Times when I've hollered

I’ve been known to raise my voice every once in a blue moon.

I’m not a constant yeller but neither am I one of those admirably mild souls who manages to hold his water in instances of extreme tension or annoyance. I’m just an average schlub who’s exercised his pipes more often than he’d like to admit.

My bro and sis-in-law are visiting and we were watching old home movies last night. (I really need to get those puppies digitized but that’s another whole discussion.)  And the whole last month, the couple who’ve just purchased the house next store are frantically working on a remodel before they can move in with their very small children. I know from our brief welcome discussion that their rental is up tomorrow and I know from peering in the windows (Oh, come on, you would, too!) that they still have a lot of studs as yet uncovered with drywall.

By now, you may be wondering how hollering, reminiscence and home renovation will ever come together in a heartwarming New Year’s missive.

And here’s how:

Many moons ago, Mary and I bought this house that was exactly what we wanted in grand terms and almost entirely unsuitable in the details. That is, it had the right number of appropriately sized rooms, all badly in need of paint, new fixtures, doors and updated wiring. The plumbing more or less directed anemic dribbles of water to approximately the point of use.

The oven couldn’t get over 350 degrees on its best day, only one of the four stove burners worked reliably and the windows, modern and sleek when the house was built in 1954, were now mere suggestions that some form of barrier had once existed between the weather outside and the tepidly heated inside. The roof leaked, part of the foundation was crumbling and the garage was a cruel joke.

It did have two major advantages: it was in a stellar school district and-  largely owing to its real and perceived deficits - it was for sale within our budget.  So we bought it, moved the family in and embarked on a twenty-year project of home improvement that we hope and believe will now finally be completed in the next year or so. We’ve replaced much of the drywall and half of the windows, all of the interior doors, and completely rebuilt the kitchen. We remodeled one bathroom and built another from scratch. The house now has a walk-in pantry and an in-home office and it’s generally very comfortable. And with the exception of the new roof and upgrading the main electrical service, we did it all with our own hands.

It was tough rebuilding this creaky old shack while raising kids, working full time, taking classes and living our lives. And there were times when we questioned our own sanity. One of those times comes to mind tonight as I wait with drugged dogs for the cacophony of illegal fireworks that will signal the advent of a new year.

We’ve replaced every inch of plumbing in this house, from the water meter to the sewer drain, hot and cold, inflow and egress and vent. And there came a time when I found myself sitting under the house, at the nexus where all the plumbing came together, frantically trying to get the plumbing back in service before Mary and I had to go back to work the next morning and take the kids to school. And as it got to be late on the Sunday evening, it became increasingly obvious that the sun may come up and the world would revolve, but there would be no water passing through our pipes that night or the next morning.

There was just too much left to do, I was too worn out and there had been too many setbacks that weekend for me to confidently predict anything approaching success. My stress level was at its peak when, in trying to sweat a joint of copper overhead, I managed to let the heat barrier slip and dropped a stream of molten solder on my bare leg. This caused me to launch vertically in the attempt to escape maiming but my trajectory was interrupted when mine noggin came into contact with the beam to which the piping was attached.

With blistered leg and bleeding scalp, the fitting now frozen in place but incompletely soldered, I somehow managed to get the torch extinguished and set aside before launching into the longest and loudest uninterrupted stream of expletive-laden hollering that had ever issued from this mouth and these lungs. I cursed my luck, condemned the house and its builder and each previous owner and wondered loudly and plaintively what sort of self-delusion had led me to think I could accomplish this job in one weekend.

I vehemently condemned the hubris that led me to believe I was up to this chore and wondered what I had been thinking and how I had dared to put my family in the position of being without the basic requirements of civilized life ON A SCHOOL NIGHT, for Gawd’s sake! And when I ran out of things to holler, I started over again at the beginning. I’m pretty sure I could be heard in the next county.

This went on for some time but gradually I ran out of steam. Finally I sat, wounded and defeated on my field of dishonor, staring at my filthy, cracked hands and trying to make sense of what should come next, when I heard my wife’s  voice.

She was standing at the access door to ‘down under,’ as we call the utility space in which I was working, and had clearly just been waiting for my soliloquy to run dry before speaking. She was calm but forceful as she began.

“I want you to stop and put away your tools. You’re done for tonight. I have a hotel room across the freeway and the girls and I are going over there to shower. When we get back, you’re going to take your turn. And in the morning, you’re going to call your boss and tell him you won’t be in. And you’ll get this done tomorrow.”

She didn’t say anything about my failed plan, my faulty estimate of the time the job would require, my abject failure to say something long past the time it should have been obvious we needed a Plan B. She didn’t reprimand me for the additions I’d made to our daughters’ vocabulary. She just presented a solution that worked for all of us.

It was one of the times I hollered and also one of the times that cemented for me the simple fact that Mary is a better life partner than I could ever have hoped for. And that simple fact still holds.

Mary is still keeping my head from exploding at appropriate moments and I like to think I do the same for her, as and when needed.

It’s going to be a great new year for me, deserved or not. I hope the same is true for each of you.