Kudzu Queen
This old grungy philosophical dude I know has a saying: “While you’re busy watching out for the elephants, it’s the piss ants that’ll get you.” I had always interpreted this adage to mean that the old boy smoked way more than his daily nutritional requirement of weed. But recent circumstances have led me to an epiphany. The veil of mystery has been lifted. Now I understand that “piss ants” is a metaphor for roof shingles.
Shingles are a lot more important than I thought they were. Never again will I underestimate the significance of shingles.
Hurricane Katrina dislodged a fair number of piss ants, I mean, shingles from my roof. As I cleaned up broken shingles from my yard, I reflected upon how blessed I was to have come through the storm without roof damage.
Yes, that’s what I said: without roof damage. Because in my blissfully ignorant state of mind, shingles were merely cosmetic. So what if I lost a few? My roof still had most of them on it. In fact, about 95 percent of the roof remained shingled. In most of life, 95 percent is an excellent outcome. On any test I’ve ever taken, a score of 95 percent would have thrilled me. If the U.S. tax structure was such that I got to keep 95 percent of my income, I’d be tickled pink. If my neurotic Chihuahua would crap outside of the house 95 percent of the time, I’d nominate the dog for canine sainthood.
So when this horrific storm assaulted the Gulf Coast and I ended up with 95 percent of my roof shingles intact, I was satisfied. Being a teacher, I knew that 95 percent equals a grade of “A.” My roof had earned a solid “A.” I contemplated clambering up onto the roof to affix some happy face stickers to it.
When I called FEMA to solicit help in repairing my crushed chain link fence, the lady asked me if I had any roof damage. I hardly thought a few piddling little missing shingles constituted “damage.” I assured the FEMAbot that I had a Grade A, sticker-worthy roof. A roof my mother would be proud to hang on her refrigerator.
But as I was soon to find out, the piss ants were on the march.
Next thunderstorm, my daughter Veronica emerged dripping wet from her room and announced, “Mom, my ceiling leaks.” I applied my usual car maintenance strategy to this problem and advised her to turn up her stereo.
“But Mom -“
“I can’t deal with that right now!” I shrieked. “I’ve got WAY too much drama going on, already. DON’T TELL ME ANY BAD NEWS!”
I related the story to a maddeningly logical friend.
“But surely you realized the longer you ignored the roof problem, the worse it would get,” said Alphonse, from his side of the chessboard.
Honestly, no, I did not realize that. My powers of magical thinking are tremendous. I elected to believe that if I ignored the problem, it would remain static. So long as I did not allow the issue to creep into my conscious mind, it would get neither better nor worse. I envisioned some mythical moment in the future when I would somehow become: a) wonderfully adept at roofing, or b) financially flush.
A month or so later, Veronica paddled out of her room and said, “Mom, my ceiling leak is getting worse. I really think you should do something about it.”
“Nice kayak,” I observed. “But please don’t scuff the walls with the oars, OK?”
“Mom, the roof -“
“I know, Veronica, I know. I’ll get to it.”
My daughter executed an impressive upside-down flip in the hallway and paddled back into her room.
“Close your door,” I yelled. “The waves are knocking things off the curio shelf.”
When I caught my daughter trolling Ebay, looking for one-person submarines, I decided I’d better do something. Also, it had newly started raining into the room where I keep my computer, my foosball table and my chess sets.
And so it was that I entered a new and hideously dark realm: the realm of the roofer. It was a learning experience. I learned:
1. If “professional roofer” isn’t an oxymoron, I don’t know what is. Not only do these dudes generally not show up on the appointed day, they wouldn’t dream of calling you to tell you. So you took the day off work to wait around for the roofer? Ha! What were you thinking?
On my third day (and third roofer) of waiting around, I began to get nostalgic for the good ol’ days of having to wait around only half a day for the cable man. And the sweet thing about these memories is that the cable man WOULD ACTUALLY SHOW UP.
2. Expecting the first roofer you deal with to actually show up is like expecting to win the lottery with the very first ticket you ever buy. Get real.
3. I know from conventional wisdom and from a summer spent working construction that painters are drunks, and roofers are crackheads. Crackheads need money, right? So why won’t these guys show? Would they be more likely to show up if I skipped the cash part and paid them directly in crack? Forget the monetary estimate. Somebody just please tell me how many crack rocks it will take to get my roof repaired, give or take 10 percent.
Lest my previous paragraph offend large numbers of people, let me go ahead and apologize to all the drunks and crackheads out there for sullying their reputations.
The roof saga ended well. I’m not sure what worked – whether it was the prayers to Jesus or to Allah, the pentagrams I drew in ashes on the patio, the voodoo doll complete with teeny little crack pipe or the live chicken I tore apart during the Santeria rite. Suffice it to say that in this cosmic blackjack game called life, I finally hit 21. A sober roofer showed up, and only one day late.
I was happy to hemorrhage money to him, even though it meant Veronica and I would be subsisting on ice cubes, mainly, for the rest of the month.
Contact Tamara Ducote at TDDucote6@aol.com.
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