The real life story of a husband and wife building their dream home and the collateral damage to innocent bystanders.
In this case? The cable guy.
When you are married to an amazingly talented woodworker, and you have waited 25+ years for him to fulfill HIS dream (not mine!) of building his own home, and as you wait, you have to post stunning photos of his finished work in the finest homes of Central Florida on your business website—something starts churning deep within—like the red hot molten lava in a volcano about to erupt.
Let’s just take a very small example of the consequences of this eruption. There are much bigger ones, but this particular one is when the lava started to flow—the lava that had been building for years.
And it was the cable guy who found himself in its direct path.
We have an unusual house. A geodesic dome. Here it is:
I do like our house but I want people to know that we are relatively normal and the house is, too.
We do have a kitchen and bathrooms (someone actually asked me that once!) and…well….we also SHOULD have a front door entrance.
And we do kind of have a front door but it’s just that no one knows where that front door is. Everyone uses the side door which enters into the kitchen.
But shouldn’t everyone have a beautiful entry and front door?
Should a wife have to explain to people WHERE the front door is?
Also, because our house is on uneven ground, the front door is much higher than ground level.
In the photo the front door entrance is hiding behind the tree. (AND…another one of those other hot molten lava topics is that this is supposed to have decks wrapped all around the house.)
We did have a so-called “temporary” (lies–all lies. Temporary is a BAD word around here!) set of primitive stairs leading up to the front door—in order to get our certificate of occupancy.
And we did get that certificate….but those stairs? They rotted. Gone. Years ago. I even planted an azalea bush in front of the “front door.”
Maybe I was just trying to hide the evidence to keep the lava from flowing.
But then, one day, I heard a knock.
At the front door!
No one had ever come to the front door in 25 years !
Not feeling particularly happy or gracious about the embarrassment of my front door, I opened it a crack and looked down—remember that the stairs are gone—to see the cable guy.
We had called for repair, and in the confusion of a being at a round house, and because the cable box was closer to the front door, he had found his way behind the hedges to that dreaded front door—or should I call it “the live volcano.”
He looked up at me and told me that the cable problem was not on the outside of the house, so he needed to check some things inside.
With a deadpan face, trying to stay unemotional, I said, “Okay.” And I opened the door wider.
He looked at me incredulously, and said, “Is this how you get in?
And that’s when I felt it. The lava that had been bubbling and churning for 25+ years.
And it started to erupt and boil over.
I was thinking a new hot lava question:
“Should any woman with a master woodworker husband be asked: “Is this your front door?????!!”
To his question of, “Is this how you get in?” I had a one-word boiling hot answer: “YES”.
But the “yes” had a bit of a serpent hiss to it: “YESSSS.”
I wasn’t seeing the cable guy anymore. I was seeing the handsome woodworker husband in my mind’s eye.
Did I mention that the cable guy was short and pudgy with very short legs?
He looked into my steely eyes and I’m pretty sure he felt the hot lava as he put his hands on the floor and hefted himself up on his knees and crawled into my house.
Yes. He did.
He CRAWLED into my house!
And I let him!! All my visions of showing gracious and proper hospitality flew out that front door on waves of lava !!
Moral of the story: Well…I guess it would be to not ever get in between “his dream and her nightmare”—although often we have no idea what we’re walking into. So…always be prepared. In this scenario, the cable guy should have had a step-stool. I mean, shouldn’t that be part of his required gear?
Next moral—and this one is very, very important. Please read carefully:
Don’t ever let your husband talk you into building your own house!
EVVERRR.
And there are more house building stories. Lots of them. Maybe I will tell them on another day, children. (Reminds me of telling a fairytale only this one hasn’t had a great ending. Yet. Still waiting for the castle to be completed….with its very own front door. A moat might be nice, too! One that spans the hot lava).
p.s. No one had ever come close to my front door story until the wife of the guy who does granite with Jesse told us hers. He, too, had been too busy with amazing jobs in amazing houses to work on their house. When they got ready to sell their home, he “fixed” their front door–the front door they never used. When the realtor arrived with a prospective buyer and opened the front door, it fell off. Hahaha. Yes. They win the prize! I’m now in second place with my story!