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March 19: Despite exposure to extensive psychotherapy and the complete oeuvres of Aristotle and Ingmar Bergman, our foundation's footings remained shallow. |
Three days before the schedule
completion date, after a light spring rain, our contractor came to us with
the news every renovating homeowner fears: We have a problem. Which,
of course, means "You have a problem - I, on the other hand,
am about to have a whole lot more of your money." It seems
our foundation wall suffers from Shallow Footings (and, for all
we know, the Heartbreak of Psoriasis), and the perimeter wall needs
to be replaced -- at a price that literally makes us gasp.
It seemed to us a little late in the piece for the contractor to have reached this conclusion. After all, his crew had by this time spent about a month knee deep in the dirt surrounding said perimeter walls. One would have thought the foundation should have given up its secrets fairly early on, say, before three weeks worth of clay had been removed. Visions of Tom Hanks and Shelley Long in The Money Pit danced in our heads, but without any of that film's slapstick hilarity. We began to panic. We called on the services of a fine structural engineer who had previously consulted with us about the house. In a top secret summit of the contractor, the engineer, and Jonny, the 34th Street Accord was reached. Discretion prevents our delineating the terms of the agreement here, but suffice to say the work will be done, we will not be bankrupted, and everybody has a darn good chance of staying out of court. Unfortunately though, the project, already at least two weeks behind schedule, will be delayed an additional several weeks. Which, need I remind you, translates into a lot more James Brown songs.   |