|
|
|
visit to a socio-emotional desert
Thursday, November 21 2002
Today Gretchen expressed concern that I've sort of returned to my old habits of sitting obsessively in front of my computer, tuned out from the needs of the real world. She pressed me on the issue of hanging drywall, offering to help in the process. Since hanging big sheets of drywall is a difficult operation for one person, her offering help was the motivation I needed to get going. We started with some tricky pieces on the lower parts of a sloped ceiling and then graduated to easier vertical pieces reaching down to the floor. I managed to cut the stuff fairly accurately, particularly around outlets and collar ties. Interestingly, I noticed that Lafarge, this new brand of drywall we're hanging (it's the stuff delivered on the day my thumb was squashed) has a different consistency from the leftover Sheetrock brand drywall I'd been hanging with Louis. It's much more crumbly when cut, as if it contains many more air pockets.
In the evening Gretchen prepared dinner for us and I took a brief break from drywall. During this break we walked over to pay a visit to Lila's parents on a mission to complain about her thefts. We were greeted at the door by an oldish middle aged man who had been watching teevee in his sweatpants. The guy seemed to know very little about Lila, other than that her name was Sammy and that she was mostly kept in a dog shipping crate when indoors, since he doesn't like her in the house. Actually, he didn't even seem to know what sex Lila is, referring to her as "he" on several occasions. It turned out that Lila, or Sammy, belonged to the guy's teenage son, and being a teenager, the kid might have let Lila run loose a few times, but certainly not very often. The guy did say that he'd certainly pay for any damage Lila had cost us, but then he said goodbye without ever cutting us a check. His chief strategy for dealing with this issue seemed to be one of ignorance. The dog wasn't technically his, so he wasn't putting much effort into making amends for the damages it might have caused.
It had been a pretty depressing experience, to see a small animal crate in somebody's mud room and to be told that an affection-starved dog is jailed there whenever it comes in the house. No wonder Lila spends so much time at our house; the place she lives is a socio-emotional desert.
Gretchen and I continued drywalling well into the night, finishing nearly all of the master bedroom. By the end there my brain was even more weary than my body and I found myself cutting the same tiny rectangular piece of drywall several times to fit in this one place above the bathroom hallway. Each time I'd cut it wrong by exactly the same amount and have to start again.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?021121 feedback
previous | next |
