Following our forray into Australia, we returned to a house where chaos reigned.
During a Sunday storm, water seeped into the house, soaking the carpet in Clyde’s DVD warehouse. The DirecTV Tivo suddenly stopped working; our signal strength mysteriously dropping to less than 40 (that’s bad). The contractor supposed to hang a ceiling fan in the master bedroom left the job half-done, leaving us without a fan … or an overhead light.
Yard Man must have taken a little vacation of his own; our shrubs and ferns rivaled those in the Daintree Rainforest. The French drains (no need to call them “Freedom Drains” — as it turns out, they’re not even really French) on the east side of the house stopped working; now we’re having to dig eighteen-inch trenches the length of the entire yard to get our drainage back in order. (So much for the landscaping on that side of the house.)
Over the last two days, more contractors, repairmen, and installers have visited our house than have stopped by in the last two years. Most of these are thoroughly professional. One of these was pretty darn spooky (he looked at the device he was supposedly an expert in repairing and said, “Ain’t never seen nothing like this before”).
Another of them was a tall, ruggedly handsome fellow with an honest fact, a goatee, and a single gold earring — the type of guy who can make a torn blue t-shirt and knee-length shorts into an attention-getting fashion statement. He did his work efficiently, tromping in and out of the house as necessary. Unlike some folks, he barely gave the two copies of the Advocate (it’s the gay and lesbian equivalent of Time Magazine) strewn on our living room table a second glance.
Job done, he sat on the couch and handed me the clipboard to sign. He nodded toward our backyard. “That a hot tub attached to your pool?”
“Yep,” I replied, oblivious.
Several seconds passed. “Last week, I was working on another house, and had a swarm of bees come after me. I jumped to one side and really screwed up my back. A soak in a hot tub could really help it.”
Still oblivious, I said, “I’ve got the card of a guy here in town who specializes in adjustments and massage. If you want the number, you could give him a call.”
The worker locked his eyes on mine. “I’m not ot so much for adjustments … but I think a soak in a hot tub could be exactly what I need.”
Finally, having been hit over the head with it, I got what was going on: it was so obvious, in fact, the only thing missing was the distinctive, rhythmic pounding of a porno soundtrack.
You have to remember, I haven’t been flirted with since our trip to France. In fact, I’m not the sort of person who assumes people are flirting with him … so it takes a bit for me to catch on in situations like these.
“Ah,” I said. “I’ll bet it would be.”
Awkward pause.
“I’d use one at the hotel,” he says. He sits back, interlocking his fingers behind his head and crossing his long legs at the ankles. “But they don’t have one.”
Seconds later, I’m showing him the door — the front door, not the one that leads to the hot tub. I’m flattered, but with a great guy like Clyde as my partner, flattery is as far as I’d ever let things like this go.
I bound back to the bedroom, barely able to contain myself. “Guess what? I just got hit on by a repairman!”
Clyde grins. “Did he fix what was wrong? Did he make all the proper adjustments? Did he earn his fee?”
We cackle about it, and I give Clyde — the only guy I would ever really want to share my hot tub with — an extra tight squeeze.
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