What I Learned Getting More House-Painting Bids

[mrissa]

1. pnh's voice just should not come with a thick Minnesota accent. One of the guys utterly discombobulated me with this. Pitch/timbre: pnh. Accent/speed: Bemidji, if not Thief River Falls. Yikes.

2. There is a right and a at least one wrong way to ask, "Does your husband travel a lot?" Painter who showed up in the mid-afternoon: wrong way, dude. (Additional wrong ways might make me fear for my valuables; this was just the "step away quickly from the man who is suddenly standing too close; point briskly at the porch feature of note" kind.)

3. While it is very kind to offer a free kneecapping of the painter we previously attempted to hire with every paint job, all kneecapping is done in-house. Thanks all the same, though. Every contractor has to find a way to stand out from the competition. Other people chose features like price, quality of materials, experience, or efficient service, but really, go with your strengths. Go somewhere else with your strengths and stop standing so close to me, sheesh; did you not see how quickly I moved away over by the porch?

4. Punctuality is a virtue. Showing up 45 minutes early for a 9:30 a.m. appointment, perhaps not quite so much of a virtue.

5. Every time someone refers to my dog as "pooch," I think, De hooch, madame.

6. It is entirely possible that the house will be painted and the deck stained before the Swedish Invasion. This is a great relief to me and allows me to go back to thinking about the book and other interesting things today.

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

A native of Thief River Falls was just staying in my house all last week. Those Minnesotans, they're everywhere.

(She doesn't have much accent, though, having been out of there for a long time.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We are Standoffus of Borgerson. You will be assimilated. Oh for futile.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Uh-oh.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it has to be Borgstrom.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

that icon rocks!

[ksumnersmith.livejournal.com]

T, that icon is AWESOME!

[timprov.livejournal.com]

I can't claim any credit for it, apart from noticing the awesome.

Appreciating awesomeness is a good skill to have, though.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

2) Your morning consult wanted to play out far-fetched porno scenarios with you?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Afternoon. At least if he didn't, he really, really needed to amend his tone and body language.

Ew.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

I am reminded (creepily) of that old Tom Hanks/Shelley Winters movie The Money Pit

[rosefox]

before the Swedish Invasion

My brain stubbornly wants this to be a folk saying that translates to "before the end of time". The Greeks had their kalends; the Swedes have their invasions. Or something.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If that's the case, you will want to finish up whatever is important to you by July 1.

[rosefox]

Duly noted.

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Somebody needs a better bedside, er, houseside manner.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, that somebody can develop it at someone else's houseside!

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely. :)

[timprov.livejournal.com]

He's the same one who asked me if we had a Whizzinator, right?

I'm pretty sure he didn't mean that, but I was completely unable to figure out what he did mean.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Will we never be free of the Whizzinator?

Anyway, he's the one you talked to; I didn't hear the part about the Whizzinator.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

I had kind of hoped we were, until he brought it up.

You were sort of in this conversation; he was talking about how the house smelled. You may just have been agreeing with him to get him to shut up at that point, though.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ozonator. He thought our house smelled of ozone. Not Viking pee.

And it does. So.

Which is why, if you turned off Counting Crows, you would hear me laughing loudly enough to worry the dog.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Well, one can make some solid inferences about my mechanical aptitude from the fact that I had no idea that such devices even existed, much less that we had one.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Besides, how does one get off making the second 'o' in "Ozone" a schwa?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

By putting another vowel after the n; English does crap like that all the time.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

Wait, the guy never said "whizzinator" at all? :D

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Apparently not!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Turbulence is a particularly disturbing aspect of fluid dynamics when applied to a Whizzinator, I feel.