Ya want a new bathroom with that?

Old homes generally have many flaws, commonly known as "charming characteristics." They might include walls that are not quite square, narrow stairways that demand new ways of climbing and descending, drafty windows that confuse insects into thinking inside is outside, etc. Owners, such as the Hero and I, live with these features because, initially, they are charming, and because the real estate agent assured us that "clients pay through the nose to have warped floors," and after a while we live with them because we forget they are there.

That is, until someone else points them out, and we realize that perhaps we have been remiss in thinking that these characteristics are charming.

Such a person is Richard, the all-seeing contractor. Richard came to our home to fix ceiling damage created by a leaky skylight, and left having fixed a half-dozen "characteristics" entirely unrelated to the ceiling damage. He also offered recommendations for roughly 357 other characteristics of our home's interior, many of which, through determined forgetfulness on our part, we did not even know existed.

Each of Richard's recommendations was accompanied by three statements:

1. "I'm not trying to get more money out of ya, but..."

2. "Doesn't that ______ [fill in name of charming characteristic] bother you? I can fix that for you."

3. "Like I said, I'm not trying to get more money out of ya, but..."

Hard as it was, I politely refused most of Richard's upgrade suggestions, which included smoothing out all of the ceilings that were painted in a "popcorn" style and doing something above the kitchen cabinets, which I did not follow, but that would, he promised, "make it look really special. Not that it doesn't look nice the way you have it now," he hastened to add.

We went along like this for some time, Richard making suggestions for repairs and me making excuses for why we didn't think we wanted to replace all the doors with steel and stained glass ones right now. Or, possibly, ever.

Finally, near the end of his visit, he boomed, "Why don't ya put another bathroom in? You got just the one."

At the time we were standing in what the Hero and I call our study, which contains two computer desks, a built-in bookcase, a small sofa, an armoire, a heavy wooden four-drawer filing cabinet, and numerous books without a fixed home because they do not  fit into the built-in bookcase, all crammed into a room the size of a small dishwasher. This is also the room where we generally entertain guests, mostly because our other rooms are more the size of a sink.

"You could put it right there," he said promptly, and with a wave of his hand he obliterated an entire corner of the room, the one housing the Hero's desk and the armoire.

I tried to picture even a small bathroom in the corner of our main living and entertaining space, and failed. Richard was undaunted. When he went downstairs he yelled up, "Or you could put a bathroom down here. Right in front of this brick and stone wall here."

Of course. Who needs a brick and stone wall that holds 170 years of history, when you could have a commode there instead?

Miraculously, the house escaped any transformations as Richard took his leave. "You think about that bathroom, now," he said as he walked to his truck. "Would be real easy to put it in. All's you need is a toilet and sink and a water line...let me know if you change your mind...and the kitchen too -- now there, I would recommend...."

I breathed a sigh of relief when his truck disappeared from view. I think the house did too.

On behalf of our food, we apologize

On our recent trip to the beach we were surrounded by many great bastions of American cuisine -- Pizza Tommy's, Pancakes & Slushies, Dairy Queen, etc. With so many excellent establishments to frequent, it was difficult to decide where to take our patronage. One day we chose to dine for lunch at Dairy Queen. It was a small DQ, serving ice cream only. Perfect lunch food, we agreed.

While we waited for our Blizzards, a French family of four next to us decided what to order. The mother asked for vanilla ice cream with chocolate, and immediately faced a barrage of questions:

In a bowl? In a cup? What size? Chocolate sauce or hot fudge syrup? Nuts? Cherry? Any other artery-clogging toppings?

I thought about the barrage of questions WE might face, the Hero and I, were we in France ordering food.

Fresh cream with that? Fleur de sel?

And I wanted to apologize to the family.

When the older boy's chocolate sundae was handed through the window, the mother looked exasperated. The ice cream was perched precariously in the bowl, a mile high and struggling to stay upright under the mountain of fudge atop it. She asked if there was a lid, to which she received a negative answer, and she reluctantly handed it to her young son.

"I think we should apologize to them," I announced solemnly to the Hero once we had sat down with out Blizzards.

"What for?" he said, devouring his Strawberry Shortcake.

"For what passes as food in this country," I said. "I'm embarrassed. They have all that wonderful French food, and we have -- " I swept my hand toward our ice cream that contained, possibly, .37% actual food.

The Hero eyed his rapidly disappearing strawberry shortcake. "You're embarrassed by this wonderful concoction of yumminess?" he said incredulously. "Don't the French have DQ?" He looked sorry for them.

"If they do, it's our fault," I said.

Here we were interrupted by the sight of the chocolate sundae falling out of the boy's grasp and landing upside down on the ground. The parents had not noticed, and the boy tried frantically to be somewhere else -- anywhere else -- before they did.

"He's done this before," the Hero commented. "He knows the drill."

When finally the father saw the demolished ice cream, he let out, in English, a series of "Aw, come on's!"

"Definitely the kid's done this before," the Hero said. "Maybe they DO have DQ in France."

The poor child whined, in French, as the father, in English, steadfastly maintained that the boy would NOT get a replacement, and would have to share with his brother. The brother began to whine.

"When kids whine in a foreign language it sounds so much more elegant than in English," the Hero remarked.

The mother said something in French, which I assumed was something like "You're better off without that junk anyway."

"I'm sorry about his ice cream," I said to the Hero. "But she's right. He should stick to French food. Someday his arteries will thank him."

This Vacation brought to you by Hurricane Arthur

The Hero and Princess recently vacationed at a beach in Virginia, where they were visited by a smallish storm known as Hurricane Arthur. The Hero -- one of that group the Princess will never understand, those who LIKE storms -- was looking forward to experiencing a hurricane firsthand. His excitement, however, did not quite match that of the crew of the Weather Channel, who all tried, and failed, to convey a sense of regret that actual people might get hurt or suffer damage to their property while the crew were reporting on the biggest hurricane to come ashore in several years:

Station reporter (with subdued excitement): Bob is on the scene in North Carolina. Bob, what can you tell us?

Bob (excitement contained not a whit): I gotta tell you, Charlene, the people left here are really gonna be sorry they didn't evacuate! From the looks of things they're gonna be cut off for weeks after this storm is done with them! Look, there goes a roof now! (He ducks. Roof slams into camera, knocking cameraman down.)

Charlene: Uh, Bob, don't you think maybe you and Steve should find some shelter?

Bob: Nah, we're fine, Steve's just gonna be a little sore in the morning. Ohhhh, here comes a boat! (Smash.)

Charlene: Bob? Bob?

The Hero, meanwhile, was thinking about his family and wondered whether they'd heard about us being in the path of the storm.

"I have to call my sisters," he said, "so they can worry about us being in a hurricane." He's thoughtful like that.

He was able to reach only one sister, but she duly worried enough for the other sister, who did not get the news until later ("A HURRICANE?? Why didn't you CALL me??").

We had our hurricane-survival strategy all planned out. We would be confined to the hotel for most of the day, we reasoned, so we would hunker down and read. Knowing about the hurricane ahead of time, we had brought with us enough books to last through several hurricanes, at least through ones starting with H or J.

We also studied the hotel's movie theater offerings, picking out a few good ones. THAT would take up several hours. We had plenty of snacks, and water, and the hotel had several restaurants that we hoped would not be shut down by any power outages or experience any other calamities, such as being overrun by cranky, cabin-fevered Little Persons.

Imagine our disappointment when we awoke and discovered that not only had the rain from Arthur moved on during the night, but there were already people OUTSIDE. Walking, jogging, surfing, creating "I survived a hurricane" stickers, etc. True, they were doing these things SIDEWAYS due to the strong wind, but they were not hunkering down according to our script.

But we were prepared for a hurricane, and if we had to, we would pretend we were in one. We sat on our patio and read, ignoring the signs of life before us. We read some more. Then, in the greatest of all insults, the sun came out.

We gave up and went to the beach.

The Hero later reported our hurricane non-experience to his other sister. Though she was relieved that we were safe, she sympathized. "Better luck next time," she said.