Good Help is Hard to Find

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Got a call from Frank, my old handyman back east. He phones periodically, but always towards the end of the year to remind me about Dr. Who – I send him a CD of the previous year’s episodes every Xmas. He doesn’t have TV and used to come to my place to watch. Not welcome in everyone’s house – he just walks in, dirty boots and all, accompanied by one or more largish dogs that are stinky more often than not. But I didn’t mind – I considered my kitchen to be a country kitchen, and my own boots and dog weren’t always up to snuff (tho I cleaned up before going to other people’s places). One of my favorite memories was of getting him to collect me at the airport and driving home an hour and half in redolent truck with several dogs in that cubby-hole behind the seats and one on my lap.

But we were friends, in a weird way. Well, with a maternal aspect, as with all my handymen. (My first one, now living with a cam girl in the Philippines, sends me a mother’s day card every year; Frank said tearfully when I left that I reminded him of his mother; current handyman hasn’t said anything, but I get the same vibe from him.) (Never thought of myself as maternal, not probably sufficiently enough even with my actual children, but old age brings on the patina. Hah! – probably even grandmotherish. Tho still maternal for these 60-year-olds.)

My original handyman, the one in the Philippines, is a full-blown crank, up to his eyeballs, no, over his head, in Q crap. Recently posted that Trump will remain prez, possibly for all time, and all this riggy nonsense will be cleared away soon. I have long since given up retorting or trying to engage nicely or ANYthing. Cranks be cranks. Come to think of it, he’s always been a nut – years ago talked me into going with his then-wife to an excruciatingly boring talk about Rudolf Steiner. If you don’t know, don’t bother – unless you have serious insomnia and for some reason want to avoid chemicals.

Current handyman, Rob, dropped by this afternoon to check on next chores (cut and install some salvaged heavy plywood for platform for the enormous garbage and recycle bins the town has endowed us with), and did a mini-rant about all the gullible people taken in by *the TV* into believing in covid when clearly it’s all due to air pollution (gestured at the clouds and mist on the mountains).

Frank, without TV or internet (he’s very parsimonious), seems to be clear of all such nonsense. I miss his visits (and mine to his full-blown acres & 2 houses of hoarding, including currently 27 dogs) when we talked garden and construction and weather … and dogs. That’s how I like my handymen.

NEXT INSTALMENT – Lesser handypeople & housekeepers. The police were involved.

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