Not the Rubber Duck!
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36 Comments
A fine interpretation of renovation agony, Mr Onthemoon. It’s a bit like childbirth ie: only those who have experienced it can truly appreciate the pain.
And now there’s a poor homeless rubber duckie.
FD - I share your suffering.
I’m driving over to Adelaide in 2 weeks with the Buzz Dog to renovate a recently inherited house. The first thing off the back of the wagon for immediate installation will be the bargain (new) toilet I bought here in Canberra from some wimps who were too scared to go through with their own renovations. Have toilet will travel! I’ll have to drive down the road to the 24/7 Maccas to use their toilet for 24 hours then it’ll be the rusty laundry tub for my ablutions after I rip out the kitchen and bathroom on Day 2.
P.S I don’t like the look of that kink in your pipe!
Your ordeal reminds of that famous quote:
They came first for the shower tiles,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a shower tile.
Then they came for the corner sinks,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a corner sink.
Then they came for the showers,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a shower.
Then they came for the bath
and by that time I had to bathe in the kitchen sink.
FD, having gone through the phases of death, rebirthing and inconclusions of renovation, I record with regret an attitude of almost irrenovation. Wouldn’t go near it with a barge pole now myself.
The round of SOCIAL INCLUSION DISABILITY REFORMS COMMUNITY MEETINGS with the GREAT BIG DISCUSSION PAPER (please read you half-wits) has begun in South Australia.
I attend one this afternoon with my pencil.
How I view your excluded rubber duck with a heavy heart. How inappropriate was that duck on the edge of the bath!
Up our way they’ve got a van thingy called Barking Buddies Mobile Dogwash to deal with just this sort of thing.
Ah renovations! How can one word encapsulate fear, horror, a knowledge of a death foretold* the lies, the promises-she’ll be right before Christmas-it’s just that one is never told which Christmas.
Having to drive home the worker who missed the 4.55pm train to Seaford. The bracing mornings of getting up in time for the workers to arrive. The trips, ah yes, the trips to the local Mitre 10, or the dingy place near the railway station which might, MIGHT, have the peculiar, old-fashioned cupboard door handle you want so badly.
Excitement, he does! One only, oh hell (but a mate up at Templestowe might have a few).
The array of catering items. Ordinary tea-bags, fresh Orange Pekoe un-bagged, Peppermint tea, Green tea, Camomile tea. Nescafé, de-caffeinated coffee un-bagged, real coffee (he says he can’t stand the stuff in a sachét). Beer for after work. NOTE none of this imported stuff, no Heineken, no boutique stuff, plain old Carlton and United. Biscuits, by the score. Sugar, real and artificial.
AND THE MOST important item of all. Industrial strength ear muffs (those bright orange thingys) Because if there is one thing as sacrosant as the footy, it is the unwritten law which stipulates a worker is allowed to bring with him his radio. Which, as we all know must be turned up to its ultimate decibel.
Advice for anyone new at the game. Do a quick check-if possible-on the worker’s cultural origins. Is he of Greek, Italian, Vietnamese, Hungarian, Irish, Welsh descent? If he is Chinese, try to acertain what part of China he hails from. The last thing anyone wants to hear is Chinese opera. If he is of Oz descent it will be the footy.
Once you’ve established their degree of honesty rush off to have four duplicates of the front door key. It is better to run the risk of a small item going missing, than it is to have to engage the services of a psychoanalyst.
*With apologies to Gabriel Garcia Marqués.
You are so human FD.
I’d be happy to care for the rubber duck at our place for a while Mr OTM.
Owner builder here, HTFU. And don’t take it out on the duck.
Seriously, lived with a camp shower - canvas bag brass rose, no leopard skin involved - for a year. Self-inflicted, so easier to deal with somehow. And worth it in the end.
LOL More vigour with that cheese grater FD.
Oh yes……
Just to cheer you up, I’ll relate a true story about my local plumber.
6 mths ago, I was changing a washer on the tap over the bath.
The whole tap broke off at the wall!! Hot water sprayed everywhere.
I rang the plumber who apologised profusely that he couldn’t come right away. But said he’d try and get there before lunch. (It was 10am.) 30 mins later, he arrived, fixed the tap with a new bit of pipe and was gone in 25 mins.
Total cost….$35.00 !!!!
Eat your renovating hearts out city slickers.
PADDY: My God that’s impressive.
How close to Mawson do you live?
I love the mauve shower cap.
It must be a bloody large kitchen sink.
@ Holden Back: a camp shower! of course! thanks for that. another item to add to the list of ‘things to be packed’. and my swimming cossies for backyard camp showers.
Dang. Now I’m going to have to repeat the post-renovation stress disorder therapy…
The space-time-home-renovation continuum—no wonder my builder responded to my concern about his slow work rate with the words “You obviously do not understand the building industry.”
First Dog, I suggest you watch Peter Weir’s early movie The Plumber.
If you think you’re going to come out of this with any sanity left you must be insane.
@Buzz you are intrepid in this weather, but it’s just dandy if you can deal with the breezes off the Southern Ocean. I expect your cossie is an animal print.
EMC (2.15pm)
The Barking Buddies suggestion is sheer genius. For the whole Onthemoon family First Dog could negotiate a ‘fleet’ discount.
Once I was married, but there were renovations.
No worries.
She’ll be right
Too easy.
When I hear these words, I do like in my pic. Fingers in ears and go “lah-de-da-de-dah” really loudly. Run away. Find a dark corner, Go foetal, Rock back and forth. Sneak away at dawn.
@Mike Jones LOL!!!!!!!!
You’ve tapped into the zeitgeist yet again FD
Sorry FD - this cartoon is just too busy to read…. My eyes just go glassy!! Prefer less dialogue.
LOL @Carol Bruce. If you think *that* cartoon is too busy, just pray you never encounter FD’s bathroom.
)
(Or catch him on the phone to his insurance company!
Paddy,
Speaking of wordy cartoons one of my All Time Favourites was First Dog on the phone to Optus. Pure heaven.
Thanks Peter F. Your kindness helps to ease the pain.
I think it was the third attempt by “Stairs R Us” that did me / us in.
After all, to whom can you escalate that problem ?
…. climbing a stairway to heaven?
Mike Jones, as Peter Forrester has implied, you felt it was hopeless trying to take the matter upstairs?
Peter and ‘shoe, a specialist stair company designed the bloody thing, let’s call it Design A, then manufactured something else (Design B) and tried to install B for a couple of days, realised that they had manufactured not design A, but design B, they had to remove the mess and do it again.
So they did. They remanufactured design B - as perfect as it was the first time - but it only took them a day to realise they’d f*cked up exactly as they had before.
So they had attempt 3 - and got it right. By that time I’d grown adept at climbing the ladder. But my then wife, now my ex-wife, demurred. She preferred to call them (? us ?) the incompetent c*nts that they (we) were.
Suddenly it was me who had picked them rather than a “we” decision.
That helped a lot. And the tear-stained ink on the renovation contract bled into the ink on the marriage certificate.
It was a stairway alright, but it wasn’t going up to heaven.
MJ: Which party ‘took steps’?
EMC, I’m trying to avoid taking steps - not wanting to stringer you out, not seeking to get a riser or experience first hand tread. Otherwise I’d probably need to hire another bannister. But I guess you newell that along.
I left my storey without a barley twist.
The Finial.
Ogee
MIKE J: You have shattered my illusions. I thought you would be just the man to tell other people how to understand the instructions on one of those Swedish bookshelves.
I’ve forgotten the name of the company. But it’s the people who deliver, not the item you ordered, but a whole lot of uneven lengths of timber. A very small packet of screws. And instructions how to build your own aircraft.
Venise, I think Allen has a lot to answer for that key.
The equation that establishes the first riser can seem daunting. Nothing daunts a high stepper.
We have a shower at our library. You are welcome to use it. Come before 9 am and I’ll let you in.
I can even lend you a tea-towel to dry yourself.