The Pains of Progress

I have seen and heard things that cannot be erased. This is one more time in my life that I wish I had set-up a remote video camera and just left it rolling so the world could know, and hear all the things that I try and describe to you as first-hand accounts of all the folly that goes on in our home.

This weekend we are had our home fully re-carpeted and our one, lone bathroom re-floored. I paid the company, from where I bought all the carpet and flooring, an extra fee to move all of our furniture. I naively believed at the time, that this would relieve my family of most of the hard, physical work, therefore making this purchase of new flooring that much more pleasing when I was executing my sales-pitch to them in the beginning of this venture.

The reality of the situation is that I have three times the “stuff” than I have furniture, and I wish I could tell you what all I had to listen to in order to get the help and results from the men in my family in order to get all the preliminary work done.

Some comments were: “I should have hired me some girls from the elementary school down the road” from my husband to my son, plus “This is heavier than it looks now, so you’re gonna need to bow-up”, and “You just need to worry about your end, Big Daddy has this end taken care of” from my son to my husband, and lastly (in a higher pitch almost squeal) “Are you picking up your end or I’m toting mine and yours, plus the part that’s dragging?” It was one big bicker-laugh-fest between them all day long.

At some point at the end of the whole process, we were putting everything back in place, and suddenly, items that had been on top of my `etajere were no longer fitting properly. It seems with the plushness of the carpet, also came added height, which of course made the height of the furniture change. Between that, and all the arguing about the lights I have always had strategically placed all over it and comments about Fire Marshal’s being called, I was done.

It was suddenly all I could take and I sat down, trying to regulate my breathing and fighting back the tears from the frustrations of the day. But that wouldn’t last very long, my family rallied me back with jokes and laughter and we got it all done.

But I will tell you this, I’m not so sure all that decorating we do for Christmas is going to happen this year. I just got everything back where it belongs, and I’m just not up for that all over again. And because that holiday always requires furniture to be moved and rearranged as well, I’m even having second thoughts about my Christmas tree; I’m thinking a small table-tree might do. It’s August and that’s end of November, and I‘m thinking it’s going to be too soon, too fresh; but we’ll see.