Extreme Home Makeover: Death Edition

The irony of this situation doesn't escape me.

Throughout my life up to now, I've avoided doing work that I always associated with my dad.

I never wanted to build anything. I never wanted to work with tools. It's just not me.

And now that my dad is dead, I wished that I had 1% of the skills that he had.

It would make working on the house that much easier.

We've packed up most of the house and I'm going to have movers come this weekend.

Anything that can be boxed up is now in the center of the room. Large items are pushed away from the wall.

My dad's clothes are still in the closet. I want to donate them but I need Number 2 to check them out first.

We are ready to make over the house.

My father-in-law (Big Daddy) brings over his painting supplies and surveys the situation.

I will follow his lead and work until he is ready to quit each day.

Painting is a pretty solitary experience. It is probably the best thing that I could do right now. I'm not ready to go back to work. I'm not ready to be a parent. I'm not ready to be a husband.

But I can paint.

And it all becomes a blur to me. It pretty much goes like this:

Paint. Lunch. Paint. Go Home.

But because with work with both the front and back doors open, there are interruptions.

Moondoggie likes to hang out with us while we are painting. He wants to help and his heart is in the right place. But sometimes, a problem he has makes him a painting liability.

I'm talking about a drinky-drinky-glug-glug type of problem.

Coming over lets him pound a beer or two without Gidget catching him. One time, he was so lit and trying to paint that I thought he was going to miss a wall.

We also develop another interruption.

His name is Tripper and he's already bugging the crap out of me.

Moondoggie had told me about Tripper and how he wanted to rent my dad's place. Now Tripper was going to ask me about it.

Tripper is in his 60's and he wears the same thing every day. White t-shirt tucked in to blue jeans and no belt. He's got grey, Eddie Munster hair and he's about a foot shorter than me.

Tripper smokes little cigars and ends every sentence with "you know what I'm saying" as his on personal punctuation.

I shoot him down about renting the place to him for the month and it becomes my single greatest decision of the year.

I give him a bullshit story about how I've got to watch out for my brother and that it's too soon to rent the place out. I wish I could be more straightforward and just tell him the truth - I don't want you in this house. I know the Rabbi would have figured out a way to tell him that without sounding like a jerk.

I can't. I'll admit it. I don't like conflict and i'll avoid it at just about any cost.

I'd like to tell both of these guys that they are bugging me. They are bugging Big Daddy. And that they can go somewhere else to do all of this bugging.

But the reality is, they just want to help.

And when you feel the way I do right now, you need all the help that you can get.

VW