I am certain that I have told the story recently of the day the man called me, so proud of himself, telling me that he had taken a power saw to the wall in our dining room, and cut a doorway into our "new den," which at that point consisted of a poorly converted garage and a hole in a wall. I wish I could say that was the only time he ever did such a thing, but alas, it is not. This afternoon, while I was waiting for him to shower and dress so we could run errands, he called out loudly, to be heard over the running water, that I needed to come see what he had done. He pulled down one sheet of wallpaper, and tossed it onto the floor, and he was starting to pick at the next piece, while the shower was still running. He tried to blame it on poorly-applied wallpaper, as if the previous owners of this house had done it improperly, and that's why it came off the wall. Oh, no. I know better. He has hated this wallpaper since the day we toured this property with our realtor. It drives him crazy, because it is a botanical print of a vine that does not exist in nature. It has multiple species of leaves and flowers all blended together in one continuous swirl. My little biologist can't stand looking at it. I think he saw that his endless supply of steam (one drawback to a tankless water heater -- no reason ever to get out of the shower if you're enjoying the heat) had loosened one tiny corner of the paper, and he saw an opportunity. He pretended he didn't know that when one removes wallpaper, steam is frequently used as a tool, and he tried to tell me the glue just "failed." I called him out on that silliness, but there I was, pulling at the sheets of paper along with him. He stood there in the shower, still damp and in his warm pink altogether, with a look of boyish joy at his new project. What a goofball. I guess I know what we are doing next week.
When we lived in North Dakota years ago, I remember one day when I was in a convenience store. I was paying for my purchases when I looked over my shoulder, and noticed my younger daughter facing the glass doors of the store. She was picking at a sticker on the window, some ad for a sports drink or the lottery, and she was quite thoroughly removing it. I was embarrassed, but she completely ignored my frantic whispers to stop. (In my memory, she was still very little, although she was probably twelve at the time. Maybe it's because as a tiny girl, she was always quietly shredding something or another.) As the man ignored my trying to get him to stop removing wallpaper until we had a chance to take down the towel bars and medicine chest, I pointed out that he was acting exactly like his daughter. She inherited that trait from somebody, didn't she?
I didn't care one way or another about the wallpaper, but I did like that bathroom while it was green. Turns out it covered up some seriously ugly mauve and beige sponge painting. (The man was just sure that was the wallpaper glue. I said no, it was a faux finish. It was the 90s, They were young and stupid back then.) I'm not going to make this project more involved than it already is. The walls will be going back to green, and only a few other things will change. I hope. I have a hard time resisting that man when he turns his boyish charm on me, and tells me he's going to remodel the house. It's how we get into trouble time after time.
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