A Big, Fat "TOLD YOU SO''

I met with the electrician/lighting designer yesterday who may or may not have been wearing a toupee. We'll call him Rug Man. He's a nice guy, but Rug Man had this habit of trying to sell services that had nothing to do with the kitchen. Like when he saw the wet bar, he said, "We can put some LED under-cabinet lighting here" or when he looked at the back door light that's operated by a string, "Oh, I know you'll want to change that."

Sure, in a perfect world we'd fix everything at once, but the budget says otherwise, dude. I felt like I should have had a tape recorder to hit every few seconds with the phrase in my best computer voice, "That will be down the line. Right now, I need to concentrate on the kitchen."

When he talked about putting a ceiling fan in the master bedrooom: hit ''play''.
When he pointed out every dated fixture one by one: hit ''play''.

But once I got him into the kitchen and blocked all the exits, he had some good ideas and answered all my rookie questions.

Then Rug Man innocently asked, ''You didn't get a permit, did you?"
I, in my oh-so-proud General Contractor voice, answered, "Yes, I did. Didn't you see the adorable orange permit sign when you walked in?''
"Oh," he answered with a shake of his head.

Just then a memory, not a pleasant one, popped into my head. When I was getting my permit, I was so enamoured with my neon orange buddy that I didn't make room in my brain to hear the county clerk telling me, "Since you're making improvements on the property, you'll have to intall smoke detectors that are hard-wired.'' At the time, I was all, ''Whatever, isn't this permit sign SO cute?"

But now her voice was coming back to me in slow motion like Charlie Brown's teacher, only the words were crystal clear. But they still didn't have total meaning until RM spoke. "We'll have to install hard-wired detectors in all the bedrooms, one in a common living area and at least one carbon monoxide/smoke detector combo, as well. And they all have to talk to each other so that when one detector goes off, they all will."

"How much is THAT going to cost?" I asked in a squeaky, barely audible breath.
''How many bedrooms do you have?" RM countered.
"Five," I mouthed.
He asked me if I wanted to sit down.
Oh, God.
''Could be close to $900," he kind of smiled. ''Bet you're wishing you hadn't got that permit right about now, aren't you?''
Thanks for the insight, Kreskin.

All I could see in my mind was Mr. Hubby shaking his head in that I'm-always-right way he has, "I TOLD you not to get that permit, said it would only lead to trouble." Man, I HATE it when he's right!! The look on his face would be almost as painful as shucking over the $900.

 But when I told Mr. Hubby last night, he was actually really sweet about it, pitying my I-just-pooped-in-the-living-room puppy dog look.

But I'm feeling more optimistic this morning, plus I just had a brilliant thought. The code technically says you have to have hard-wired detectors in rooms "designed for sleeping." But we'll only be using two for that purpose, plus a guest room. So maybe we can eliminate two rooms? It's worth a try! I'll let you know what Rug Man says!