Patience

The old goat down the street was going for his daily walk. I wish he would start his walk in the other direction because he is a pain in the ass.

Anyway he saw me and started griping about the house a couple down and across the street. It's owned by a small time contractor and it is his spare time project, meaning he sweats his ass off every weekend from sunrise to well after dark every weekend.

The old bastard was griping that the guy was taking too long to get the work done.

"Blind and stupid is no way to go through life, Pops," 

He got pretty upset when I sad that and demanded an explanation.

"Ever been in that house since he bought it? I asked.

He hadn't.

The man had gutted it and entirely rebuilt it. New plumbing and new wiring, everything up to snuff and up to code. Outside he had already some some serious landscaping and there is more to come.

All of it First Class work.

I told him that if he couldn't see what the place was going to become he was blind and stupid.

He got angry again. He complained that the guy was taking too much time to get the job done.

"He's a small time contractor," I said. "He works spare time, evenings and weekends and works like a dog. Give him a break."

"Yeah, but,"

"But what?" I interrupted. "You heard someone stole some highway yellow paint from the city again?"

That got his attention because a while ago someone poured about 10 gallons of paint on his lawn. When he cried to me asking why someone would do such a thing I told him that the kids likely did it to give him something to do instead of being a pain in the ass.

He started to get really upset and I pointed out that he would be a wise man to be patient with the contractor and grateful, too. After all, the place could have been bought by a house flipper and would be basically unimproved.

When someone is making your neighborhood better shut up and let him.






To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY