She set about rectifying all these desires at once. I am not kidding. She called in favors from everyone she knew. She called on old boyfriends to help haul and install appliances. She called a plumber friend to address her plumbing issues; she called a hottie she’d picked up at Home Depot to get a deep discount on a storm door. Then she called me.
I like my friend. She is funny, creative, energetic, and generous. She would do anything to help her friends. She would give you her new storm door if you really needed it. So when she called me and asked if my brother could install her new patio doors, I felt extremely guilty about the voice in my head that was shouting out, “Oh, hell, NO!” I’m sure I sounded fairly cagey in my conversation with her. After all, I didn’t really want to commit my brother’s abilities or his time—but most of all, I just felt like I didn’t want to commit to this arrangement. I didn’t want to be anywhere in the middle, beside, in front of, or behind this arrangement.
I finally agreed to call my brother, and ask him, to call her. That would be the end of it for me—after all, the two of them could work it out. My friend was capable of explaining her needs herself, and my brother was capable of determining his availability and willingness to take on this project by himself.
I was wrong.
The project seemed straightforward to me:
- Contractor inspects door opening to determine appropriate size of doors to install.
