Under Construction

I came home this week to find my parents' house in complete uproar due to their current kitchen remodeling project. The first sign of this upheaval was that, upon arriving home at 2:30am, we found the kitchen sink in the front yard. I was shocked by this, but my parents didn't even lift an eyebrow. We continued inside, where I discovered that the entire contents of the kitchen had been scattered about the house. The potatoes and onions, for instance, are currently being stored in the bathtub. The refrigerator has taken up residence in the garage, and the microwave and survival cooking essentials are set up for use in the laundry room, which my parents are calling the "summer kitchen".

This leads to some complications in meal preparation. For instance, this morning I woke up to the sound of electricians in the hall outside my bedroom putting in a new outlet. So, to avoid being seen in my pajamas by strangers, I got completely dressed before leaving my room. I then crossed through the kitchen-turned-construction-zone on my way to the family room, where I retrieved a plastic bowl. Then I went to the dining room to find a spoon, to the laundry room to get the cereal, and out to the garage for milk. I returned to the family room to eat at the "kitchen" table. Needless to say, with only a microwave with which to cook, and said microwave located in the laundry room, we're going out for a lot of meals.

Laundry is more complicated, too. Since the laundry room has become the kitchen, the laundry is now drying in the "laundry annex" (Translation: my bathroom, where the damp clothes hang on hangers over the bathtub-turned-onion-and-potato-storage.) Bizarre.

In addition, they have turned off the central air conditioning in order to prevent the construction dust from getting all over the rest of the house and messing up my parent's allergies. On the one hand, the reduced dust is very nice. On the other hand, it's June, and quite warm outside. This evening my parents opened the windows in hopes of catching a breeze. However, my parents never leave the windows open (because of the aforementioned allergies) so they're very nervous that it will suddenly start raining and somehow the entire house will flood. So, they'll throw open the windows, then decide five minutes later that they've heard raindrops and immediately close the windows again. Open...drip...closed...hot. Open...drip...closed...hot. You get the picture.

Both of the main contractors on the remodeling project, the one for carpentry and the other for electrical, gas, and plumbing, are named Ron. Ron and Ron. This keeps reminding me of Office Space, which causes me to giggle at inappropriate times.

I am contributing to the chaos by attempting to clean out my childhood bedroom in preparation for my big move. So, I'm adding bags of things for the church's thrift store and boxes to bring to my new apartment to the general chaos of the house.

I wish James Thurber were still alive to write about this situation. (Note: If you don't know who James Thurber is, EPIC FAIL for you. Go here immediately and read what is probably my favorite short story of all time.)

I am amazed by my parents' patience with this progression toward entropy. I imagine that my Mom tolerates the mess with an unfailing mental image of the finished product: the completely new kitchen that she's been dreaming about for years. I'm pretty sure my father is getting by on the mantra, "No more electric stove, Advantium for me. No more electric stove, Advantium for me." Could this be an illustration for eschatological hope? Are we in kitchen purgatory?

I'm glad I won't be here for all six weeks of this project.