It was nine years ago yesterday that Kathy and I officially moved into this house. And to celebrate, Kathy broke our downstairs bathroom door.
Wait, let me rephrase that.
Mother Nature broke our downstairs bathroom door, thanks to a nasty gust of wind which came up at just the wrong time and which – thanks to open doors to the garage and to the back patio – caused a wind tunnel effect which caused the door to violently open too far, which caused the door jam to crash into the doorway to the laundry room, which in turn cracked the door itself . . . to the extent that it can no longer be closed all the way. This incident is being recounted to you by someone who HATED physics (and was lucky to pass it) who also has only the most rudimentary sense of how doors and hinges and door jams work.
All I know is that we have to replace this door – and it’s going to cost us . . . well, let’s just say that you could buy a lot of opera videos with the sum.
Interestingly, after nine whole years, we are still in the computer system at Kordoerfer’s – the company which built this beautiful house . . . and they were able to give me the name of the firm who delivered the doors nine years ago. Kathy is hoping that they will be able to sell us the exact door and also tell us exactly what kind of stain was used. And assuming that we can be given that information, the next stage will be for us to buy the door- stain the door- (once we learn how to stain the door) – hang the door- and then pray that we can wait at least another nine years before suffering a similar mishap.
Actually, there are people who have dealt with far worse than this, and we are fortunate. We did have to replace our roof because of hail, and I think we had to have some work done on our hard wood floor in the foyer. And we have suffered some setbacks with several of our appliances. (We must have built our house over the burial mound of an Ancient Snow Tribe, because we have been cursed by some costly setbacks with our refrigerator and freezer.) But mostly we have been tremendously fortunate – and tremendously happy – and I just keep chanting those words to myself every time I walk past that bathroom door and picture little dollar bills flying out of our collective wallet. Ah, the joys of home ownership.