Monday, April 7, 2008

Invasion of Privacy OR Out of One Construction Zone and Into Another

For those of you who don't know, my wife and I are currently living with my mother-in-law. It happened because we waited too long to look for an apartment before we got married and so we needed a place to stay till we found one. Then, we got lazy and stopped looking and now we figured we've been here for so long that we will just stay a little while longer and we should have enough money to buy a house. But I digress from the point of this blog.
My mother-in-law has a nice house. It is three stories and has 6 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. When she and my father-in-law bought the house (and were still married) the bottom floor was just one room for a basement. For reasons I won't go into, they had to convert the basement into three rooms for three kids who were going to come live with them as well as building a full bathroom as well. Naturally, such a big house is hard to keep up with. My mother-in-law has been doing her fixer-uppers to the house in phases (sound familiar?). First, she got new tile in the kitchen. Then she got new furniture for the den. Then new hardwood floors for the den. And it has continued like that for the past four or five years (though my wife and I have only been married for 6 months, we started dating a little over 5 years ago).
Tomorrow, she is replacing the windows. All of them. Its going to take the window people three days to finish. This bothers me. I really don't like construction people. I know it is wrong to feel this way but they sure don't help me change my perspective of them. At my parents house, some construction workers, after finishing the job at our house, came back in the middle of the night and stole our ATVs. So, naturally, I'm always a little hesitant around construction workers. But it goes deeper than that. Its not just that I'm worried they're going to steal my stuff. Its that I don't want them to see my bedroom. And it has nothing to do with the stuff in my bedroom either. Its that my bedroom, to me, is almost borderline sacred. Its my sanctuary. Its where I go where the rest of the world cannot. Its where I feel safe. Its a special place. And whenever a stranger goes into my bedroom, its almost like they're desecrating the place, as if it will take a few days before I can feel safe in there again. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm overreacting. All I know, is that when I have my own house, I'll do the work that needs to be done in my bedroom. Not some stranger.

3 comments:

Stacy said...

Good call. It is always a little scarry having strange people in any room of the house let alone the bedroom. At least we have smaller windows so hopefully it wont take them as long. I'm just glad that we put away all the expensive stuff so what happend to your parents and the ATV's wont happen with us...hopefully.

Keira said...

It's more fun to do stuff yourself anyway...I hate people like that to be in my house, too. I don't trust people.

Nene said...

Ya'll are welcome to come stay here anytime the construction gets to you. We just had to move the extra bed into your room while grandma was here and we can move it back. :0}