door – The View from a Drawbridge

A Moving Experience

Picture this: I’m driving my fifth carload of stuff from my rental place to my new home. I’m sweaty, tired, and sick of traffic. I ache all over. I’m so done with this whole process. And then my car signals me that one of my doors is ajar.

This is a 25 mile commute from one house to the other, entirely on the interstate, cutting right through the heart of Seattle. (If you haven’t experienced Seattle traffic, you are one lucky human being, indeed. There’s nothing quite like it.) And I was in the express lane, so there were no exits for miles. Suffice it to say there was no possible way for me to pull over and deal with my doors.

So there I was, hurtling down the interstate, with images of my door popping open and scattering my possessions all over the road, causing a 50 car pile-up.

It was not a fun drive.

And then I began thinking about those possessions. Assuming that I didn’t kill people in the process, would I miss them if I left them on the highway? To be honest, no. Not for the most part, anyway. I think I’d actually find it to be a relief if I had less stuff in my life.

I’ve been trying to eliminate things, and I definitely have a lot less than I did when I was in Florida. But I still have a lot. As I was packing, I’d ask myself if I had used that thing in the past year. Did I need it? Did it have sentimental value?

Maybe from now on I should ask myself if I’d be upset if each thing wound up sitting on the side of the interstate like that unexplained lone shoe that you encounter every now and then. Now that is a yardstick to measure things by.

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Knocking on Neighbors’ Doors

Whenever I move into a new neighborhood, I always think that I should go and introduce myself to my neighbors. Unfortunately I never quite get around to it. I’ll usually get to know the people right next door (And I’m lucky in that I happen to have fantastic next door neighbors these days), but that’s about it. I will wave and smile at people as I drive past them on the street and leave it at that. I’m shy. I like my privacy. And if I’m honest, I’m rather lazy.

But recently I desperately needed my neighbors’ help. My dog ran away. After exhausting all other resources (more to come on that in a future blog entry), I was getting desperate. So I printed up a mini-flyer with my dog’s picture and my contact information, and I knocked on every single door on my street.

Sometimes people weren’t home, so I’d tape the flyer to their door handle and leave. Other times it was quite obvious that they were there, but they refused to come to the door. For Pete’s sake, I’m just a fat old lady. I don’t pose any threat. But they probably thought I was going to hand them a religious tract or something. Fine. I’d leave my flyer for them, too.

But about half the people did come to the door, and when I’d tell them my story, they’d express sympathy and say they’d keep an eye out. That was a great comfort to me. There are a lot of genuinely decent people on my street.

But what was most intriguing about the process was that I have a completely different view of my neighborhood now. First of all, it’s a lot more diverse than I realized. People pretty much keep to themselves. When I took this opportunity to talk to them, I was treated to a variety of accents and couplings and age groups and skin colors. That really delighted me.

And just by standing in their doorways, I was able to draw a great deal of conclusions. They may not be accurate, but they were fascinating. It seems that one family cares for an extremely disabled, wheelchair-bound man. Another couple has adopted or fosters a child of a different race. Love it! Another guy is obviously a very old and rather lonely bachelor. Some people are struggling financially. Others had well-appointed homes. Some had mellow households, others were ruled by chaos.

I came away from these encounters rather impressed with how many different ways there are to live life. I came away feeling like I was part of a larger community. Even though the circumstances weren’t ideal, I’m glad I took the time to knock on my neighbors’ doors.

(Oh, and by the way, my dog and I were reunited after two of the longest days of my life. Yay!)

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The Handyman from Hell

Recently I had to replace my back door. It’s an odd size so it had to be special ordered. It came without the locks, nobs or hinges. It’s a heavy steel storm door and I didn’t want to screw up the installation so I decided to hire a professional.

The guy I chose had done odd jobs for me before. I called him up, asked for a quote, and he told me 70 dollars an hour plus a 20 dollar travel fee. I asked him how long he thought it would take, and he said about an hour. In outrageously overpriced Seattle, 90 bucks seemed like a pretty good deal to me, so I scheduled him to come on Wednesday.

Wednesday came and I rushed home to get there before he did. I needn’t have worried, because when I arrived I was greeted by a message on my answering machine that said his sister was in the hospital and he was taking care of her children and could he please reschedule. Well, life does happen, so I rescheduled for Saturday.

On Saturday he showed up with his 8 year old niece in tow. Awkward. The first thing he said was, “I think I quoted you the wrong price. It’s 90 dollars an hour.” Not wanting to get into it in front of the little girl, I said, “What a pity. I wish you had told me that before you drove all this way.” We stared at each other for a couple beats and he said, “Seventy it is, then.” This little bit of tension set the tone for the entire job.

Predictably, he started moving like a snail through molasses. He acted confused by the lock instructions. He made great effort to clean up after himself, until I told him that I would do that. Twice. Then he started showing his niece what he was doing, step by step by… step. Finally I had to say, “Will your insurance cover her if she gets hurt?” And then he sent her into the living room to play with my dogs.

(I cannot stand adults who are over-the-top nice to kids, because it makes me think they’re probably not very nice to them at all when there are no witnesses. And the girl did, indeed, look very uncomfortable around him. It gave me the creeps.)

An hour and a half later, once he figured out I wasn’t going to let him milk the job any further, he declared that his work was done. I gritted my teeth and paid up, and he left me a stack of business cards which I promptly threw away.

I will never accept another hourly quote from anyone as long as I live. Lesson learned. But in the end he’s the one who will lose out, because there’s a lot to do around here, and I can guarantee you it won’t be done by him.