Really, Honey? I don't think we need a new roof.

This Spring, horrible hail storms rattled our rooftops in Georgia, damaging twenty year old shingles on houses of people that still believed in twenty-five year warranties.

We watched neighbors go through the early morning, late afternoon, early in the evening construction upheaval. We sat in our backyard, drinking cold beer all summer, pleased that we weren't one of the blue tarped houses, one of the people stuck at home while roofers took three hour lunches, arrived late to work, or not at all.
We saw the proud signs go up in the neighborhood, pulled ads off our mailbox and kept our money in the bank, chanting, not us. not us. not us.
And my other mantra- this is not our forever house, just do enough to keep it saleable.
We laughed as the rains came and we sat dry- in one of the oldest houses on the block.

But when the next door neighbor- who never does anything to his house- was re-roofed... and the other next door neighbor- who has the crappiest luck with his house ( and he's a preacher, which opens up a whole different theory about luck, as far as I'm concerned) signed up for his new roof, telling us about insurance claims and ease of install...

we bit.

After not having any grand problems with our roof pre-inspection by insurance man, pre-quote by two roofing companies... pre- having any men walk, slip and slide over our roof, we now have two new stains on the upper floor ceiling and a nice drip, leak and crack on the lower level, way too near the expensive AV system.
Hmm.

Soon, I will be the woman who needs to be fully dressed by 7AM. The woman who will wish she had taken Spanish in high school instead of French, the woman who will have a proud new sign in her yard and a dozen less cold cokes in her fridge. And I will be reminded that every time I tell my house that it doesn't need that new carpet, that upgraded dishwasher or matching micro-oven combo, it will retaliate as any good house should, until I beg for mercy and pull out the yellow pages chanting, this may not be my forever house, but it's our home and we deserve the best.