No masks

—“Do I need my mask?”asked my contractor as he pulled his giant glitzwagen into my driveway.
It was a brand-new black Chevy four-door pick-up, long enough to need a tugboat to dock it at my supermarket — probably 20 feet or more.
Glittering chrome, plus extravagant paint-work bodyside to advertise his business.
A ’58 Buick pales by comparison.
“I forgot it,” I said, turning to go away back inside my house.
“Are you vaccinated?” he asked.
“Yep!” I said.
“So am I,” he said; “so we don’t need masks.”
This is the same contractor who installed my new metal roof. 14,000 smackaroos. I’m paying for his glitzwagen.
“How’s your new roof?” He asked.
“I called you back,” I thought to myself.
“What do you need now?” he asked.
We went downstairs into my basement.
“This window-well isn’t draining. It fills during a downpour, then leaks into my basement. This drywall is ruined, and so too is the insulation behind it.”
He suggested a clear plastic dome-cover over the window-well to keep the rain out.
We went outside, and then he went back to his glitzwagen to prepare an estimate.
750 buckaroos!
“DO IT!” I screamed. “I was expecting 89 bazilyun dollars with an excavator!
And I’m sitting on ‘sinking-sand.’ You’d be digging to kingdom-come.
Plus all my utilities come in next to that window.”
$750 is peanuts for him, but I just threw $14,000 at him.
We’ve become a team. I make him happy, so he wants to make me happy.
His glitzwagen needed a bath. And no masks.

• My ’79 Ford E250 van was 18 feet long. It needed two moves to park it at my supermarket.
• You have to have been raised by hyper-religious zealots to understand “sinking-sand.”