Alone Again, Naturally

Now that the scaffolding is down and the painting is done, I'm alone for the first time in two months. It's strange. I got used to sharing the house with the painters on weekdays, and with Kathy during the weekends. But now it's quiet here and I'm all by myself. Better hire a contractor to bang on something.

Not surprisingly, the scaffolding came down more quickly than it went up. What was surprising was just how quickly it came down. It took the guys two full days to put it all up, but only about five hours to dismantle it and put all the pieces back on the truck.

The process was just as hair-raising, too. They still toss heavy steel bars at each other, but now they're launching them downwards. One guy stands on the top (third floor) level, removes two or three metal bars, and drops them directly at the other guy's feet where they stick in the dirt, quivering ominously. Nobody seems to think this is dangerous.

They're also pretty cavalier about removing all the support structure from under themselves. It's like watching Loony Toons, where Wile E. Coyote cuts off the branch he's hanging onto but doesn't fall. These guys are up in the air pulling boards from under their own feet with no apparent regard for physics.

With the wooden boards all gone, there's nothing much left but a kind of framework birdcage. They seem to have no problem climbing these vertical poles, like monkeys in the zoo.

With the house empty, we can now turn the heat back on (no more open windows!), reset the timer on the hot water heater, and ceremonially turn over the toilet paper roll. Hooray!