When it comes to collecting crap stuff, my husband is the epitome of the phrase ‘the thrill is in the hunt’.
He’ll tirelessly scour flea markets and antique stores for that just right piece of crap treasure….. but once he owns it? It will languish in the closet or be left in a deserted corner to gather cobwebs.
And now?
His cat is displaying the same traits.
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Yes, that’s a half dead mouse.
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And just like his father….
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After he hunts it down, Lord Dudley Mountcatten could care less what becomes of it.
As you already know, my husband is the king of free. He can’t pass up anything, no matter how useless…. as long as he doesn’t have to pay for it.
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This has driven me nuts for years and I have never, ever! felt the need to join him in his obsession.
Until last week.
When I saw this on our local Facebook page:
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Pre-Covid our plan was to replace all the flooring in our home. (Post Covid? Holy crap, I don’t want strange people in my house!) Along with that plan would have come long overdue new furniture, to include coffee tables. So since the plan went out the window with the plague, I thought why not? This looks good… and it might be a nice interim fix.
I should have known.
When the husband lifted it out of the truck? It jiggled…. and never even made it into the house. What an utter piece of junk! Fake wood, loose glass and legs so unsteady dropping a napkin on it would probably cause it to collapse.
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Out it went, in front of our house.
How bad was it?
The damn thing was there for a week and though lots of people looked, no one wanted it.
Next stop?
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The recycle center.
Where I left it…. and my desire to ever pick up anything marked free again.
Winter is the worst possible time in Maine for your roof to spring a leak … so of course, that’s exactly what’s happened.
Remember when I said I’d cringe every time it rains?
That’s the sound of me cringing.
It poured the other day… and so did our ceiling.
So much so I had to add another pan.
Which drove the husband nuts when he came home…. and because he’s a man and had to do something?
Yeah. He decided to climb up into the attic to see where it was leaking.
Naturally this isn’t as easy as climbing a set of stairs… because no.
Here at Casa River, we like a challenge.
The den closet, home to an overflow of the husband’s useless crap treasure.
(Yes, he collects old wooden hangers. Don’t you?)
Half of one side had to be emptied and strewn all over the room….
Because the only way to access the crawl space we call an attic is to remove all the shelving and climb up a hole at the top of the closet.
A design paradigm we curse the builders for quite often.
It’s a bit of a nightmare getting up there.
And no, the husband didn’t appreciate me making a Kodak moment out of the experience.
He wasn’t thrilled that I stuck my head up through the hole to offer advice either.
Men. There’s no pleasing you.
But look… I found an antenna from the 1970’s!
Did I mention there’s no actual floor up there? Just a few scattered pieces of particle board that break when you kneel on them.
So after scuttling around like a crab and lying on his back…
And pointing his flashlight near the section of the roof of the addition you can’t access from the crawl space, he did find where the water was coming in. Halfway up the peak, and running down the beams…. which we can find absolutely no reason for.
Doesn’t this look like fun?
Especially since there’s not a damned thing you can do about it until spring when you can rip off the shingles to find the bad spot.
Meanwhile I’ll have this lovely and ever expanding wart to look at.
My husband’s master plan involves a serious amount of temporary screwing, refitting, removing and replacing. He’s not a huge fan of measuring… but he’s a man.
This is not surprising.
Of course this means 3 times as much work.
I think one planned demolition and rebuild would suffice…. but I’m a woman.
What do I know?
There’s also a good deal of shifting the husband’s crap we don’t need now, nor will we ever need again stuff from one place to another. Like the hurricane generator we bought in 1992 when we lived down south and haven’t used since.
Or the wheel weights for the tractor we no longer own.
Or the numerous tires for the cars we no longer own.
Or the table that went with the chairs we no longer own….
Right beside the small refrigerator I had no earthly idea we owned.
All of these things are heavy and filthy and must be moved over and over again because he can’t be convinced to throw them out.
Good times.
There was hammering.
And crowbar-ing …. and yes. A good deal of cursing because the structure is 45 years old and not exactly plumb.
There was also a good deal of displaced dirt.
Thanks to numerous woodchuck tunnels…
Which undermined our attempt to simply re-side and re-shingle the damned thing.
Now we have to completely dig up the hard packed floor and smooth it all out.
Doesn’t that sound like fun?
Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 