My Island of Dr. Moreau Years Begin
Luogo è in inferno detto Malebolge
It began with the sanding of the floors. A project was announced, warm sunset, Martini hour- a Thursday late summer afternoon. Casually-quiet monotone; “I forgot to tell you, I’m taking next week off from work-must have slipped my mind. Anyways, I’m going to sand the floors.”
I remember those words clearly. I remember choking on my Stoli-O infused ice cube, the perfect euclidian cube-corner cracked off in my tooth, ETOH-H20 lattice; a shard of my molar slid down my warm throat as I considered how to respond.
I was apoplectic — sanding the floors- moving every room into other rooms, sawdust, commercial sanding machines, rentals — a 4X4 F150 truck complete with big hair bubble-gum Aqua-net-busty-bare-breasted blonde titty women soaked with mud-flapps-hanging bull-balls- center below the license plate; suited for New Hampshire or Maine- not, not, Massassachusetts — was he planning to park it in front of our home? There would be loud noises, disruption, we would argue the choice of stain colors and agonize for hours. I was on a tight schedule, how would we fit our neurotic project in-how could I keep my new job? Our hard wood floors were very old- how old I wasn’t sure- but could they handle another sanding or would I fall into the basement some night soon after the project was done and he had returned to his day job crunching numbers at a local University, Massage Therapy at night? How many coats were needed? A week — for our flat? Was that enough time? I knew nothing about such a project- Dan had a plan, he had what he needed, the truck was rented, the tools were ready before I could say …[ ] what could I say?
I was working from home at the time- and the thought of such a big project underway meant I might have to commute into the office for the week to get anything done. There was no notice, no discussion about planning, milestones, effort, duration, timing, costs, disruption, contractors, sub-contractors, stain-colors, disaster recovery plans. None of these things were familiar to my former partner. He had a vision; an idea, a **refinancing* in mind, nothing else mattered, he was determined; focused and as ready as he would ever be.
It started in his bedroom which was moved into our living room through the pocket doors left, furniture forward to the bay windows. I lost my living room to his bedroom / living room storage, one room sanding was done. His room was moved and the living room into his bedroom through the pocket doors right-hand slide-the living room contents went away from the bay windows where they rested, quietly, dust settled in the evening sun. Sanding, furniture moved left again, choices- which color to stain, a short list was presented to me- a flourish of earthy pantone squares — a decision — a trip with 4×4 ford F150, u-turn, right hand fork, past the Police, bear left park- mix, left left, 3 blocks home and mix.
The stain went down dark, in a corner-left-hand-side former-now empty bedroom; consultations were necessary. I was in a business meeting with Buenos Aires, Boston and Denver, this was important, feedback was necessary. Software testing, automated script executions- Release Engineering plans were put on hold as a confident knock rang on my bedroom/office door. A short pause, and I was summoned to begin the final project which would bring the end of our quiet life; within a week we would have a new room mate, sanded floors, our lives turned upside down to a handyman who lives with us to this day.
My Island of Dr. Moreau years begin by Phil Chartrand is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://wp.me/p3907n-kU.
