Like most parents we gage the passage of time by our kids' ages. And seeing as The Little Princess, quite conveniently, was born just two weeks and one day after we moved into the Tall House, she serves as a cute, curly haired, living marker of our time spent there. So I can easily say that we have been living in our beloved ruin for 2 years, 4 months and 5 days. Which, rather embarrassingly, means that we have gone for 2 years, 4 months and 5 days without finalizing the top floor.
Apparently, this is an all too common occurrence with renovations. Be it either from boredom, a short attention span, or just out of sheer frustration, folks tend to start the next project before completing the one at hand. And although there was just but a few days work left to do to finalize that top floor, it required patience that we no longer had. So our bedroom windows remained the original sickly time stained puce, the doors remained unfinished, and the bathroom walls were bare.
Enter Laszlo, our Hungarian, slightly off-white knight. We were so thrilled with the plaster work he'd done on the main floor that we happily asked him back to do the paint. He worked well and was so cheap that it almost wasn't worth the hassle to do it ourselves. And honestly, we found him amusing. But Laszlo the plasterer is very different from Laszlo the painter.
One thing that remained the same was that he preferred to work without an audience. So despite his working on a Saturday, we cleared out of the house. Around 4:30 we dragged ourselves home after having spent every last ounce of energy and then some in the neighbouring parks.
Exhausted, the four of us plunked ourselves down in front of the TV ready to enjoy yet another rip roaring episode of Mickey Mouse Club House (The Princess is obsessed) when from the top floor came a "FUCKINGGG NIGHTMARE!" then, I'm guessing for Manu's sake "VAFFANCULO" followed by unintelligible Hungarian expletives.
Nonchalantly turning up the volume on Mickey Mouse, I went upstairs to see what all the fuss was about.
-Laszlo why are you swearing so much?
-This door, this glass, this hardware its a FUCKINGGGG NIGHTMARE, its taking too long! What time is it? I'm going home!!!
And off he went.
A while after, as The Little Superhero and I were doing our daily bedtime review, those big brown eyes got a little bigger and asked in a barely audible whisper "Mummyyyyyyy, what's a fucking nightmare??"
-I don't know, it must be Hungarian for door frame, my love.
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