Building a Better Door

Mood: relieved

I think I failed to mention that Bertram was being kept in the living room by a number of cardboard boxes, flattened and taped to the doorway. Well, that got old really quickly. Last night, after dinner with Bella at Panda Express, we stopped by Lowe's to "look" at doors. Well, shortly thereafter, we were driving away at 20MPH with a door tied to the roof of her car. We didn't think it could be done, but thanks to the rope her dad stowed in her trunk, we made it happen.

The trick with the door, you see, is it was 80 inches high. Well, the doorway is only 76 inches. After being told that you can't cut four inches off of the cheapy (i.e. hollow) doors by the "door specialist", we found a nice guy in the lumber department who did just that. Of course, we were warned that doing so would void the warranty on the door, but who needs a warranty for a $20 door?!?

I am apparently installing the door in three phases:

1. hang the door, minus the doorknob


2. make adjustments to the doorway to allow the door to close properly (like everything in this house, the doorway isn't quite straight), and


3. add the doorknob

Right now, the door is serving its purposes: keeping lil Bertram out of trouble and allowing me easy access to the rest of the house. (Do I really want to go out the front door, around the house, and in the backdoor to get to the bathroom to pee at 5:30AM?)

Oh, by the way, as I was hanging the door, Bertram thought it was the biggest... toy... ever! Gotta love him!

Bertram is actually sleeping right now, so maybe this would be a good time for me to rest a bit, as well. Not hearing a frantic patter of playful feet on carpet is actually kind of eerie....

Browsing After Hours

Mood: annoyed

One of my pet peeves--no, this has nothing to do with kitty Bertram going wild on me last night--is late customers. If you've worked in retail, you know the ones: people who come in a few minutes before closing and start browsing. It really annoys me. But tonight was the worst. This teeny-bopper couple came in right before closing, proceeded to browse with no intent of buying anything, and ignored not only my hint of partially closing the gate but also my "Okay folks, we're closed." So I completely closed the gate on them. They still didn't get the picture, so I went ahead and closed the register. Then, the girl has the gall to ask me some dumb question that had an obvious answer. I answered her question abruptly, then said, "You know what? We're closed." They finally got the idea that I was kicking them out. The boy half-heartedly apologized, which I ignored, then he took the final jab at me by adding, "Enjoy the rest of your night." I forced myself to be good and reply "You, too," but what I really wanted to say was "Fuck you, you little prick."

I have developed a little quip for what will inevitably be the next late browser: "Where do you work? I guess you won't mind my going there and making you stay late then." Or, in the case of the teeny-boppers: "Do you enjoy detention? Neither do I. I'm going home. Get out."

On the positive side, I'm here at Bella's. She's doing some work for her (early) morning class right now, so I thought I would take the time to post more than just a few pictures. It's been a while since I actually SAID much in here.

Oh, and maybe I'll make another audio post soon, as well. Just for fun.