Washing my Hands of It

As I might have mentioned before, Chris and I have some differences in style in the way we approach problems. I think this mostly stems from the way we were both raised. Chris' father renovated a house, learning along the way and using Chris as his apprentice. Chris says helping his father with house projects are some of his favorite memories from childhood. My dad, on the other hand, isn't so much a do-it-yourself type guy. Instead, he famously always knew somebody who could do the job for a good price. Rewire a fan, no problem, his assistant could take care of it. Paint the windows, some guys from the pizza place can handle that. We might have had second thoughts about letting some of these characters in the house, but the work always (mostly, if you count the finishing of the basement) got done in an efficient manner. Consequently, my favorite childhood memories stem around all that extra time created by farming out tasks when we would take off to Florida for weeks in the summer. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

I give you this background just to clarify why when we were buying the dishwasher at Sears the other day, I immediately started trying to visualize my Outlook calendar to know when I could be home to let the delivery / install guys in. While I was visualizing, Chris was telling the sales guy that he would pick the appliance up at the warehouse and install it himself. Huh? Do you know how to do that I asked? Sure, it's not that hard, he said.

Famous last words, I think as I glance into our kitchen where two dishwashers are currently taking up residency and neither is installed. Chris is on his third trip to Lowe's and I'm thinking the $129 delivery / install fee is sounding like a better and better bargain.