Highs and Lowe's

Our electrician friend came by today to help Phil lay out the 275' of wire so Phil could start backfilling the trench. It has rained off and on for the last week, and the entire property feels like a mud bath. Phil was covered in orange clay before the task was hardly begun. Dirty, thankless work.

And then the wire was not long enough. Not by much, maybe 20' or so, but there was no using it. They got out the tape measure and it was 225', not 275'. We get that humans make mistakes, but this was not good.

We looked for the receipt. We couldn't find it anywhere. We checked all the usual suspects, some of them twice, but it was nowhere to be found. Abraham prayed, and I prayed, and then, just before we gave up, we checked Phil's pockets. There it was: mangled beyond repair by a trip through the wash. But at least we had it!

I had a little shopping to do in town, so I headed up with Phil, muddy wire in the back of the van. We had been quite concerned about how the store would handle this: muddy, not resaleable wire, all but destroyed receipt.

Happily, the man who had managed the forklift to get the new roll down from an upper shelf was on duty and he remembered Phil. "There's not many people who come in and need 275' of wire!" And happily they were not entirely sold out (our other concern): there was 268' left on the roll, and that will be sufficient. The assistant manager was extremely helpful, and Phil left with renewed enthusiasm for shopping at Lowe's.

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We had the drywall guy come out. This was very interesting: rather than use 4'x8' sheets vertically, he uses 4'x12' sheets horizontally. Less mudding and taping. He told us where to order, and that he can get started as soon as they deliver. This is fabulous news. And he said it could potentially take him only two days, but maybe as much as a week. That, too, is great news. And he didn't bat an eye at Phil's framing. As concerned as Phil had been, I think that was a relief, to know that he had done a good job.