The Princess and the Serf

I pull old paneling off the basement walls and Kiwi lolls about thinking it some kind of game. She looks down her large nose at me as if to declare: Girlfriend, if I were you, I wouldn’t engage in those menial chores. Next thing you know you’ll be changing the oil. Except she says it with a British accent. She was a princess in a former life. I was a serf.

Back at The Home Depot, I pick up more supplies for the drywall project and then wander over to Flooring. I drool over the bamboo products. I take out the horizontal and vertical samples and place them on the ground. I do this every time I’m there. My flip-flops feel nice on this little piece of Asia. Home Depot guy tells me the bamboo floors are just not selling and I’m floored, pardon my pun.

But it’s one of the the fastest growing plants on the planet. It’s been named the building material of the 21st century.

Yep, it grows almost as fast as kelp, he declares, perplexed.

I like this person. I wonder how he knows about the kelp. I bid adieu, and head over to Paint. I want to texturize the downstairs bathroom to give it a mottled, plastered, romantic Italian look. Maybe I’ll have Casey weld me a faucet shaped like his favorite pasta. Right now the the room smacks of 1980s peach and gray California strip mall.

California makes me think of my sister out in Palm Desert. She and my Mom will be here in two weeks. Sue knows her way around a Home Depot. Maybe I’ll take her in to feel the bamboo.