'threadbare' literally - the first time in my life I saw a carpet so thin it was sheer. And the dust from the decayed padding . .

Anhow, to continue with New Years Day 2007. The whole family bucked up and attacked the mess. What follows are some of the most famous photos in the Slapinions arsenal.

Here's YaYa prepping for the cleanup:

And little LuLu bravely carrying chunk after chunk of linoleum to the garbage pile.

Note the huge size of the pile, which was only to grow. On the 16th of Jan, despite having a standing order for a special pickup that the city never bothered filling, we were cited by Milwaukee and had the contractors spend a day hauling it to the dump. By then it included many more items and some mattresses some jerk had randomly dumped on the pile.

Smiley couldn't do much, but he was Smiley :)

At some point I'd picked up our friend Chris and her kids (Faith accompanied me to the bookstore) and together we shared our first meal in our new home.

True, Little Ceasars (or as the family calls it, 'Pizza Pizza!') is nothing special, but I didn't touch a slice.

Confession: I was still grossed out by the house and couldn't fathom eating there/here.

Man, it seemed like it could never be our home . .

Our house - one year later

Today marks one solid year since we purchased our home. Only 29 more years until it's all ours!

A year ago the room where I'm sitting belonged to somone else, peeling paint, water damaged walls, cloth wire light fixture and all.

Hard to believe it's been a year, and harder to believe it's the same house. That 2006 version feels more and more like we imagined it all - in which case we have some pretty masochistic fantasies.

One thing I'm not too fond of as a homeowner is snow shoveling. Milwaukee has been  buried under snow and ice all month, two feet plus if memory serves, and in response I duly say: Global Warming my A**.

All those years I whined about having to park on the street I never took into account that the city doesn't plow alleys. So now I have off-street parking but not a day goes by without my little car getting stuck, and more than once I've helped a neigbor push through a snow drift or an ice pack.

Ice dams have become a genuine concern around the city and no more so than at my house. One of two items we didn't have money to fix around here was the roof, an ancient affair with more than 5 layers of shingles.. Yikes.

I spent some time all week throwing ice chunks at 4 and 5 foot long icecles hanging from the south side of the house before they took my gutters down with their sheer weight.

Of course, as I write this the city is gripped in a balmy fog and much of the accumulation has turned to water - the alley has a twenty foot long puddle a good 6 inches deep - but the news says we have 2 or 3 inches on the way overnight.

Yeah. Again folks - global warming my A**.

The Ghost in the House

My wife is convinced our house is haunted.

Not in a Poltergeist/Exorcist fashion, but haunted none-the-less.

I should start out by mentioning that she is not prone to a strong belief in the supernatural or occult. You won't catch her bragging about being abducted by UFO's - in fact, she's so anti-those things that she despises any form of Sci-fi as garbage.

But she believes our house is haunted.

She's reported hearing footsteps when no one is upstairs, heard whispers in her ear while in the living room, and been exposed to mysterious bumps and noises around the house. Her Mom agrees and provided some of her own evidence to back her up.

I don't agree with their assessment. I don't disbelieve in ghosts per se, although I view their 'existence' as contradictory to not only Christianity, but atheism and most religions - and personally I reject them because I hate the idea that any God would make you spend eternity rattling chains in an attic..

I chalk up the noises to the creaks and moans of an old house and reckon the whispers were a rare figment of her imagination.

But I suppose our home suits itself to a haunting, if such things are real. It's 115 years old and at a minimum two people have died there (both my great-grandparents on my maternal grandma's side).

I'm going to cling to the notion that if the ghost exists, it's benign. After all, my ancestors would have no cause to wish me harm.. . except, you know, for tearing apart and remodeling their house.

I'll admit, I myself have heard the mysterious bumps in the night (isolated, it seems, to the Northwest corner of the house, which would seem to provide a clue to a terrestrial explanation of some sort).

You're sitting there, minding your own business, and boom. It sounds, for all intents and purposes, like one of the kids was screwing around and dumped something off their dresser.

But, uh, their all sitting there watching Spongebob with you. And when you go upstairs, nothings amiss.

I should also mention one genuinely terrifying moment. About 2 am one night my wife woke up screaming, saying that someone was in the bedroom. In about 2/10ths of a second I was out of bed and, scared out of my mind, ready for anything. I saw something streak across my vision and I went to the doorway to intercept it, but there was nothing there.

Sure, it was spooky and intense. But . . .

My explanation: my wife often holds entire, non-sensiscal conversations in her sleep. I think she woke up mid-sentence and in that horrifying twilight between dreams and reality, mistook one for the other.

The streak I saw was very light, possibly white - which just happens to be the color of AngelCakes, our cat, who often comes to rest in our room or YaYa's. She could easily have been startled by our reactions. Lord knows she could avoid me and slink off to other parts of the house in a second. In my half-awake state I probably wouldn't have noticed.

So is the house haunted? No way to answer that, it's all subjective. If it is, here's hoping they keep to their own realm.

On this subject at least, I'd prefer to be kept in the dark.

Tags: ghosts, Nostalgia Avenue

The House on Nostalgia Ave - the mortgage wait

I'd load the typical masthead here, but AOL Journals is still screwy.

 

The rest of October was nuts.

 

Here we are in the midst of preparing for our vacation to DisneyWorld, we're trying to get pregnant, I was in the process of interviewing for another job, and we're trying to land a house, a house I didn't think was worth the effort.

 

And every day, EVERY day, was another obstacle towards getting approved for the 203K loan. It was a month of review this, check that, oh by the way we need this or that, etc.

 

I set a frantic approval date for our anniversary on the 25th, but that came and went without progress. (we did however, dine in the restaurant across the street from the house)

 

All the while we now heard whispered rumours of another interested party. I never fully bought into the idea, but I was told someone who wanted to 'flip' the house was now in the mix.

 

A week after our anniversary we got the news - we were approved for the 203K.

 

In theory.

 

In actuality I have no idea what 'approved' is defined as by the mortgage company, because we had yet another two months of hell in front of us. Daily calls, weekly requests for lists of documents, and so on. It is impossible to reduce the constant tension, dread, fear, embarrasment, and anger involved with buying that house into less than a book length piece, so please, trust me: It sucked.

 

Keep in mind that at this point we were not PRE-approved, we allegedly had it lock stock and barrell. In fact we had a conventional loan for twice the house's value sitting there unused and untouched. This was all about getting the 203K rehab loan.

 

In the meantime I needed the house inspected for the purposes of the loan. 

 

Eryk was the second guy my broker recommended, the first setting off a deep and instinctive warning bell inside my head. Begininig to end he - the first guy, not Eryk - sounded creepy and untrustworthy.

 

We scheduled a walk-through with Eryk. He saw potential in the house, but a lot of work too. The North and South foundation walls would need to be replaced in full, as would the electrical. There were roof problems I hadn't noticed, and lead paint throughout the house, a lot of it in cracked or peeling condition. He also encouraged me to get the water tested for lead, which I did in the days preceding our vacation.

 

No doubt; a lot of work lay ahead.

 

Meanwhile, believing I had the loan I contacted my cousin for some advice on how to write up and offer and called the lawyer.

 

Only to be told the house had received a bid.

 

Now to this day I don't believe 100% that that was the truth. A large part of me instantly screamed 'negotiating ploy' [well, really my head screamed "F**K', but this is a family blog]. So we upped the ante a bit and submitted our bid.

 

It was accepted.

 

A tentative closing date was set for the 30th, and as we left for vacation it felt in large part like a celebratory trip.

 

One closing note: that water sample? When we returned from vacation a message was on our answering machine. To paraphrase it:

 

"Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Slapinions, this is X from XY labratories. Normally we just mail a result to a client but in this case I felt it was too dangerous to wait. If you are drinking the water you submitted STOP. The maximum allowable lead level is .15 u/gl. Your sample came in at 259 u/gl. It is highly dangerous and if you have kids I strongly suggest you DO NOT drink the water. Please call me back at XXXXXX."

 

So in essence, our water was lead with a smidge of water tossed in for good measure.

 

We now needed to replace our entire water supply too.

 

Sigh.  

How our purchase of Nostalgia Ave affected LuLu

First off, I'm not sure if it should read 'effected' or 'affected'. Reckon I should have checked on that before making it the title of the post.

We're going to skip ahead a little bit because an event of this week ties in with what transpired Feb 1st.

After we bought the house we realized that it was impractical to keep LuLu in her school. It was 10-12 minutes north of our old place, and would  be a 20-25 minute ride once we made the move.

Also part of the discussion was the financial end of things. That $200/month tution looked mighty large once our housing payment tripled in size.

With reluctance - with sadness and regret - we decided to pull her out of K3.

Her last day was Feb 1st, a Thursday during Catholic Schools Week. That afternoon the school held a dance. We came in the midst of it and went with her class back to their classroom.

We had homemade cupcakes coated in Nerds candy.

 [Lu was/is cupcake obsessed. For 9 months or more she has consistently brought up the subject of her upcoming 4th birthday and the cupcakes she desires to celebrate it. If you anger her or hurt her feelings she will quickly announce "You not have any cupcakes on my birthday!"]

Then I led the kids in the TootyTot dance. It's a ridiculous song where you wind up with thumbs up, knees together, elbows back, feet apart, tongue out, eyes shut, and spinning around.

The class seemed a little confused at the sight of a 300# man acting like a fool.

Part of my sadness that day was the strong feeling that we would have bit the bullet and kept YaYa there if it had transpired two years ago. A part of me thought we were shafting Lu, but I know in my heart that it was both impractical and foolish to keep running across town for of all things a K3 class.

This is Lu with her teacher Ms. Weiser

This Monday Lu and I returned to the school, to keep a long held promise that I'd have her visit with her old friends. They were all happy to see her, from the kids to Ms. Weiser to the office staff and the music teacher, but Lu herself played shy and didn't say a word to anyone.

What was worth noting was that despite saying she didn't miss school for these past three months, once she set foot in the building she was eager to show me all the different ways to get her or there, and which door led to what room, etc.

She even seemed to get over some comical anger at her friend Autumn. Lo' these many months she was quick to say "I don't like Autumn. She not my friend. She a tattletale."

But once we saw her, it was "Can she come over?"

Lu also talked constantly about her 'friend' Montarian. In truth her teacher said they rarely talked and even more rarely hung out together, but Lu seems fascinated with the name itself.

After the school visit Lu and I went to the Washington Park Library, where she gave a puppet show in the giant wooden robot/stage they have there. We then went to the West Allis police station to pay a parking ticket and got McDonalds.

A nice day together, just Lu and her Daddy.

Tags: LuLu

Tags: Nostalgia Avenue

A true B movie horror moment

Last Friday I noticed a whopping big spider on my kitchen window. I'm not talking tarantula here, but quarter-sized. I got out the Raid and let loose. It fell, then scampered out a crack where I'd failed to close the storm window.

In it's wake it left the perfect Spider-Man logo in the Raid foam.

Being a dork, I Nextelled my Dad to come look. [the wife and kids were out].

In anticipation of his visit l I went out and caught the thing for show-and-tell.

When my Dad arrived I took him outside to show him the beast. At that moment I looked up for whatever reason . .

cue music . . .

and in horror, noticed that the entire side of the house was covered with equally large spiders, each with a sturdy web of it's own.

Ugh!

I have nothing against spiders, nor a fear of them, but c'mon!

My theory is the spiders eggs had hatched in the bright eastern sun of the previous few days. Thankfully they haven't got into the house (I must have killed the scout).

Knock on wood, that is.

 

The House on Nostalgic Ave - the tour

On October 9th, a cold and dreary autumn day, we finally got to tour the house.

I came straight from work, and Lisa showed up with YaYa. My in-laws were there too, but the lawyer was running late. Given the track record on the house, we were worried we’d be stood up, but he showed up alright.

The house . . oh my.  At least the bench on the porch was nice.

Let’s take this more or less in order. The living room was in OK shape, except for hardwood floors that seemed to have been stained only in the middle 3/4th’s of the room, as if an area rug was covering the floor. I still can’t figure that one out.

Then dining room was a more depressing sight. The carpet was quite literally threadbare and held down more by dirt and dust than any adhesive. The scattered remnants of my Uncle’s tenantcy – a cabinet, a jacket press, a globe, books, etc – were stacked willy-nilly in half the room. The walls themselves had peeling paint and there were cracks running along the ceiling and walls.

Both the bedrooms were a whopping 8x8ish in size. The one to the north was home to peeling paint and water damage, while the other showcased a moldy, water damaged closet (the ONLY closet in the house), dirt (snot?) on the wall, and a handmade card taped to the wall that was addressed to my Great Aunt.

She’d passed away 20 or so years ago, btw.

The kitchen . . wow.

Filthy ancient lineoleum, a white porcelein monster of a stove that dated to the 50’s at least, a gigantic pile of boxes and refuse in the center of the room, and a low, country farmhouse style sink.

This cabinet or 'dry sink' was the very one mentioned whenever my Ma's attention turned to the house. It was a favorite of my Great Grandpa's.

Did I mention there were no working utilities, including water, in the house?

Off the kitchen was the bathroom, a hideous conglomeration of bright green ceramic tile, a clawfoot tub that had been boxed in, and a tiled CEILING that was falling down. You know, I just now realized there had been a towel on the rack at the time. Weird.

I think we went downstairs to the basement next.

My in-laws declined to make the journey with us, which (to me) sealed what I believed they thought of the house.

The basement certainly didn’t win me over.

There were two ringer washers as you walked in, with a message written on the wall that read ‘this wire’ (meaning the exposed, fragile looking thing next to the note) ‘ is live when power is on’.

Neat.

There was a giant of a furnace, older than I am, and a fuse box too, a cloth contraption that an electrician would later say couldn't generate enough power to run a modern washing machine or fridge, nor any appliance of worth.

Nearby was the old coal bin, empty of fuel but still home to coal dust, and now a storeroom whose wooden walls were rotting away and whose contents were mold covered and disintegrating.

Then . . . the dungeon.

A cobblestone floor sat between four cream-city brick foundation walls. [for those outside Milwaukee: this town was once famous for cream colored brickwork, of which my basement provided ample evidence].

 

The wall to the south was bowing and damp to both sight and touch.

The wall to the north was bowing too but was braced by large timbers set against it.

The effect, I’m told, of decades of being so close to a drop forge.

Throughout the room were rusted metal items and decaying wood. Off to a side was the old water closet, now minus a toilet, which too was falling apart. On the wall in front of where the toilet once stood was a tiny ashtray attached to the wall, cig butts still inside.

From there it was on to the second floor, up a surprisingly pleasant orange staircase distinctly marked by pale squares where pictures once hung.

A room was off to the left, the bedroom where my Grandparent’s once lived and where my Mother was probably conceived.

Now it was, to my eyes, horribly water damaged, with SHEETS of paint hanging off the plaster. The best part of it were the boxes of 25 year old S.I’s and Time’s laying around. More than anything, that room nixed the house for me.

The rest of the second floor was unfinished attic; typical floorboards, typical beams overhead. A (relatively) small amount of possessions lay around, including a 1939 calendar still nailed to the wall.

How appropriate for a house stuck in time.

The lawyer, just FYI, didn’t venture past the dining room and did his best to discourage us. It was clear he thought this a waste of time for all of us, and I don’t blame him.

Even the backyard, which prior to the walkthough had seemed so . . well, not good, but manageable, now appeared as it truly was: a madly overgrown lawn and a porch so neglected a small tree was pushing up from beneath the stairs. [note: the first pic of the porch is obviously from a later visit, since it's sans tree]

Afterwards Lis and I began to discuss the house.

"It’s a f*ing dump," I said poetically. "Let’s just take the pics over to my Ma. We’ll do a good deed by letting her see the place again and call it even."

"Really?" she said. "I kind of like the place. I think it has potential."

Let me here note that she once said the same about both me and the future popularity of American Idol. A 50% record is nothing to scoff at, so my ears perked up.

Heck, even my Mother in law turned out to like it.

I still thought she was nuts. It wasa bleeping dump, a travesty, a shame really, and besides, we didn’t have the money for a remodel.

When we got home I called our lender. She said if I wanted it I had two options: getmy family to accept an inflated bid then trust in them to willfully refund the difference for improvements, or apply for a 203K rehab loan.

I told her to get cracking on the 203K, and I put the word out that we were interested in the house.

I think the sellers were shocked, which tells you something about the place’s value, no?

And it was off to the races . . .

The Nostalgic Ave Odyssey Pt. 1

 So sometime last summer we were pre-approved for a mortgage and began looking for a house. With our budget our aim was simple: find a nice house with a backyard in a so-so neighborhood (what most readers would call the South Side ghetto, but what we called home).

We toured a lot of homes that sumer.

 

* We saw a very nice house on 28th St that we liked a lot, but the neighborhood was a little too so-so for me and my cousin (and real estate agent) thought she saw evidence of foundation problems.

 

* We gave serious thought to a fixer-upper off of Morgan. It was quaint, in a great neighborhood for us, and had serious potential. It also had a dirt crawlspace for a basement, a lean due to foundation problems, and was set back off the front yard with no chance of ever adding a garage.

 

* There was a very cute house near our (then current) residence that had a Ozzie and Harriet backyard and a good interior. The only bathroom tho' was on the second floor, and there was no way my mother or my in-laws could navigate to it - hence, the house was a no-go.

 

* Lisa really liked another house we saw where the owner insisted on showing us all her improvements. I thought the place sucked, but I guess there was potential.

 

* I took Parker, and later the whole family, on a tour of house off of 12th and Cleveland. The best part of that place was a garage with doors on both sides - you could drive in off the alley and straight onto the back yard.

 

* Another house near our own was spacious and featured something for each of us: an open staircase for Lisa and a comprehensive security system for me. I think we just missed the boat on that property.

 

* We spent the day up north in Oconomowoc looking at houses, where the market will get you a nice house for 1/2 the cost of Milwaukee.

 

* Heck, we even toured a house on Burnham that had no floors - literally. It was just a shell of a house on a boozed up, garbage strewn block.

 

To be honest, by fall I'd decided it wasn't to be, and that it was God's way of telling us to shut up and pay our rent.

 

One day my Dad was listening to me moan at work and suggested that I look into my great-grandma's house on Nostalgic Ave.

 

note: as a tip of the hat to all thepsycho's in the world, I will refer to the house as being on Nostalgic Ave, as you've probably already guessed.

 

For those folks in the family, X Ave has a mythological stature, and is spoken of only in hushed tones of nostalgic reverence. It is the house where my maternal grandmother's parents lived, and where theye each died. It is where my grandparents lived for a short time after the war, and where my mother was likely conceived. It is where my mother and her brother were taken (or dragged, depending on the storyteller's mood) each weekend to visit while Grandma cleaned her mother's house. It is where my Mom got splinters sliding down the wooden cellar door, where Great-Grandpa planted rose bushes, where Great Grandma fell down the basement stairs, where the Xmas tree was by the living room windows and opposite it a fake fireplace; where the earth-shaking booms of the nearby forge were a lullaby to my Mom on sleepovers, and where my Great Uncle Leo, in a apocryphal tale, hid a treasure beneath a floorboard.  

 

In short, it had a lot of history, and a lot of baggage.

 

"It's for sale?" I asked.

 

"No, I don't think so," my father replied. "But it's been empty for years, since Uncle Chester moved to the nursing home."

 

That was the extent of it for a few weeks. I brought it up casually to Lisa and one day we drove past it, probably the first time I'd been to the house in a quarter century. The backyard was horribly overgrown and the porches needed some paint, but it seemed like a house we'd have stopped and toured.

 

On another drive past the home we stopped and looked in the basement window, where we could see a tidy room with a canning cabinet.

 

"It seems like it's still in good shape," we both said at the time.

 

My mom drew us a floorplan of the house in exacting detail, unconsiously showing her enthusiasm for the project. Based on the drawing I thought it was too small, but Lis saw something that piqued her interest.

 

Thus began the excruciating process of finding someone to show us around.

 

The house had been willed to all 7 of my Great-Grandparent's children, but most had been bought out, including my Grandma. 4 owners remained; my Uncle Chester, the most recent resident; the decendants of my Aunt Mamie, who had lived in the house with her brother until her death; my Great Aunt Mabel, wife of the deceased son Wally; and Cynthia, daughter of my late Great Uncle Harry.

 

No one had a key.

 

Aunt Mabel sent me to Chester, who we visited in his nursing home, who we promised to have visit X Ave if we bought it. No key. We were told to contact Aunt Mabel's grandaughter Chris, who for a time had kept up the house. No key. Aunt Mabel herself, no key.

 

Moreover, Chris (being the person most familar with the home) strongly discouraged us from pursuing the property.

 

Not encouraging, let me tell ya. I was begining to think people were intentionally stonewalling me. We're talking a week or two here folks.

 

Eventually we showed up on Aunt Mabel's doorstep and in a genuine but awkward moment Lisa started to cry. A few days later progress was made, and we had an appointment to tour the house with a lawyer that represented some of the parties.

 

That tour  . . . was a wakeup call.

 

Forewarning

I'm going to start the long drawn out tale of our first home purchase. What will follow is the introduction, if you will -  basically everything that preceded our first walk-through and the begining of the 100's of photographs.

Ignore or enjoy, as you wish.

Misc Chatter

Nothing of importance to say today, other than the stairs from my bedroom to the first floor are BRUTAL when you first wake up in the morning.

I think I might install a slide this weekend.

* * * *

I also would like to say that I wasted a decent portion of my life this year reading Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters and a small portion of Methuselah's Children. In a long-ago past post I listed Heinlein as one of my all time favorites, due fully to my memories of the books I read in my teens.

If the trite dialogue and overall crappy writing is indicative of his catalogue, then I kindly rescind my recommendation.

* * *

A sincere thank you to my Dad for coming over close to midnight to show me how to relight my hot water heater and furnace. I'd shut off the gas to the house to complete some work on the dryer (more on that later) and hadn't realized it killed the appliances until my wife stepped into a cold shower hours later.

* * * *

My knee hurts. Did I mention those stairs suck in the morning?

* * * *

We upgraded to standard cable yesterday, which is a big move for yours truly.

For years we went with broadcast TV, but reception became so poor over time that we moved to 'basic' cable. For $12/month we got the local stations, a host of Christian channels, and a home shopping network or two.

Eventually they added Bravo, the Food Network, Style, and National Geographic - thereby rounding out our viewing experience.

Well in the latest move none of the Big Four showed up, with the cable company claiming - bait and switch if ever there was - that none of those stations should ever have been on our line in the first place.

So we went with a bundle. Road Runner Lite (aka AOL), our phone, and standard cable for a bill a month, which is just a MOCKERY of every ideal I hold dear.

$48/month for TV? Ugh.

So now we have Nickelodeon, ESPN, and God help me, HGTV.

* * * *

True tale: we had the cable company out three times for this installation, never getting it done the way we wanted it because, as the tech said, "We aren't magicians. We're cable guys."

The yahoo  said this like a rosary, over and over again. When my wife heard the back door close she said, "Typical a**h**e cable guys. 'I"m not a magician my a**"

Thing is, I'm the one who had closed the door. The cable guy was still there, and I spent the next hour wondering how badly he was going to maim my house in retaliation.

 

Tags: Robert Heinlein, Cable, Hot Water Heater