Hooray for Sunshine and Heath!!!

We had two appointments here at our house this morning.  The first one was with Tony, the salesman/estimator from Bathfitter to look at our broken shower floor.  He showed up just a few moments late which was great.  He arrived at our front door with a giant black duffle bag on one arm, and two giant wallpaper type binders in his other arm.  He was shorter than I am, and quite chunky -- not that he can help that -- but he reminded me a bit of Humpty Dumpty.  He came in the front door, introduced himself, dropped all the luggage in the entryway and followed Jerry and I into the bathroom.  Jerry showed him the cracks in the shower floor.

Tony said, "You KNOW you have cultured marble in here, don't you?"

We said, "Yes." 

He said, "That is just a fancy name for FAKE marble!" 

Okay, that was kind of rude, but we ignored it.

He went on, "Whoever built this house didn't know what they were doing!  The way this shower is hooked to the tub and the tub is hooked to the sink is just TOTALLY WRONG!  They NEVER should have done it that way!"  (Here's our bath so my story will make sense.)

About that time Jerry had to take a business call and left the room.  Tony continued telling me how CHEAP our builder was, how CHEAP our shower floor was, how he would have to tear everything out the entire way around the bathroom.  I asked why he couldn't just replace the shower area. 

His response was, "Because WE do NOT use FAKE marble!"  "WE only use ACRYLIC!"

That's right!  Acrylic is what they build spaceships out of, and that is ALL they use at his company.  AND the acrylic doesn't look like our fake marble, so it will ALL have to be replaced.  It will be AT LEAST $10,000.  AND, not only that, he would get rid of that funny-shaped tub and put a regular rectangle tub in instead.  He would have everything free-standing so none of it connected to each other.  AND, the glass surround around the shower will have to be thrown out because it is NOT the proper thing to put there because of the hard water in Oklahoma, and he can't believe the builder put that there either.

Here is our two-person sort of heart-shaped jacuzzi that I love.  We put one in our other house that we did build.  No way am I trading that for a regular rectangle tub.

Well, I decided way back at the fake marble comment that I didn't like Humpty Dumpty, or his company AT ALL!  I even said early on:  "Thank you for coming -- Sorry we wasted your time," as I motioned for the door.  He didn't budge.  He picked up my towel rack and moved it across the room so he could point out some other horrible flaw that I don't even recall.  He probably didn't like the towel rack either!  FINALLY, he left with all of his baggage.

Then Kirk showed up.  Kirk is like my brother -- well, "like my brother" if I had a brother that liked me.  I worked with him off and on for five months at Jerry's mother's house in Kingfisher.  I feel very comfortable with Kirk and so does Jerry.  Kirk was coming here this morning to look at three windows that need to be replaced.  The minute Kirk showed up at the front door, I asked him if he would PLEASE come look at our shower and tell us if he could fix it.  He took one look at it and said, "Why don't I just put a new tile floor on top of it and seal it real good?"  I looked at him and asked, "Are you going to have to tear off the wallpaper and all the fake marble and put in a new tub, and remove the sink tops?"  He looked at me like I was nuts.  (He does that a lot!)  Then I laughed and told him about the other two guys who had been here to look at it.  He said none of that was necessary, AND he can fix it tomorrow!  How AWESOME is that!?

A little while later, poor Kirk was a little thrown when I went out to our driveway where he and Jerry were talking about windows, and I said to Jerry, "Where do you want me to put Lucy's leg?"  Jerry asked what I meant.  I reminded him that we had to return Lucy's leg because we weren't going to use it, and I wanted to know if we were going to take my car or his van.  Jerry noticed the bewildered look on Kirk's face so he explained that Lucy was my dress form.  Kirk said, "Well, I sure wasn't going to ask, but I couldn't help wondering who Lucy was and what you were doing with her leg!!!"

I went and got the "leg" to show him.  It was a large piece of PVC pipe about 2 feet long and big enough to get a person's leg down into.  On the end of it we had found some plumbing thingy that fit in the end of it that we were going to mount to some kind of carousel.  We were going to cut the PVC tube in half, and put one of Lucy's legs into each half.  That way, Lucy could stand closer to the floor -- she would be stationary and wouldn't fall over -- and she wouldn't have to hang from a hook.  It all made sense at the time.   Kirk later informed us that the plumbing thingy was used for toilets.  (In case none of that made any sense:  It wasn't really a leg -- it was what I was going to put Lucy's legs inside of.) 

Kirk wasn't here very long.  He left to go buy supplies, order windows and will return tomorrow.  I made plans to meet Phylly for lunch because Jerry was very busy, and he didn't know if he could go to lunch with me or not.  But when he saw me leaving to go have lunch with Phylly, he decided to come along in his car and then go to work.  So we met Phylly at The Olive Garden.  If you read my blog much, you may remember the last time Phylly and I ate there, we had a waiter named Justin.  Justin shows up and is very nice and friendly, but then you never see him again.  So when I got to The Olive Garden desk, I asked for them to please NOT have Justin wait on us.  The girl looked at me with one of those looks like she knew EXACTLY why I was saying that.  I didn't have to explain. 

Jerry, Phylly and I followed the girl to our table.  We sat down.  Then the cutest guy you ever saw came up to our table.  He had one of those beards that looks like he just didn't shave for about 3 days -- trimmed around the edges.  He was VERY handsome.  I noticed his name badge said his name was "Heath".  I blabbered something about what a NICE name that was and how it sounded like a movie star's name, and, oh, BTW, you are cute enough to BE a movie star.  Jerry and Phylly looked at each other as if to say, OMG, there she goes again!  I told him I hoped he gave us good service, and then I would REALLY think he was awesome.  Phylly told him that was true -- that I really did like good service.

Well, let me tell you.  Heath did NOT disappoint!  He was perfect.  He brought straws without being asked -- he brought extra napkins without being asked -- he brought THREE salads without being asked and before the salad bowl was even empty -- he brought drinks to-go for us without being asked -- AND -- remember that Justin didn't bring us any chocolates at all -- Heath brought us SIX chocolates for just me and Phylly because Jerry had left for work before we were through.  I left Heath a VERY nice tip.  I told Jerry as he was leaving that I was glad he wouldn't be there to see the tip I left.  He said he was glad too. 

Phylly had to go to work then.  I went to run several errands and enjoy the sunshine.  It has been cloudy and rainy for the last week here, so the sunshine was a great treat.  Everybody -- even the customers -- were all in a great mood everywhere I went.  I am now enjoying a piece of Cherry Pie and a cup of decaf hot tea while I write this post.  Now, I have to go figure out what to do with that blouse I made yesterday.  I have ripped off all the front plackets and the collar.  I hope it doesn't end up in File 13 too.  We shall see. 

Hugs, Joy