I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Our basement: as dark as our mood

How can I describe these last few weeks?  Bee's had so much stress over the Market.  I'm talking stomach-cramps, can't-sleep-without-Ambien stress.  Since I am (occasionally) a Good Wife, I feel what he feels, so it's been no picnic for me, either.

It's been hell, and then it got worse, and then -- just when we thought we couldn't handle anything else -- it got even worse.  As if the universe was chanting, "Ha HA!  F*ck you guys!!"


But things are settling down and on the mend.  It's been a great lesson in teaching us how ignorance is bliss, and how the best route is the selfish route of not trying to get involved and do right, since no one will care and will try to blame you for it, anyway.

Not that I'm bitter.

Anyway, Bee's been so sad and upset and frazzled that I really wanted to do something nice for him.  I decided to re-do our dark and cluttered basement.  You see that photo at the top?  That's right: we have an entire wall of dingy, 70's-style paneling, complete with a drafty fireplace with soot burns across the top.  Note the ring of duct tape surrounding the tired gold grating: the duct tape was Bee's subtle way of taping up plastic sheeting to help keep out the draft.  Lovely, no?  Plus we have books and movies spilling out of the shelves on either side of the fireplace.  And I won't even touch on the awful, stained carpet.  The whole room really is an embarrassment; particularly when it's doubling as a guest room.

Bee's talked for years about getting floor to ceiling bookshelves and about stopping up the fireplace.  I didn't think I was ready to take on a fireplace removal (or doing anything about the piece o' crap rug, for that matter), but I figured I could handle shelves and painting.

The thing is, I love to surprise Bee (a lot more than he loves to be surprised), so I wanted to complete the whole project in one fell swoop sometime when he was gone.  And the only time he's guaranteed to be gone is every Saturday when he's at the Market.  Could I remove all the books and their shelves, clean the walls and tape windows, paint everything, put up shelves, and get everything put back in six hours?  Sure!  Well, that is: if I guilted a bunch of friends into helping me, I could!!!

So, earlier this week, I sent out an e-vite to about 15 friends, inviting them to "The Worst Party You've Ever Been Invited To!"  I was incredibly fair, in that I let everyone know exactly what they were in for.  However, I was evil in that I laid the guilt on thick, talking first about Bee's father dying this year and moving on to his recent stress, THEN off-handedly -- don't feel pressure or anything! -- inviting them to help me show Bee that people care for him.  Then I placated everyone by offering them lunch and beer.

Wouldn't you know it, this was -- apparently -- the one week out of the entire year that ALL OUR FRIENDS were going out of town.  What are the odds?  However, by Friday night, three of Bee's friends had generously agreed to help out, then one of my friends agreed to come, and yesterday -- the day itself -- two more couples showed up unannounced, like angels from heaven!

It is so heartwarming to know that these 9 people gave up part of their Saturday to drop in and help do manual labor.  They were all so nice, too, claiming it was no problem.  Well, everyone except the person (you know who you are) who --when I offered to help her work sometime to re-pay her -- said, "Oh, we'd never do that to our friends; we'd hire a contractor!"  But she did enthusiastically clean all the paintbrushes, which MORE than makes up for any grumbling.

The bad parts: I laughingly thought I could cover all that dark panelling with a mere quart of paint.  So I had to leave all my guests in the midst of the project to run and buy another gallon.  Also, I spent $8 on a can of spay paint that was supposed to give the fireplace a "stone texture finish", but didn't cover it nearly enough.  SO I just had to paint regular wall-paint over it, anyway.  Also, Home Depot didn't have enough shelves and brackets, so I had to get a little creative with what I was doing, and will still have to go back to the store later for another shelf.

The good parts: Other than the above-mentioned, I had all the necessary supplies ready for my helpers.  We were able to breeze through everything and -- shockingly enough -- everything really WAS back in place AND the kitchen was clean before Bee got home.  Also, people loved my homemade bread (for sandwiches) and cookies.  Also, I don't think any of them stayed for more than 3 hours, so they didn't totally give up their Saturday.

OK, so here's the "before" picture, again:

And now, with many thanks for the kindness of humans, allow me to reveal the "after" picture:

And you know what?  It doesn't matter that I ended up hating that shade of red.  It doesn't matter that the shelves aren't completely finished.  All that matters is that I LOVE the black spray-painted fireplace and I LOVED dripping paint all over that awful carpet without a care (talk about therapy!).

Even more important, what matters is that Bee was SO TOUCHED that we all did this for him and that he finally has floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and that we all did this for him.  And I am still so touched, too.

Our friends are awesome.