Cleaning up the workroom with the help of a quiet stranger
Getting the first sheet of drywall from the garage and down the tight, narrow stairway to the basement was a job for Superman. In a red cape and tights I look more like Mr. Potato Head, but with fewer interchangeable parts.
Once the drywall was inside the basement workroom I had to swing it up and over my portable workbench for measuring and cutting. This was another task easier said than done. I kept bumping into boxes, old cabinets, piles of hockey gear, tins of paint and buckets of garden supplies. I felt like I was dancing with a Sumo-wrestler and neither of us could negotiate a left turn.
["The workbench needs another wee clean up.": photo GH]
It dawned on me (too late) that I should have done the measuring and cutting on the snow-covered back deck but I wasn’t going to survive the trip back up the stairs with Mr. Sumo over my head.
What to do?
I decided to move assorted piles of belongings out of the workroom and into the laundry room to create more space to operate. During the beginning stages of this task I discovered several items I had never purchased, seen or used before.
I took my questions and cold coffee upstairs.
“Pat, are we planning to paint the house green?” I asked while staring into the microwave.
My wife’s reflection turned from her ironing. “No. Why do you ask?”
“I found four large tins of green paint that have never been opened. I just hauled a hundred dollars worth of paint to the laundry room.”
Pat stated, “Well, I didn’t buy them if that’s what you’re asking. And why did you put them there?”
I explained the slow dance with drywall and headed back downstairs. In the next 15 minutes of reorganizing, with more evidence piling up on the workbench, I concluded we must have people I’ve never met living in the basement.
Who had purchased the second set of chisels and drill bits, three large rolls of drywall tape and eight new and unused packages of sandpaper (still in plastic wrap) for a rotating sander? I looked at my vibrating sander and shook my head. It wasn’t me.
For 15 years I thought the noises I heard as we settled down at night under cozy blankets were just normal ‘settling’ sounds old houses or middle-aged bodies make. The furnace ducts may ping a bit as they expand and contract at night but that doesn’t explain the three six-quart baskets of golf balls I found under a roll of red carpet.
An unknown boarder could explain that. While they’re at it, maybe they could tell me where my favourite putter went.
When Pat leaves for work and I head off on my frequent trips to the Red Roaster perhaps the boarder leaves his secret corner of the basement and goes out into the world to buy assorted house-hold goods for us as payment for room and board. Whoever it is certainly has bought us a lot of stuff.
I laughed as I spread out before me four unopened rolls of carpet tape and several new packages of Miracle-Gro, spring toggle bolts, window putty and electric socket covers. I then happily placed many of the mysterious items on pegboard hooks over the workbench to fill disconcerting empty spots.
As I surveyed the improved arrangement of items on the pegboard I started to feel better about having strangers in the house.
As rent, the green paint and 40 meters of clothes-line are negotiable.
gah
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