“Call Me Mr. Fix It– Not!”

By Howard Wiener

   My wife, Susan and I had always dreamed of owning a home. Unfortunately, the prices were far beyond our means. . .until the real estate agent showed us a large, comfortable-looking house, but one that definitely qualified as a “handyman’s special.”

   We looked at each other, and both of us saw the potential right away. We bought it that afternoon. The first thing we wanted to do was change the unattractive, bright orange tile floor in the kitchen. We purchased those self-stick tiles we knew were easy, even for us. After laying down the last tile, we stood up, admiring our handiwork.

   I asked Susan what time it was because I thought it was nearing dinner time. When she looked down to see the time, she suddenly stared at her ring finger. There was just the white indentation where her wedding ring should have been. “Oh no!” Susan wailed.

   We instinctively knew her ring was under one of those tiles, though we couldn’t see any bumps in them. With heavy sighs, we began to take up each tile. It was a laborious job, but to our dismay we couldn’t find the ring–that is, until we pulled up the next-to-last tile. We were so relieved; until we looked down and saw the mess that was on our close-to-being remodeled kitchen floor. Now there was glue everywhere, and some of the backing had adhered to the glue. You couldn’t even walk on it.