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Laundry Renovation Contractor

‘Wait a minute, wait a minute,’ I held my hand up to stop the contractor leaving the room. ‘You want what?’

‘The day off,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Tomorrow, for me and the boys. We need to recuperate, recharge the old engines.’

‘Why?’ I asked, flabbergasted. ‘You’ve barely started working!’

‘Hey,’ he frowned at me. ‘We’ve been going for a week straight, Mister. Don’t you tell me what’s too much work for me and my boys.’

‘Uh,’ I put my hands on my hips. ‘That week straight included the weekend and a public holiday. And you didn’t show up until two this afternoon!’

‘We worked late last night,’ he shrugged. ‘In any case, we’ll be back on Thursday.’

‘Thursday is in three days!’ I all-but screamed at the man.

‘Oh, is it?’ he frowned, scratching his head. ‘Huh, whadya know? I’m gonna need another couple days off for my boys.’

I stood in stunned, disbelieving silence. ‘Do I need to hire contractors to remodel my bathroom?’ I asked him. ‘You’re only here because Dave said you’d be able to—’

‘Ah, Dave is a schmuck,’ the contractor waved his hand dismissively. ‘You don’t wanna listen to Dave about anything.’

‘The Dave who said… I should hire you?’

‘Yeah, that guy,’ he nodded. ‘Total loon, if you know what I mean.’

He twirled a finger next to his head, in case I didn’t know what he meant.

‘In that case,’ I said, puffing up my chest. ‘You’re fired. All of you. I want you and your equipment out of my house by tomorrow.’

‘Ah, no can do,’ he shook his head. ‘We have that day off tomorrow. The one that I cleared with you?’

‘Too bad!’ I shouted. ‘Out! All of you!’

‘Good luck then!’ the contractor threw his arms up. ‘You got no chance of finding a company that specialises in laundry renovations near Melbourne, not at this time of year! Come on boys!’

He whistled and his men obediently put their tools down and began to file out.

‘Laundry…’ I frowned. ‘Have you been renovating my laundry?! I asked for my bathroom!’

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Walking Foot Pain

‘Hold up, hold up,’ I winced, flagging down Lynette with a hand. My walking partner of the past few weeks stopped, looking back at me with concern.

‘Jill?’ she asked. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Oh, just my blasted feet,’ I swore, hobbling over to a nearby bench and shooing away the pigeons that had claimed it. ‘Get out of here, I’m in pain!’

‘Has this been happening a lot?’ Lynette asked with a frown.

‘Just the last day or two,’ I said. ‘I’ll be fine – just need a bit of a rest, that’s all.’

‘We’ve barely made it to the park!’ she said. ‘You’re only a couple of blocks from your front door!’

‘Yes, thank you, dear,’ I said, trying to be courteous behind gritted teeth. ‘Well noted.’

‘Have you spoken to a podiatrist?’

‘A what?’

‘You know, a foot specialist,’ Lynette explained patiently. ‘Someone who can help you with foot pain, get you back to walking again.’

‘I’m already back to walking,’ I said with a smile, getting to my feet. ‘See? Just needed a little break.’

‘I think you should still speak to someone,’ Lynette said, nervously. ‘Just promise me you’ll track down the top foot specialist based in Cheltenham?’

‘Sure,’ I lied. ‘Promise.’

‘Okay,’ Lynette said, a little bit of her usual smile returning. ‘It might be something little, you’ll see.’

‘What, like I walk too much?’

‘Hardly,’ she rolled her eyes, as we took back to the trail. ‘But it might just be the way you walk, or the type of shoes you’ve got.’

I nodded along, trying desperately to ignore the shooting pain in my feet.

‘Hell, you might just need arch supports to help with foot pain, I don’t know,’ Lynette laughed. ‘I’m not the expert, am I!’

‘Nope,’ I grunted. ‘You most definitely are not.’

We strode in silence for a few gruelling, hellish minutes, before Lynette piped up again.

‘I was thinking we could try Bonachelli’s for coffee this morning, they make a mean sticky-date—’

‘Bench!’ I gasped, thundering forward to the first seat I could see. ‘Need a bench!’

‘Jill?’

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House or Home

I’m super excited again! I can’t believe they started to have mid-season finales in Week of Our Lives, because my nerves were frayed enough with hanging out for the actual finale.

Things aren’t looking good for Remus, who came to town to sort things out with his ex-lover Patricia and also to set up the Otter Farm of his dreams. Like, literally of his dreams, because he’s been having repeated visions telling him that this otter farm is the way to salvation from a crashing meteor.

But he needs a place, right? And a really big one, too. Fortunately Patricia knows the best Melbourne based buyers agent and in a passionate reunion, she agreed to use her buyers advocate connections to help Remus find a place. Little did they know that Ingrid was watching from the shadows, jealous of their relationship since she and Remus were old high-school science project partners and he’s the one who caused the test-tube explosion that gave her an acute case of pigeon toe and also hitchhiker’s thumb. She lays a trap with the help of Manny, her old partner in crime who happens to hate all buyers advocates because his mother was tragically killed in a falling chandelier incident while viewing a home and he’s despised the home-buying business ever since (he was the one who set fire to the real estate agency, I’m pretty sure. They haven’t revealed it yet but it’s SO obvious).

So now they’ve set up a place with a nice tank for all the otters, but unbeknownst to the potential buyers, there are leaks! Structural issues! East-facing windows! Ingrid is threatening the home inspector so he’s given it the all clear, thus leaving it to Patricia’s friend and her quality Melbourne property advocacy skills to save the day. What happens next? I can’t look at the magazines in the supermarket and spoil, I just can’t.