And he measureth.
The very pleasant man shows up. He’s holding a ladder and a spirit level. We greet in the elevator and he informs me that his colleague speaks better English and he doesn’t.
It’s OK, I tell him in a garbled set of phonemes meant to represent his in spoken form, I speak some Czech.
He nods in disagreement.
I point him to the kitchen. Since a baby could crawl from one side of the flat to the other without ceasing a rejection-based wail, it’s not hard to find. Nevertheless, he thanks me and moves towards my stove. He unfolds his ladder. I begin reviewing vocab.
The measuring guy (what they called him during our reconstruction planning meeting) has two dogs that watch TV with him. He is gentle with his language. He is a very kind man. And about every forty seconds, usually after measuring some corner of my kitchen, he makes a note and lets out a deep sigh of hatred towards the area where I make French Toast.
We knew the kitchen wouldn’t be easy. But knowing and watching someone analyze my kitchen and shake his head in (what I can only assume is) horror.
When he gives me the report, it’s not horrifying. But this is mostly because my limited language keeps me from understanding just how much I’ll actually have to do before I can have a new kitchen. Here are hoops. Now jump through them.
This plays well into the things that gnaw at my soul. Three months ago, I had never thought about renovating my kitchen. Burke mentioned something in passing. Then she used that slutty temptress AI to create the ghost of kitchens future. Now it’s all I want.
The measurement man is killing my dream. My dream of having a fridge two feet away from the oven.
Now, I sit in bed with my measurement notes in my lap. I am trying to forget about my kitchen for a while, but the notes mock me. They mock me.
The measurement man hath come. He hath measured. He hath ruined my dreams.
Or at least moved them a month away from me.
