I’m so mad that for a long while I was actually speechless.

Here is the list of the things that the Deadbeat Contractor is supposed to be doing. He is supposed to be drywalling the bedroom. He is at a point where he needs help to hold the drywall on the ceiling. Ok, that’s a reasonable excuse for not doing that right now. Although he could recruit some help… Anyway, he is also changing the blades on the lawn mower. This consisted of taking the mower deck off the lawn mower last week and then he disappeared. So we had a beautiful weekend where the grass could have been cut but no – the blades are all over and the husband is too lazy and non-mechanically minded to fix them.

Today is Tuesday. I come home from running errands and he is here. I don’t see him by the lawn mower. I go in my house and he is standing dumping something into the trash. I don’t know what it is until the wall of cigarette smoke hits me. This would be a wall I could both smell and see. What on earth possesses someone to go into the house of anyone, let alone a known non-smoker, and smoke? Apparently he had been sitting surfing the internet on the husband’s computer and smoking. I have a bird on this floor. Smoke is deadly to birds.

Now here is where I’m flummoxed. I have officially been banned from speaking to the Deadbeat Contractor by the husband. This is because every time I talk to him I end up yelling at the husband. The husband is of the opinion that we are using the deadbeat more than he is using us so it is all ok. It doesn’t matter if I am allowed to speak to him or not because he totally disregards me. I know that if I had commented on his smoking that he would have looked me dead in the eye and denied smoking. I know this because he has blatantly lied to me about other things. If I would have yelled at him he would have gone sulking to the husband. Then he would have disappeared for a while. Then the husband would have yelled at me for upsetting him. The husband is out of town for several days. This is saving his life right now.

As all this is swirling in my head the deadbeat asks me, “You weren’t planning on mowing the lawn while (the husband) is gone, were you?” I answered that in fact I was. So, the only thing he was here to do is fix the lawn mower and he is planning on putting that off until at least Thursday? Why the #$%$%^ is he here then? He doesn’t live close by. It takes over an hour to get here from his house.

I went to my room. He tried to say something to me but I used my best evasion technique of turning on the shower. I’m sure he thinks I am a very clean person. When I came out he was gone. I’m not sure if he is gone gone though because he left his cigarettes. I threw them out. I will gleefully deny that though. I can be a passive-aggressive liar too.

I will call the husband tonight and tell them that I am locking up everything and barricading doors before I leave for work tomorrow so the deadbeat can’t get in. He is to call him and tell him to not bother returning until the husband is back to deal with him. He used to be on a ‘no unsupervised working’ policy. I think if the husband refuses to fire him (which he will) I’ll make sure he can’t be here unsupervised. Guess who will be the bad guy all this? The person who seems to treat our house as some kind of personal lounge? Nope, me. Just because I have the strange notion that I should be able to control the activities in my own home.