Blog: Overwhelmed

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Burt Ross

Those of you who know me understand that I am easily overwhelmed. Why, when I wake up each morning, I am overwhelmed with the realization that I am still among the living and, of course, getting out of bed is also overwhelming. In fact, life for me is simply one overwhelming experience.

If ordinary life were not enough of a challenge, I now find myself in the unenviable position of rebuilding my home. All of a sudden, I am part of a team—architect, general contractor, landscape designer, interior designer and any other kind of designer who wants to send me an invoice.

I am working with surveyors, electricians, painters, gardeners, fence men and, thus, barely have time for urologists, dermatologists, cardiologists or other kinds of -ologists who also want to send me an invoice.

I even needed to provide a geological report prepared by a geologist. Apparently, borings are done to find out once and for all time whether what used to be my home was on top of dinosaur bones, or something like that. My hope is they dig down far enough and discover oil, but with my luck, somebody else would probably have the rights to the liquid gold. In addition to the geologist, I have somehow employed a civil engineer, a structural engineer, a pollster (somebody who puts up poles) and I am sure I am missing other kinds of engineers.

In the past couple of weeks, I looked at tile and stone at two different locations, windows and doors miraculously at the same location, kitchen appliances, and so forth. Did you know that kitchens just don’t come with appliances; you have to select appliances such as refrigerators, dish washers, ranges, ovens, disposals and so forth and so on?

Did you also know there are many kinds of each appliance? The price of one refrigerator was more than the cost of my college education, and the refrigerator doesn’t even come stocked with food. What is the world coming to! All a damn refrigerator is supposed to do is keep food cold, but apparently I am missing something. I am always missing something.