SQUARE FEET

It was a mid-August Sunday morning, many years ago, when the Paiva family (me, the wife, daughter and mother-in-law) were sitting around the breakfast table reflecting on all of the things we'd managed to accomplish in the short nine months since moving into our new home. We'd installed a fireplace, paneled, painted the outside, landscaped, etc. There we were, sipping our coffee, still finding it hard to believe that we were "LAND BARONS!"
The wife and I are dreaming out loud as to how we could add rooms upstairs, enclose a portion of our patio to keep out the little beasties (Ah, yes! No more bugs in our burgers, ant-free corn on the cob, no floating gnats in our diet drinks!). We were intoxicated with the glee and merriment of new homeowners! There's no stopping us now; we'll build over the garage! I'm going mad, I tell you, mad!! But, however, after every statement, the elder statesman, the mother-in-law, breaks in with, "But won't that increase our taxes?!?", temporarily bursting our bubbles. But not for long! We can increase our hallway by extending our stoop, and install those long stained glass windows that we admired. Again she chimes in with, "But doesn't that cost a lot of money?" Now I inform the mother-in-law that there are two things of mine that you don't mess with...."My food"...and "My dreams".... and if she continues to do so, I will install a skeet-shoot-spring under her chair and yell "PULL!" So she throws out my food and raps me in my dreams with a wooden spoon.
At this point our daughter was bored stiff and asked if she could be excused and go play in the yard. "Sure honey, maybe mommy and daddy will come out and join you", figuring that the wife and I can do our dreaming outside, plus it'll give us the opportunity to survey the back forty of the "PAIVA-ROSA!" (Forty feet, not acres.) It will also give me a chance to stick the mother-in-law with the breakfast dishes and nurse the bump she gave me on my head!
I tell the wife how, if we use bi-fold doors and piano hinges, we could enclose the patio area, and fold it up in the winter when it's not in use. "As a matter of fact, why can't we use piano hinges on barn dormers upstairs, and fold them down when their not in use!" I ranted. Now my wife is looking at me as if I'm flirting with euphoric insanity. And from the kitchen window, the mother-in-law is bellowing, "The man is bonkers.... he’s trying to turn our beautiful house into a camper!" To tell you the truth, she was right. Even Rube Goldberg would agree with her on that one. Now more noise is emanating from the back window. "Why don't you come back to reality?" I answer the noise with, "Because reality costs too much! And besides, I'm a thinker...a creative person!" She fires back, "If you're so creative, why don't you figure out a way to fix our cracked stoop?" Here I am chasing windmills, and she's sending me to the store for a can of peas! My wife, the peacemaker, interrupts with, "My mom has a point. You're making all these plans, let's see what you can do with the stoop." I said, "What, me work with cement?...What do I know from cement?" But, they want the stoop fixed?..I'll get the stoop fixed. I spent the next day on the phone talking to contractors, trying to get estimates over the phone. The same question kept popping up. "How many square feet are we talkin' about?" they'd inquire. "How the heck do I know?" I'd respond. The only thing I knew about square feet was that Herman Munster had them on the end of his legs!
"Well Pal, I can't tell ya how much it'll cost, if I don't know how large your stoop is." I responded with, "Can't you give me a ballpark figure?" "It depends Pal. Are we talkin' Ebbets Field or Yankee Stadium here? I tell ya Johnny, there's no way'a tellin' ya over the phone! I gotta come see for myself!"
Soon the parade of contractors began. Dented, beat-up, vintage Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Chevy's...all with ladders strapped to their roofs, were pulling up to my door nightly. Men in work clothes, carrying clipboards, were throwing all kinds of numbers at us. "Well Mack and Mrs. Mack, it's gonna run ya anywhere from fifteen hundred to three thou to replace the stoop" they'd inform us. "And how much to just repair it?" we'd ask. "Fifteen hundred to three thou!" they'd fire back. Then the guy would look at me and say, "Look Mack, this aint 'Let's Make A Deal', and I aint 'Monte Hall'! Take it or leave it! I got plenty of work. I wouldn't be able to start work on your stoop until the beginin' of next summer anyway!"
I said, "This doesn't look like a 'LOVE CONNECTION', so why don't you do your talkin' walkin'?" (To myself) What I really said was, "Ya know 'MACK', being that you have so much work, I wouldn't want to add to your burden 'PAL' so THANKS but NO THANKS!"
I'm not the type that gives up easily and I fancy myself as somewhat of a bargain hunter, so I call up the guy who installed our fireplace and ask if he knew somebody! Not only did he know somebody, he said HE could do it, but first he asked "How many square feet?" (Again with the square feet) To which I replied, "Please don't ask me that question, I'm getting a headache!"
Twenty minutes later, a brand new car pulls up, he gets out wearing designer clothes and carrying a leather bound Gucci clipboard. He sizes up the situation, then informs me that he'd remove a portion of the existing stoop, apply a new surface and when he was done, it'll be a new stoop. He can begin work on it tomorrow and complete it in just two days and all for the price of THREE HUNDRED BUCKS!"
I gave him a deposit, we said our good nights and he left. I couldn't wait to get inside and gloat to the girls. A new stoop for three hundred smac-a-roos!
The two days he promised, turned into six weeks of driving up to an incomplete structure that was encased in what looked like the worlds largest sandwich bag (like who knew cement could go stale?), dry concrete footprints on our oriental carpet, plus several un-returned calls to the contractor.
On the first day of the seventh week we came home to discover that the clear plastic had been removed, and what was once a straight, but cracked stoop, had been transformed into the "Leaning-stoop-of Paiva!" My wife looked on in horror, but my daughter loved it. She thought we had built her her own custom made three-tiered slide! My mother-in-law looked at me and laughed then suggested we call the Olympic committee and rent it to them as a practice slope for down hill racers. With egg on my face, I called to complain only to find out that his phone had been disconnected and that he was out of business.
The moral of this story is, look for the contractors with the dented cars... they build straighter stoops! I gotta go now, it's starting to rain and I have to glue those little rubber flowers you put in the bathtub, on my steps. I wouldn't want anyone to slip and hurt themselves!