The Apprentice; Rick the TMI Guy gets a Friend
Thursday, February 7, 2008 at 12:23PM Kevin told me that he loves his mom now, and he understands that she sold him drugs because she was just trying to make ends meet. I'm not sure which ends, or if they ever met, as there seemed to be a huge disconnect between what I needed to know and what I was being told. I'd asked if he wanted a soda.
Kevin is a young, clean cut fellow who looks like a boyband member a few years past his prime. He was at my house courtesy of Rick, The TMI Guy, and the Jefferson County Work Release program. My journey down the dark spiral of Kevin's childhood was a short one, as his mentor, the detail dispensing King, wanted to meet with me in private. Oh, sweet Lord. I wondered what he'd not already shared with me in public.
It turns out he was hurt, and I felt pretty bad. I'd sent a nast-o-gram to the general contractor, a man known to us as the Swedish Ghost, about how we were getting a little upset with the work Rick was doing. Apparently the invisible head of the operation relayed the message in its entirety to the TMI Guy. The irony of this situation is that the TMI Guy would be most rattled by the opinion of someone who shares absolutely no information at all, my wife.
Sarah is a dying breed. She is classy and subtle. Her brilliant sense of humor can shimmer, and her beauty impress, but she prefers to sit back and observe with a tact typically reserved for undercover spies. I remember when she told me she was pregnant. Quin was two weeks old.
But underneath her veneer is a smoldering hotbed for all things stupid, and our merry-go-round of contractor malaise has lit her anger embers afire. I told her to put some of what was on her mind in an email. She said she'd make a list.
Here are a couple of items:
3. Vent/hood cabinet above stove
4. cabinet above refrigerator
5. cabinet doors
It started par for the course for a contractor to-do list.
And then...
11. Tile in both bathrooms
12. Rick is an incapable ass
14. We've lived out of our home for an entire week and still we cannot bathe and are the floors done? Who has been paid for this incompetence?
20. What the @#$& do you need from us to get this DONE. My recommendation would be to get rid of jailhouse jim, learn to pay your subs and miracles will happen. Maybe we could get this finished before Quin can learn to kick your white ass and set fire to your house.
I also remember something about a crowbar, but for legal purposes I edited that out.
Needless to say, Rick was overwhelmed with all this new information. He, along with his latest child and its mother and her child from another father, and myself, sat in the basement and hashed things over.
I would find out nothing. In a surprise twist, he had very little to say. It was as if he'd passed the tongue torch to his protégé. He'd been rendered silent. From upstairs we could hear Kevin tell his coworker about all his drywall experience, his love for pizza and some more about his mother. We didn't hear a reply. I imagined the other guy had spackled his ears shut.
Today Kevin is gone. He was canned. At some point the Ikea Apparition had breezed through our home and did not like what Kevin's mudding resume had netted him. Rick came by this morning at 7 to get he and his apprentice's tools.
Before he left he turned to tell me some new guys were coming and they were probably Mexican and he didn't want them stealing any of his stuff.
Welcome back Rick.
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