The saga continues

Last night, I checked my phone messages on the land-line and found that the appliance store had called to let me know that the electrician was scheduled to install my new dishwasher between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m., but close to 7 a.m. since I was the first delivery of the day.  [Reminder: I work until midnight six nights a week.]

It seems like a lifetime ago that I woke up at 6:50 a.m., donned my glasses, a sweatshirt and sweatpants and tried to look alert.  I made my bed, then lay back down, listening for the doorbell.  I watched Good Morning, America and thought again what a cute pocket-size guy George Stephanopoulous is.

At about 7:30 a.m., the phone rang.  The voice informed me the driver was about twenty minutes away.

Forty-five minutes later, he arrived.

The new dishwasher was installed before I left at 9 a.m. to take my daughter to school.

When I returned, I lay back down on the made bed and listened for the painter to arrive.  He hadn’t told me he would be late, so I figured he’d arrive by 9:30 a.m.   I fell into one of those half-sleeps where you dream crazy dreams that seem mostly real but also disturbingly loony.  At 10:15 a.m., he has still not arrived.

I fell into a deeper sleep with even more bizarre real-feeling dreams.  At 10:55 a.m., I woke with a start.  Had the painter come, knocked and gone away?  Had I missed a phone call?  I went downstairs, opened the door and peered outside.  No painter, no painter’s van.  (Had the Rapture occurred?  What was going on?)

At about 11:15 a.m., from my spot on my made bed, I heard the front door open and the painter’s voice:  “Good morning!”

I sprang from the bed and looked down the stairs at the painter.  “Were you here already?” I asked like a complete lunatic.  “I fell asleep and worried that you’d been here and gone?”

Then he told me that he was late because he had to clean out the chicken coop.

Now, that is an excuse you don’t hear every day.

At noon, I signed on to work on my computer . . . and realized that I don’t work until 1 p.m. on Wednesdays.   So, instead, I drove to Value Village to drop off yet another small load of stuff we had that we don’t need, including four size 4T dresses that have been hanging in the laundry room for approximately four years.

What?  I was busy “cleaning my chicken coop.”