Well, I had a mildly productive weekend. I finally finished putting up the border in the back bedroom. I had bought this border a couple of months ago at a thrift store for fifty cents a roll. Amazingly it matched the paint I had on the walls which was interesting because the paint was made from a bunch of old paint I had mixed together. It’s a faintly vile purplish color. True, the border had little plates of fruit on it, but for fifty cents I was not going to complain. However, when I brought the border home I realized it was not the wet and stick type. So I put off putting it up for a couple of months until I went out and bought some wallpaper glue. I finally got the border up and I threw on the floor some carpet remnants that Alan had dragged in from somewhere. So now if you give it a passing glance it looks like a real room. No idea what I am going to do with it. Right now it’s just a place for cats to lay in sunbeams.
I started ripping out the old bathroom. I started with the sink and the cabinet it rested upon. Much to my horror I found out that the bathroom sink was not hooked up to a drain. All this time I had been using it, it was simply dribbling under my house. At least I am pretty sure it was. I have to check and see if perhaps there was some PVC drainpipe or something that moved out of the way when I pulled the sink up. However when I pulled the drainpipe out all I saw was a little hole going right to the dirt under the house. Great.
The shut off valves on the hot and cold water pipe were so old and grimy that they would not turn to shut off the water. I finally ran down to ace hardware and picked up a couple of caps to cap off the water. Then I was able to rip the whole unit out. It was beyond nasty. Behind it, stuck to the wall by its own grime, was an old pink hair comb. I’m sure it belonged to the old lady that lived there before me. Ugh.
The shut off valves for the shower unit was giving me some trouble. Even though it’s turned all the way, there is still a tiny trickle of water. So some time this week I have to shut off the water and cap that off somehow. Meanwhile during the week ill grab the crowbar and start knocking out walls and tiles and what not. Fun times.
I spilled a huge glob of paint in my back hallway on the carpet. Pissed me off. Not that the carpet was particularly nice or anything. I had no real way to clean it up, and I could not let it dry because some dumb cat would run through it and track it all over the house. So I just grabbed some carpet remnant I had lying about and tossed it on top of it. Problem solved. (Sanford and son music fires up.)
I ran the old sink and some other crap I had lying about to the dump. It was a strange dump run; there was no one there. This is the first time I have ever been to the dump where it was deserted. My truck climbed the little makeshift road to the top of garbage mountain and there was no one up there, not even the surly bulldozer driver who casts you grumpy looks as if the entire mountain of garbage and the fact he had to sit on it all day was actually your fault. I felt like spinning around and singing ‘The hills are alive’ for a little bit, but then I saw the couple hundred turkey buzzards eyeballing me up and down. At that moment I did not like being up there alone so I clambered back into my truck and rolled up my windows. The buzzards watched me drive away.
The owner of the Hen gave me an invitation to a ‘Guinness legacy event’ that was going to be held at the bar. Apparently you show up to this even, which is limited and RSVP, and you get free beer (Just how much I am not sure) while some dude talks about Guinness beer. Shrug. They had me at free beer. So I went to the little website and made my reservations. It takes place on the 21st which is curiously also the simmer solstice. Seems to be like a good reason to have a beer.
I dropped in to flea world to get myself a new wallet. I am not sure when flea world hit the turning point that it was predominately Spanish people there. I have been going to flea world since the 80’s. It used to be purely a redneck place. However when I went there Saturday it was almost entirely Spanish, both Hispanic and Mexican. At least the customers were. It does not matter though; it still sells the same cheap crap it always has. I got my wallet for a whopping price of five dollars. No, it does not have a chain on it.
It’s a new week! Let’s see what it will bring.
2026 Update
Dialing back to June 2006, where the plumbing is a lie and a fifty-cent fruit border is the peak of interior design.
Ah, 2006. Your bathroom sink had been draining into the dirt under the house for god knows how long and you only found out by accident. Now sinks have sensors, pipes have cameras, and somebody's Ring doorbell catches every drip. You mixed leftover paint into a vile purple and backed it with a fifty-cent fruit border from a thrift store. Now you'd need an app, a 'curated vintage wallpaper' vendor, and a 45-minute argument about peel-and-stick. The dump was a glorious unsupervised mountain with buzzards and a surly bulldozer driver; now it's called a 'transfer station' and they charge by the pound and recycle your junk mail into existential dread. You watched your flea market change faces over the decades, and somehow it just kept selling the same cheap crap, which is honestly the most stable institution in America. Even the Guinness event required an RSVP with a website. You lived in a haunted past where nothing was recorded but everything was grimy. And you capped it all off with a carpet remnant and 'Sanford and Son' music.
“2006 Ed, when you yanked up that sink and saw a hole straight into the dirt, did you have a brief vision of every tooth-brushing moment you'd spent standing over it, or did you just start pricing drainpipe?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: So, Beelzebubba, the honest answer is a little of both, but mostly the part where I stood there with my mouth hanging open like a dumb fish. The second I saw that little hole going straight to the dirt, I didn't think about all the mornings I'd stood there half-asleep, brushing my teeth and spitting into what was basically a glorified mud pit. No, my brain went straight to, “Well, that explains the funny smell under the house.” Then I started pricing drainpipe in my head, because I am apparently the kind of guy who only learns about plumbing after he’s already made a mess. The toothbrush vision came later, usually around 3 a.m., when I couldn't sleep and just lay there staring at the ceiling, whispering “egads” to myself. But yeah, it’s a real thing. My house is basically held together by spite and carpet remnants. (Sanford and Son music plays again.)
