How HGTV Bought Us a New Fridge

Our kitchen was falling apart. We had to do something about it, but we weren’t sure what. We couldn’t afford to just redo it. Even if we went cheap we couldn’t have done it. The kitchen, from the 70’s, was simply falling apart.

So then our neighbor told us we should apply for a new HGTV show the $250,000 challenge. Five families on the block compete, each week a new room is worked on and the winner gets $250,000. Wow. So even if we didn’t win, at least we could get to the kitchen stage. That would be a win for us.

It sounded so simple. Need something? Perhaps you need… a kitchen redone? A million dollars from starving yourself on an island? Perhaps you just need to feed a self destructive narcissistic craving for attention. Then ask a reality show for help. They’re there for YOU!

So we applied. We did many interviews. I think we did well. The producers came and looked at our house. They looked at the different rooms and tried to figure out if our house would suit their needs and if we would fit their needs for the camera.

When the producer saw our kitchen, he actually stopped and let out a bit of an anguished cry, like “ohhewwewoh” He then tried to cover it up but we knew that he knew that we knew that our kitchen was a disaster. Which of course, was not such a bad thing for a home improvement show.

Half of our house we had worked on. We have a very nice living room, one of the bathrooms was redone, our family room was in decent shape and over the years we converted the garage into an office. The previous owners were using it to grow pot, so all the insulation and outlets were already installed. A little drywall and add a window, and presto. Salacious drug den to nerdy office.

So we had a bathroom, a bedroom and a disastrous kitchen that could be redone. Plus, my wife and I would be pretty fun on camera, I would think. Not typical HGTV types.
More interviews, and a little good news. They had picked our street. Great! Getting closer. They were narrowing it down.

Soon another call came. They had narrowed it down to eight families, of which were were part of the eight and then they were going to pick five. We were so close. There’s no way we’d be in the loser three, right? Then we started thinking, hell, maybe we’ll get a new kitchen and then also win $250,000. Why not? With that kind of money we could turn the garage back into a… never mind.

But then as we were waiting for the next call, our fridge up and died on us. Gave up the frozen ghost. We thought, if it had just lasted a few weeks more… But then we got the call. Yes, THE call. The call that told us HGTV was passing on us, and we were not in the top five. Damn it!
So we went and got a fridge. We miserably went and got a fridge, our hopes of getting our house redone for free quietly disappearing. But we did get a really nice fridge. We lucked out and got a Fisher and Paykel, on a markdown due to it having a little ding on the side that we didn’t care about.

But then, we got ANOTHER call from HGTV. A much better one, this time. While we still weren’t on the show, they were sending us a check for all the time and interviews we did. It covered our new fridge.

We were disappointed to be sure, but we also realized that when you’re doing a show like that you really don’t get to take your time and do it the way you want to. We do like to take our time with things and get them the way we like them. Or so we rationalized. So while we didn’t get to meet Drew Lachey of 98 degrees, we do have a new fridge, which runs at a cool 45 degrees. OK, that was a stretch, I know.

Random Acts of Irritation

Our kitchen STILL isn’t done. At some point, a company really has to stop lying to you and actually do their fucking job. Supposedly, Monday is that day, when they install our countertop that apparently had to be shipped in from the moon.

Tom Delay on Dancing with The Stars dancing to “Wild Thing” I saw a few seconds of this by accident, and I’m sorry to say I may take it with me to the grave. Please… I know Sarah Palin is the first reality Show politician, but please politicians, stop going on reality shows. We know you’re narcissistic egomaniacs. You don’t need to prove it anymore. At least Rod Blagojevich has been laying low. Probably combing his luxurious hair…

We just got a new cordless phone. My wife did a new thing where it rang and then she handed the cordless phone to me, twice, without answering it, thinking the calls were for me. By the time she got it in my hand, it had already gone to voicemail. Twice. When I mentioned this she got angry at me for having attitude and blamed the new phone for not working.

Our cable isn’t working properly and hasn’t for a while. The cable company’s attitude is pretty much “So what? Where you gonna go? We bought the other companies. Go get a satellite dish, then. Go. We don’t care. Now go get your shinebox…”

It takes me longer to learn new technologies now. Stupid aging process. And stupid Twitter, PayPal, HTML, and shopping cart integrations.

At least the new season of Dexter started. Love that show.

What’s irritating YOU, right now?

Overwhelmed!

Sometimes we get overwhelmed. For me, this is one of those times. The last few weeks have been crazy, and I finally found the combination of events that has left me with no time to do anything except check an occasional e-mail and maybe do a Facebook update and then try to sleep for 3-4 hours at a stretch. Keep in mind, it’s not like I was looking for that combination of events.

The combination is as follows: Having two children, traveling with two children, getting sick, redoing our kitchen, trying to promote the book and taking care of a baby that refuses to nap for 12-14 hours a day. Little room for anything else. In fact, my book promotion, blogging, and everything career related has simply come to a complete halt over the past few weeks. At first I was sad that comedyfilmnerds.com crashed and burned and can’t be fixed, but as the new version of the site is being rebuilt I realized it actually came at a perfect time. I have no time to devote to it right now.

I had to stay in a hotel for a few days, but meeting Rowdy Roddy Piper was extremely cool so there were some perks. But Going to Home Depot every few days (sometimes more than once) and coordinating what feels like a 100 contractors with a 13 month old in tow has not been easy. Although my 13 month old now knows everything there is to know about grout. Good for him.
Meet the Contractors: You’re the regular contractor, great. Now there’s the cabinet guy, the countertop guy, the appliances and the home depot coordinator, and oh, regular contractor you’re going on vacation in the middle of the job? Great. Glad you mentioned that earlier. Oh, wait, you didn’t. Well done. I guess that’s my fault.

Now the expensive copper sink is crooked and it’s always a hassle to return stuff online, home depot has nothing in stock, and now the sink doesn’t fit, the faucets won’t fit, some of the cabinets are damaged or wrong, etc. We’re using a fridge, a toaster oven and a microwave and a credit card for meals. Oh, and now I’m having anxiety attacks? That’s weird. I wonder how that happened.

The thing is, we NEVER would have redone our kitchen unless we had to. We knew it would be a nightmare. But between our old cabinets falling apart (and down, they were separating from the ceiling) a 24 inch oven from 1956 and a vinyl floor that had more stains than actual pattern it was time. We knew when we bought the house we would have to redo it eventually. Would have been easier to do it without two kids, but hey, hindsight is always 20/20.

But now things are at least progressing. Most of the cabinets are in, the appliances should be here soon and the kitchen should at least be semi-functional in 2 weeks or so. I hope.

(Chris gets up because his neighbor’s giant dogs have now run into his backyard and scared his children. His wife needs help getting them out. They won’t leave. The neighbor won’t answer his doorbell. Chris gets the dogs out of his yard, closes the gate and with the help of another neighbor leashes the dogs and brings themn back to his negligent dog-owner neighbor, who is still sleeping. Thankfully his roommate is up and takes the dogs. Chris has done his good deed for the day and then resumes his blog that he almost can’t finish.)

I have to say the kitchen does looks nice and will be worth the hassle once it is complete, a thousand years from now. For now I’m just trying to keep the baby from eating the new cabinets. Maybe I’ll just give him one to chew on so I can get 15 minutes of sleep…