Is This A Dirty Joke?

Q: How many Big Strong Men does it take to get the furnace down the cellar stairs?

A: How the fuck should I know? And: Do you like my new kitchen table?

Seriously, we could cut a hole in a tablecloth, put a candle in that sticky-outy pipe thing. Hell, I know lots of people who paid much more than $500 for their kitchen tables, and -- well, and they were actually dining room tables, or dining room sets actually, that came with dining room chairs and everything, and you could actually eat off of them and stuff (the tables, that is, not the chairs, although I don't see why not)...

Andy and his Royal Helper gave up waiting for the Kid at 11:58, but Andy said if he showed up within a half an hour we should call his cell phone and he'd turn aroung (except he said "around," without the typo). Kid showed up -- I shit you not -- at 11:59. Andy pulled out of the driveway and drove off to the left; Kid came from the right and pulled in while we could still see Andy's car.

I called him, he came back. God bless him. The four of them (which I just now realized had just two names between them) tried for over an hour to get the damne thinge (which is kind of like Olde Shoppe, except not on purpose) down the cellar stairs, but it would not go.

There's this corner, see, around the top three steps. It turns out that the only way to get it around the corner is to let one guy hold it on his own, and not even Lou Ferrigno could pull off a stunt like that. The Hulk, maybe, but not old Lou.

Now, I'm going to say this once, and I'm going to whisper, so please pay careful attention:

I TOLD THEM IT HAD TO COME IN THROUGH THE WINDOW!!!!!!!!!!!

So the end result of today is five hours of waiting around, $40 bucks out of pocket for Royal Helper (who dothed protest, but the Princess insisted) and a furnace in the kitchen. Andy insists the smart thing to do is blow the bulkhead now -- and he's right, it would be the smart thing. If those cinder blocks were stuffed with silver coins, and if I had more than a week to get the furnace hooked up before they charged me assloads of money as a punishment for waiting around——

Wait a second, who the fuck is Keyspan to tell me to hurry up? Screw-ew-ew them! Didn't I wait five months for my gas line to go in three years ago? Didn't I wait all day back in April for a contractor who never showed? Didn't I then wait two weeks for my next appointment? Haven't I been waiting since freaking springtime just to talk to somebody from Keyspan about this? And now they wait until after they deliver it to tell me there's a deadline for installation? Keyspan -- and their new British owners -- can go ahead and kiss my royal ass.

Kid says he can get it through the (ahem) basement window, but I think I just made up my mind. Andy says he'll blow the bulkhead for us and let us pay him when we can. I have to admit, I did harbor fantasies of waiting till the book came out and then arranging a little cross-promotion by calling up a certain Dirty TV show host to do the job. But I guess we'll have to go ahead and let Andy do it now. Poops.

Don't look so sad, Mikey. There's lots more dirty work to be done around this shithole...

A Fractured Furnace Tale

Once upon a time, there was a man named Andy. Andy looked a bit like a beer-bellied Alfred E. Newman, and he shared Newman's philosophy about most things:

"What, me worry?"

Andy worked hard, and when he wasn't working, he played even harder. Captain Morgan's and cranberry juice was Andy's drink (yuck), though in a pinch any other kind of juice would do.

Andy liked doing things for other people, so when Princess Prudence needed an extra Strong Body to move a furnace down her cellar stairs, he was the first man she called. But he was busy. Doing Something Else for Someone Other than Herself.

No one else showed up either to move the furnace down the stairs, and Prudence was pondering the likelihood of she and her Royal Consort moving the hateful thing themselves, when the Consort came up lame.

Prudence was overwhelmed. Consort had been in the process of gathering paperwork for something called a "biometrics" appointment with the INS, which was fast approaching. Now she would have to take over this responsibility, as well as the care and feeding of the Consort, and Things One through Six that she does daily anyway (plus, if all goes according to plan, Thing Six is on the verge of spawning Thing Seven).

So Monday night, after doing her own six Things and stopping by Consort's last workplace to clean it up and bring home all his tools, after making an appointment for Consort to see Bones and making several phone calls regarding Biometrics, after calling the Kid to tell him he'd be on his own moving the furnace because Consort was laid up and she was plum out of ideas, after calling Keyspan to tell them it might be longer than two weeks before the damn thing was installed and they'd just have to deal with it, and after feeding and icing and there-there-ing the Consort (but before cleaning up the dinner mess), Princess Prudence took to chambers.

Princess did not sleep well. She still didn't know how badly Consort had damaged his royal leg. She didn't know if the Kid would show up in the morning. She didn't understand what sort of paperwork she was supposed to be gathering for the government, let alone where to get it from or if it could be had in time for the imminent appointment. She didn't know whether, if she did it wrong, the government would send the Consort home. She didn't even want to know how much Keyspan would charge her for the furnace if they didn't get it in on time, and she felt as though she'd been lax lately on Things Two and Six. She fretted over all of this until finally, fitfully, she slept.

She awoke four hours later, dutifully on time, and worried Thing Two for a couple hours. Then, at quarter to Royal seven the Princess' phone rang. It was Andy.

"Did you ever get that furnace in?"

Why no, we didn't.

"Okay. I'm leaving now to pick up Royal Helper. We'll be there sometime after 9:00."

God bless you, Andykins. If any of the liquor stores were open at this hour, I would even deign to purchase Captain Morgan's for your liquid refreshment.

But I wouldn't give you any until after you were done moving the half-ton of Royal Scrap.


We called the Kid and told him two Big Strong Men would be here at 9:00. He said he'd grab one more and be here shortly after. It's now 10:38. No sign of Kid. Andy and Helper and I got the thing into the kitchen, where at least it'll be protected from the weather (for now, at least, until the roof gives in). I can't open the fridge or get down to the basement. I can't put my dishes away or sit down at the table. And I think I hurt my shoulder. But at least the freakin' furnace is in out of the rain...

A Timeline...

7:30 p.m. (last night) Johnny comes back with the pizzas. They’re not take-out really. The bar up the street serves them and for three dollars they’ll sell you one frozen to take home and cook yourself. Except last night they upped the price to $3.25. Johnny decides it’s a sign that the universe hates us.

7:40 They’re individual-size pizzas. We slice up some onions to throw on there and some, well, what we thought was pepperoni in the freezer turned out to be turkey kielbasa – further proof the universe despises Johnny. I decline but Irish Johnny stubbornly insists on meat, any meat, even if it is Polish and actually made from a bird. The pizzas don’t come with instructions, so we guess at 425 and set the timer to check on them in 15 minutes…

7:52 The smoke alarm goes off. Guess we guessed wrong.

7:55 Only Johnny’s pizza burned. They are side-by-side on the same rack in the oven, mine is perfectly done and his is burnt black and solid and smoking up the house. He laughs so hard at how much the universe hates him that he bumps into me and almost makes me drop mine on the floor, but I catch it in time. I offer him half but he declines. He’s going to eat his burned kielbasa pizza dammit, and for dessert – worms!

8:20 I finally convince him to eat what’s left of mine because I’m tired of the grunting noises he keeps making as he chews.

8:55 We both fall asleep on the couch waiting for Men to start.

7:30 a.m (this morning) Andy shows up – yay Andy! – to install the water heater. No. To make a list of stuff he needs to buy before he can install the water heater. I thought he did that yesterday? No matter. At least he’s here. Not that I was worried. Well, okay, maybe a little bit. Sometimes Andy does flake out, but he knows we need hot water so he’s here. Good man.

9:00 Andy’s not back from the store. Do I need to worry? Should I call him? No, I don’t want to bug him, he’s doing us a favor. Sit tight.

9:15 Jack calls to say that if Andy doesn’t feel like it, he’ll do the plumbing. He’ll be here at 11:30. Um. I don’t think that’s the plan but nobody’s here but me and I don’t know what everyone agreed on…

9:16 I call Andy. He was taking a nap. Doh! I thought he was just going to the store and back. I tell him about Jack and he says tell Jack not to come, he’ll do the plumbing.

(There are things people don’t say out loud but you hear them anyway. What I hear is that Jack thinks Andy’s incapable of doing the plumbing, and Andy thinks Jack’s going to rip us off. Neither will say either thing about the other, though, so now I’m afraid of both.)

9:17 I call Jack back to tell him not to come. He says he has to anyway to make a stock list and talk to the guy from Keyspan. Okay. Wait, stock list?

9:18 I call Johnny at work to ask him why Jack is making a stock list when he hasn’t even given us a price yet and we’re not having the new furnace installed right now. Johnny says Jack needs to make the stock list before he can give us a price, but I’m to make sure he knows we’re only looking for an estimate and not to buy anything yet.

I’m glad I’m fluent in English, at least, otherwise I wouldn’t know what the hell was going on.

10:00 Andy’s back! With a guy named Sparky. Which makes me feel a little better about the impending electrical work they’re gonna do…

10:23 I finally finish the chapter I’ve been trying to get done since Thursday. At least I think it’s finished. I’ll read it one more time and hand it over, then we’ll see what Sucka M-C has to say.

10:30 Since I need to let that chapter sit a while before I read it over, I decide to whip up a couple of banana breads to give to the boys to thank them.

11:00 The bananas are frozen so I put them on the porch in the sun to thaw and go back to the kitchen to mix up shortening and sugar in one bowl, flour and baking powder and salt in another, everything ready to slam together when the bananas are mashable. But the bananas won’t get mashable and I’m starting to worry about the cats. So I peel them (bananas, not cats) and stick them on a plate in the microwave. Bananas, turns out, exude all these banana juices as they thaw. A sticky, sticky, sticky mess ensues inside my microwave, which I can’t clean up because I have no water – and no matter how many times I absent-mindedly head for the bathroom, the water isn’t on in there any more than it is in the kitchen. Every time I get my fingers sticky I have to go rinse them in the bucket of water that Johnny ran last night while I made fun of him, but now I see he really is a genius. By the time I get the five bananas thawed and mashed I see I needed six, but I’ve had just about enough of this.

11:30 The banana breads go in. No sign of Jack.

11:45 Andy says he needs to cut the electricity. Including, you know, the stove.

12:00 p.m. It’s okay. He only had to cut it for like five minutes and the oven held the heat enough to cook them.

12:45 Banana breads are out.

12:50 Hot water heater is installed.

12:55 The boys don’t want banana bread

1:00 Who cares? Fuck ‘em. I’m off to run an errand and when I come back there will be hot water and I will wash.

1:00-2:00 In the car while running my errand I hear Led Zeppelin bookended by the Who – “Behind Blue Eyes,” “All Of My Love” and “I’m Free” – and topped off by “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns ‘n’ Roses. I listen to them all at maximum volume with the windows down and my hair blowing in my ears and eyes. Awww, it really is spring!

2:28 I’m home. I’m getting in the shower.

3:13 I’m clean. I washed everywhere and shaved everything and I am clean. I even re-discovered the joys of listening to music really loudly and singing in the shower, which I haven’t done I don’t think since we moved into this house. What did I listen to? Like A Prayer. It was in the player in the bathroom that I haven't used in years. I think it's some kind of sign…

3:16 Just took a first glance at that chapter. Afraid it isn’t finished after all. Sorry, Sucka.