Sunday, February 19, 2012

New Countertops in the Twilight Zone

February 19, 2012

Do you remember the old Golden Earring song, “Twilight Zone?” Yeah, yeah, I’m that old and twelve thousand other authors just scurried off to write a story based on the lyrics, but I digress. There’s one line in the song that certainly applies to my life at the moment.

“Help, I’m stepping into the twilight zone…”

Tomorrow, if all goes well, new countertops will be installed in my kitchen. I’ve looked at the old ones for thirty years and I’m due. No, no, I’m not THAT old. I got a head start on home ownership while in my early twenties when my grandparents gifted me with three acres of ground, but I digress again.

Once I’d allowed myself to be convinced I deserved to spend that kind of money on a whim, the project moved forward rather quickly. My partner knows I’m frugal to a fault and that if he really wanted to pry several thousand dollars out of my accounts, he’d have to bleed, too. He handed me a check (that I know had to give him a bit of a twinge) and off we went to look at options. Formica, quartz, marble, soapstone, concrete, granite, the stuff with the ground glass in it, real butcher block, stainless steel. We settled on granite.

“Help, I’m stepping into the twilight zone…”

If you ever decide to get new countertops there are a few words you should avoid - “We’ll do the demo ourselves.”

To save about five hundred dollars, we decided to rip out and dispose of the old countertops ourselves. And so the work did commence. The first to go was small space of counter my beloved uses as his desk space. It wasn’t too difficult but wait…. His computer is on the floor in a corner of the living room. He’s using my computer to check his email. He’s touching MY computer. He’s picking up things on MY desk and asking me what the hell they are. Such is the magnitude of my mistake - we’ll do the demo ourselves.

So here we are on Sunday morning and the cooktop is on the potting bench - outside. The oven is on a piece of ply board on the dining room table. There is no kitchen sink. The dishwasher is sitting on plastic in the dining room. Who set the bomb off in my house?

And the coffee brewer? The Cuisinart is in the bathroom. And if you think about that for just a moment, you’ll understand the real twilight zone moment.

I’ll leave you with a little commentary from my cat. Yesterday, he decided to check out the action for himself and found his favorite observation spot had gone missing. He’s a famous cover model, you know, having posed for the cover of A Cat Named Hercules.

This morning he’s in the bathroom, glaring at the coffee maker. I understand. I want my home back in order, too.

“The sun’ll come up…tomorrow….”



KC Kendricks
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