Given that we have now been living in our house for over ten years, my husband and I are no strangers to the world of home repairs. As a matter of fact, I have just now had to flee my house as the roofers have been at work since 7 AM, pounding their Shingles Of Death directly into my nervous system. And in order to make my escape I had to use my husband’s and my “emergency code” to inform him that, not only had the roofers parked their van directly behind my spot in the garage, they had also begun using it as a temporary dump for all their stuff, stuff that apparently was being thrown away in the imaginary dumpster located right next to the real-life dumpster, which, incidentally, was blocking the other side of our garage.) And so, I COULD NOT GET OUT.
And lo, there was a giant meltdown in the land. Because, if you know anything about fibromyalgia, one of its possible causes-as well as one of its most debilitating symptom-is a sensory processing disorder. As in, your system is unable to process all the sensory stimulation it receives. As in, there are times when the experience of air touching your skin can be the most excruciating thing you’ve ever experienced. As in, if you are ever looking for a way to torture and/or murder one of us, sending a crew to pound on our roof All. Day. Long. is definitely the way to go.
Oh, and by the way: if you also instruct your Latin American roof crew to just gaze at us and respond, “Huh?” with blank, uncomprehending stares when we ask them, IN FLAWLESS SPANISH, if they could please move their truck out of our driveway, so that we can PLEASE, PLEASE GET OUT OF OUR HOUSE!! forcing us to have to revert to Stupid American Loud Talking And Giant, Idiotic Gestures, that will pretty much be the final nail in our coffin.
However: despite everything, this is actually the best home repair experience we’ve had since we’ve lived here. Everyone showed up when they said they would, did everything they said they would do, in the time they said it would take them to do it, and now, with the exception of the dumpster which has yet to be picked up and carried away, you can’t even tell that anyone was even working on our house two days ago.
Unfortunately, that has not always been our the case for us.
