The Handyman

This is not what I am supposed to be doing. I have wasted a whole day dealing with things I hired somebody else to take care of. First, let's start with Home Depot. After years of shopping there I know enough to inspect a product before buying it. I want to know if it is something that somebody else has purchased and returned, and Home Depot has taken and put back on the shelf. They don't care if it is broken, if parts are missing, or even if the actual product is in the package. They just plop it on the shelf for some poor schmuck to come along and buy. That schmuck would be me. I had inspected the lockset package before buying it, in fact I rejected the first one I picked up. The one I purchased looked to be in a sealed package from the factory in China, so I took my chances. When I got home and opened it up, it was obvious that somebody had been there before me. The little cellophane bag of screws had been cut open and half the screws were missing. On top of that the damn thing didn't even work. So here I was, back at Home Depot, standing in a very long line of people returning crap that they probably bought pre-broken.

I had bought the lockset because the buyers of our house had requested new doors on the dog run side of the house. So I bought two new doors and threw in a new lockset because I had lost the keys to one of the doors. The buyers had also requested that I replace some fascia boards on that side of the house that had been attacked by the elements. For this job I hired a handyman. A handyman that was recommended by my real estate agent, Agent Al. All last week and half of this week I kept calling Mr. Handy Mann, but this is Florida and nothing gets done quickly here. Finally he showed up and I explained what I needed.

"No problem. I'll knock that out in a couple hours."

So yesterday morning Mr. Handy Mann and his assistant showed up and went to work. A couple of hours later he was knocking at my door.

"All done."

Like I said, this is Florida and I knew enough to inspect the work.

"Geez Mr. Mann, I can see sun light all around this door."

"Yeah, it didn't quite fit."

"Uh, that's why I hired you, to make it fit. I could have done this."

"It's an old house. I did the best I could."

I then went and inspected the fascia boards they were supposed to replace.

"No, no, no. That just won't do. I need those boards replaced not patched with spackle."

"Uh, ummm. I'm  pretty sure you said to patch them. Yeah, that's what you said."

"Well that just won't do. I need them replaced. When can you come back and do the job?"

"Uhhh... ummm.... tomorrow? Saturday?"

"Okay. I'll have your money ready then when you come back."

Mark mentioned that he hoped we don't have this much trouble getting work done when we buy a house in Chicago. I assured him, Chicago has thousands of Mexicans. They work much harder than Floridian handymen.