Having Fun Now!

"Bart, its David."
For twenty years our calls have started the same way. He's a great friend and has a good sense of humor. It was early September, and he mentioned a couple of floors that needed to be refinished. My guard went up. I swear off floors every time I finish one.
"You want to go look at these. You can do these at your leisure sometime this winter." The way he phrased it, my guard dropped a bit. It sounded pretty harmless. I am a sucker for work to be performed way out in the future. It seems less horrible than work which I would have to go do to immediately. So I agreed to go look at the floors. It would be good to see him and I could always say no, but after twenty years of this, David knew that he had me hooked and as certain as the sun rises, I would be doing these two floors.

If you have never refinished a floor, you really should. It will make whatever you're doing for work now seem wonderful. David's floors always have some additional points of interest that put them into the Extreme Floor Refinishing category. Two years ago, he had a floor for me on an island with only a steep path up to the top of the hill where the house was located. Trying to put a good face on it, David pointed out "its only a small kitchen and pantry and won't be that bad. Chuck is going to have a barge with a crane on it and he can boom the floor machine and equipement up to the house for you and back down. Well, there is linoleum on the floor" he admitted, "but, Chucks crew will pull that up. I don't think it will be too bad."

Well, I thought maybe it won't be. Optimism is a curse in the floor business. It was never clear whether David forgot to call Chuck in time to catch the barge with the crane or Chuck just forgot to boom up the floor machine, but when the time arrived for the floor, the floor machine and all the equipment still sat stubbornly under the stairs at David's shop. The dock which had been in good repair when last anyone had visited, was damaged by a storm and the ramp, which might have been used to get the floor machine onto the island, was structually unsound. At risk of life and limb, you could scamper over it, but no way two people and a floor machine would make it.

So, David put together an amphibious landing, with all the equipment on a boulder strewn stretch of rocky beach, as far from the house as he could find on a small island. Equipment was staged at the beachhead and lugged up the path to the top ot the hill, up the steps and into a kitchen that was covered in old black linoleum mastic which consisted mostly of tar. When this creme puff floor was done, it required a retreat from the same beach head. If you don't count the day we were lost in the fog out in the middle of the islands looking for the correct island and finally looking for any island, it really wasn't as bad as it could of been.

This year David has what he thinks of as two floors. One, is the third floor of a summer cottage that has more rooms in it than most small towns. Fortunately they have lots of closets and small spaces that I can barely fit into and will keep me out of trouble for most of the winter. The other floor actually is probably an old customer that he just couldn't refuse. It lacks the challenge that is characteristic of his jobs. It is just a monstrous couple of rooms without the usual tons of hand work or chance of cataclysmic failure. The only reason I can think of for David to take this floor, is he wants me to think of him in a good light, since I swear, absolutely and finally, THIS IS MY LAST FLOOR.