mgbinspect Posted December 20, 2010 Report Share Posted December 20, 2010 Speaking of "It's wrong. Fix it!" I'm reminded of one of my worst bricklaying nightmares ever, thanks to an "It's wrong, Fix it!" guy: Back in the late 70's, my younger brother and I owned and operated a small masonry company, doing brick veneer fronts on new construction homes along with other odd jobs we could pick up. (There's virtually NO margin in new construction masonry - one slip up and you find yourself suddenly hoping to merely break even. It's no wonder that new home construction workmanship is crap.) At any rate, we were doing a garden wall for a particularly obsessive / compulsive guy. The wall went around the entire back yard, and was about four feet tall. After a couple days of installation, we arrived to find that we're about to undergo the Spanish Inquisition. The brick he has selected was solid and red - similar to a sewer brick. It was very difficult to tell the front from the back on these bricks, as the only difference was an occasional kiln chair indentation. He had marked every brick we had installed backwards, wanting them ALL chiseled out and replaced. They were not obvious to anyone, without careful scrutiny, as being in backwards. It was more a matter of perfection (right and wrong) in his tortured mind. Naturally, we resisted, based upon the fact that no one would ever realize it but him - to no avail. Finally, I had an idea. On a hunch, I took him down to his basement, where I knew there was a brick wall that went the entire width of the building, with a fireplace in the middle. There, I began to point out bricks that he had been looking at for years, not knowing they were backwards. We went home and let him think about things. When we returned the next morning, he had used my tools, which I had left on the job, to chisel out every backwards brick in his basement wall, so he could pay us to put them in right, along with all the backwards bricks in the garden wall. [:-banghea There is a hell... The obsessive / compulsive live there, along with their abused family members and anyone that does work for them. [:-graduat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AHI in AR Posted December 21, 2010 Report Share Posted December 21, 2010 Guys like that do have uses in life. For instance, they're usually great to buy a used car from! Back when I was a homebuilder, I had my share of clients like that. The most memorable one happened to be a pulmonary doc who chose to build on a lot next to my parents. He was a challenge to deal with, but I kept telling myself that he couldn't help it. Fortunately, I recognized enough signs of his nature to write his contract as a cost-plus one, not one stipulating a contract price. My dad later told me that the guy periodically took the firewood out of his garage, vacuumed it, and re-stacked it. About once every two months, in fact. I flirted with the idea of telling him that there might be beetles and such inside the wood, and that storing it inside his otherwise pristine garage wasn't a good idea. I resisted that impulse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie R Posted December 21, 2010 Report Share Posted December 21, 2010 My wife is sort of like that. Every couple of weeks she gets out the vacuum and sucks all the money out of my wallet, says it is for my own good. I'll assume she's right, she is the brains of the outfit.[:-angel] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgbinspect Posted December 21, 2010 Author Report Share Posted December 21, 2010 My wife is sort of like that. Every couple of weeks she gets out the vacuum and sucks all the money out of my wallet, says it is for my own good. I'll assume she's right, she is the brains of the outfit.[:-angel] [:-thumbu] That sounds familiar. My last wife liked to spend so much that she never carried the check book balance forward. That way she'd be sure not to ever see a zero. She just kept writing checks, and I'd come home to learn how badly I'd have to scamble to make them all good. In fact, I'm reminded that she had this sub-conscious indeniable belief that every one of our seven kids had a right to a $250.00 +/- Christmas, and even impending foreclosure could not prevent her from following through on that belief. Fun times... She lives with her daughter now, because she still can't manage money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben H Posted December 21, 2010 Report Share Posted December 21, 2010 My wife is sort of like that. Every couple of weeks she gets out the vacuum and sucks all the money out of my wallet, says it is for my own good. I'll assume she's right, she is the brains of the outfit.[:-angel] [:-thumbu] That sounds familiar. My last wife liked to spend so much that she never carried the check book balance forward. That way she'd be sure not to ever see a zero. She just kept writing checks, and I'd come home to learn how badly I'd have to scamble to make them all good. In fact, I'm reminded that she had this sub-conscious indeniable belief that every one of our seven kids had a right to a $250.00 +/- Christmas, and even impending foreclosure could not prevent her from following through on that belief. Fun times... She lives with her daughter now, because she still can't manage money. Seven kids??? You the man Mike![:-eyebrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgbinspect Posted December 21, 2010 Author Report Share Posted December 21, 2010 My wife is sort of like that. Every couple of weeks she gets out the vacuum and sucks all the money out of my wallet, says it is for my own good. I'll assume she's right, she is the brains of the outfit.[:-angel] [:-thumbu] That sounds familiar. My last wife liked to spend so much that she never carried the check book balance forward. That way she'd be sure not to ever see a zero. She just kept writing checks, and I'd come home to learn how badly I'd have to scamble to make them all good. In fact, I'm reminded that she had this sub-conscious indeniable belief that every one of our seven kids had a right to a $250.00 +/- Christmas, and even impending foreclosure could not prevent her from following through on that belief. Fun times... She lives with her daughter now, because she still can't manage money. Seven kids??? You the man Mike![:-eyebrow Four were mine, from a previous marriage, whom I kept and raised (the Mr. Mom deal); two were hers (second wife) and she and I had one. Yeah, I've retired from marriage and drama forever. A very happy wild stallion these days... [:-graduat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie R Posted December 22, 2010 Report Share Posted December 22, 2010 When I was about 10 or 11, my grandfather told me that "Every man should try marriage once." That was all he said, never explained it, but I understood once I got married. This June will be our 40th anniversary, but I will not be buying the wife a new vacuum! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erby Posted December 22, 2010 Report Share Posted December 22, 2010 Special occasions should never be marked with a household appliance, exercise equipment, or your idea of what she should wear to bed. It helps keep the pieces coming. Give that stuff a week or two before or after! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Amaral Posted December 27, 2010 Report Share Posted December 27, 2010 I've met that guy from the obsessive/compulsive hell myself.. and there is indeed a hell and they are indeed there............right now! Good story! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgbinspect Posted December 27, 2010 Author Report Share Posted December 27, 2010 I've met that guy from the obsessive/compulsive hell myself.. and there is indeed a hell and they are indeed there............right now! Good story! Rob, the thing that was particularly strange about the whole affair is that the guy in question, was handicapped - with one leg probably eight inches shorter than the other?.. The whole thing boggled the mind, and I have always avoided dwelling on how tortured the guy really was. It all made one find it easy to count their blessings and be thankful there is such a thing as grace in the world... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hausdok Posted December 28, 2010 Report Share Posted December 28, 2010 We got our dog Peanut (My avatar) as a result of a guys OCD. The guys is a Microsoftee but he works from home a lot and whenever he was home the dog had to be sequestered from that point on in the laundry until the guy left the house again; because he'd obsess over the dog and couldn't get any work done. The wife loves the little tyke and wanted him to be happy but knew that was never going to be the case with him constantly shuttered up; so, when we were inspecting the guy's house and the little guy went nuts over my wife, and my wife over him, she saw her chance to put him in a situation that he'd understand. ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!! Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgbinspect Posted December 28, 2010 Author Report Share Posted December 28, 2010 Nice. My daughter, who is staying with me for a bit with her 19 month old son, Blake, has a Yorkie Poo. I LOVE that dog - smart as a whip, cute as a button, and very eager to please. [:-thumbu] I'm going to miss the whole gang when they move on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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