(copyright 2010, Dawn Weber)
I cuss at dead people.
Not all of them, mind you - one in particular. A guy called Buck. That's not his real name. I changed it to protect the
A former owner of our house, Buck was the type of guy who liked to "do it himself." This has been most unfortunate for us.
He was not a carpenter, a plumber, an electrician or a contractor. He thought he was.
In reality, he was a truck driver. We can tell.
I spend a lot of time yelling:
"Buck? You suck!"
and...
"Buck - WTF?"
For 17 years, he's haunted our house with cluster-Bucks: jacked-up plumbing, makeshift carpentry, fire-hazard wiring. Nails where there should be screws, screws where there should be nails, and nothing where there should be something. His actions have caved in ceilings, caused small electrical fires and flooded our hardwood floors. Twice.
He's left our Allstate agent in tears.
Luckily, I'm a tough cookie. And I watch a lot of HGTV. So of course, I know everything about home repair and remodeling. (Just ask me.)
Lately I've been using my mad television skillz to remodel the downstairs bathroom, and I was especially excited to get rid of the heinous, late 80s, Garth Brooks-era medicine cabinet and light fixture. Both are epic in their fugliness. I blame Buck.
Simple things, replacing a medicine cabinet and light fixture, right?
(Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!)
You hear that? That's him, beyond the grave, laughing his ass off.
Because when I unscrewed the two screws holding the medicine cabinet onto the wall and gave it a tug, I got exactly...nothin'.
No movement. Not even close. Stubborn and stock-still, the Garth Brooks cabinet didn't move. I examined it all the way around, thinking I'd missed a screw, a stupid nail. Nope. I tugged again. Nothin'. The box remained, a monument to blue wooden geese and bad country music.
This reeked of Buck. Buck plus construction adhesive.
Instead of just screwing the cabinet into the wall's studs like a sane person,
Buck - WTF?!
I immediately knew two things:
1. If I ever did get it down, the drywall beneath the cabinet was probably jacked-up beyond repair.
2. It was time to drink my lunch.
I pondered my situation on break, and decided to save cabinet Cluster Buck for later and move on to the revolting light fixture.
Breaker off, I began unscrewing it, wondering what would happen next. Didn't have to wait long.
The lazy redneck had drilled a huge, jagged electrical hole on the SIDE of the fixture instead of the middle. Didn't matter to him: In 1989, his fugly light wouldn't show the hole.
Well, guess what dead dude? It's 2010, and my new, awesome light will totally show this gash. Now I have a huge hole to patch, and wiring to drag to a new location. My TV skillz will be taxed.
Who DOES this? Who puts huge electrical wiring holes on the SIDE of a fixture?
(Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!)
Ladies and Gents, here he is again: the Jack of No Trades, Mr. Mediocrity, the King of Half-Assery.
Buck? You suck.
You are a riot. This would make a good sit-com plot. Hilarious as usual!!
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the funniest and best written blogs I've seen in a while.
ReplyDeleteO M G !! Buck must have lived here once!! I'm stripping the hall bath of hideous wallpaper & it is the 2nd bath I've tediously torn paper from to discover the walls hadn't been primed! In many places, I am tearing off layers of the drywall paper along with the colonial blue & pink field of flowers. There are squiggles of glue at the seams which won't scrape away, yet did not manage to keep the seams from lifting & curling..... I could go on & on & on...... You're hilarious!! Wish I could be as clever chronicling tales of our repairs!! Well done!
ReplyDeleteOMG - unbelievably funny. This is one of your best columns. I think Buck has Southern Relatives but I'm not mentioning names.
ReplyDeleteGreat job!!!!!!
LMAO! Too funny. What a master of asshattery! Do you think when he put up that cabinet, he was all, "MA HA HA!I'm totally effing with the next owner?"
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain--not to that degree, but we bought our house when it was two years old from a Mr. Know it All/DO it yourselfer. You figure, new house, how much damage could he do, right? I mean, nothing to the degree of Buck, but little by little we're discovering his handy work!
All I can say is, "Bottoms up!"
Heidi, I thank you. Do you think my show should be called "Sh!t My Middle-Aged Mom Says"? Kerbi, I am so sorry Buck lived at your house and, apparently, put up wallpaper? He liked to do that here, too. He preferred florals - with no protection, er, primer, just like your house. Wanda, I am taking bets on those southern relatives' names...Tuck? Sounds about right. MTM, I think Buck was/is totally effin' with us. He's a mean bastage of a ghost. And, lastly, Bagman and Butler, I heart thee. Will you marry me? What? You're married? Oh, wait. So am I. I'll just have to settle for putting you on my blogroll. :)
ReplyDeleteDawn, This brought back many ugly memories of our first home. We thought it was great that for an older home we had so many outlets. Until we realized that they were just extension cords strung together and neatly tacked to the wall. And then painted over for camouflage. Our Buck was named George and we shared many WTFs with him!
ReplyDeleteHilarous! Sounds like our last house.
ReplyDeleteThe previous owners were psychotic, and I don't know that for sure, but I'm merely guessing based on the hideous choice of wallpaper that they decided to cover the whole house with.
It took us FOREVER to get it all down, and it came off in postage stamp sized pieces to boot.
Needless to say, we don't have a bit of wallpaper in our new house.