Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Ebb and Flow.

I’m feeling pretty good right now. Lucky, in fact.

The Long-Awaited Honest-to-God Secret to Being Happy

I think  my  ex  dumped  this  house  at just  the  right time—before  the new roof, before the Pergo went bad, before I hand-laid the new patio—and when the real estate market was still quite high. He got the max dollar for it that I’ll never see. I get to do all the repairs that should have  been  done  years  ago.  Hopefully  in  the  next  few months, I’ll be done with them. Still much to do, but it’s slowly getting there and the house is a beautiful (though current chaotic with all the construction) sanctuary.

I’ve had  to  deal  with  dozens  of  repairmen,  greedy lawn services, lying/cheating/scumbag  roofers, insurance adjusters with  friends (wink, wink) who’ll fix it cheaply for me, carpet layers, playboy  tile layers, and air conditioner con men in the past two years. Most of them have been a bitch to work with. They weren’t this way when I was married, but as a divorced woman in a nice neighborhood? I’m sick of  seeing green in their eyes and being patted on the head. I’ve seriously contemplated inventing a husband to keep the wolves at bay.

Thor. Yeah, just you wait until my honey Thor gets home!

And yet, there have been some very nice washing machine repairmen, a couple of carpet layers who liked intellectual discourse, and then a repairman worth waiting for. And whom  I’m very thankful  for at  the moment.  Not only is he trustworthy and honest, but he spotted a couple of termites. Yeah. That which wrests terror from my heart.

So despite the expensive termite prevention  program that’s a  necessity in Florida, a couple of the critters got by. The termite killers came promptly, assessed the damage  and  found  none,  and  administered  an  immediate treatment. And we were done. We found it early enough that it wasn’t a huge headache.

As it turns out, termites like Pergo flooring and were attracting to the very thing I was having ripped out. Now I’m getting a solid understanding  of why insurance companies often won’t touch a room that has Pergo—leaks, termites,  cold  weather—just   about  everything  will  go wrong with it. Too  bad I couldn’t  have  had the tile I wanted several years ago instead of “floating”  floors but I’d been told I couldn’t have tile and apparently tile is not a problem if the floor underneath is  properly prepared. So out it goes. I’m getting what _I_ want.

And my decision to get rid of it now, with this particular person handling the job for me, well, this is good. Because of where  he  spotted  the  bugs,  I never  would have seen them. Not until the damage was done and the wall fell in.

So the right person, right place, right time, and I’m feeling lucky that it happened this way.


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