"We are not in any hurry," says my sweet Sven.
"Why did you say that?"
"Contractors love to hear those words," he answered.
This conversation took place in February.
We are still waiting for the new carpet we ordered.
He was right, we were not in any hurry.
I mean what are a few more months tacked on to decades of stains and burns, three kids, three dogs, a few cats and my sweet Sven?
However, updating the loft was going to be a project to keep Millie Noe out of trouble and to get her through the doldrums known around here as winter.
That is the reason I took several trips to Saint Vinny's while debunking the 1980's closet.
Why I was a familiar face at the dump.
And why I painted the walls and dragged a ladder up there and vacuumed the cathedral ceiling, killing many a spider and pillaging their villages.
It was the reason I stacked the furniture in our bedroom and covered our bed with pictures and books and suitcases.
"Maybe you should give them a call," I said to Sven in May.
He did.
"Um, they said our trip to California will not interfere, because we are not on the schedule yet."
Fortunately, Sven and I moved into the spare bedroom on the main floor over a year ago since some dogs prefer to sleep next to their mom and dad and Hunter Bunter, our geriatric king of the jungle canine, can no longer make it down the stairs from our bedroom, which is located on one end of the loft.
Sooner or later one must descend in order to go outside to do one's business.
So.
It is now June.
Here is an ironically funny story.
Sven is an old fashioned flip phone kind of a fellow.
"I don't need all that fancy stuff," he says.
About six months ago his beloved long time companion of a phone, took it's last breath.
He left the house one morning to go and buy a new one.
He returned an hour later with the same phone and a new battery.
"It was only twenty-five bucks," he boasted.
But then last week that old flipper bit the dust for the second time.
"Millie, it won't turn on," he said.
So on Tuesday I rode shot gun next to Sven straight to the US Cellular store.
The representative said she could not give Sven's phone mouth to mouth. All she could do was sell him a new one.
He stared at her.
It got awkward.
She said, "Or you could take your phone to a repair shop."
I know.
But I didn't say anything.
The kid under the mop of a hair doo with a baseball cap sitting on top at the repair shop ordered a battery for Sven out of vault in a museum.
He will call my phone when it comes in, in three to five days, since Sven left his lifeless phone there.
If that battery resuscitates Sven's old flipper, it will be fourteen ninety-nine, plus tax.
"Only fourteen ninety-nine," he says on our way home.
If that battery doesn't breathe life into Mr. Motorola, he will give us back the dead phone, for free.
Sven could not pass up a deal like that.
Friday morning I checked my emails.
There was actually a note worth opening.
"Hey Sven," it said. "I left you a voicemail but haven't heard back from you. We have a cancellation on Thursday and since you guys have been waiting the longest for your carpet, we would like to try to slip you in. Let us know if this will work for you. If we don't hear back shortly, we will have to go down the list to the next client."
On the bright side, our new carpet is still stain free.
And considering we managed to dump a cup of coffee all over the sample we brought home, I am weirdly relieved.