Long after Monday’s flood waters have receded, I’m still droopy.

Maybe it’s because my home-sweet-home is saturated with musty smells coming from a drying basement.  Maybe it’s because I’ve worked with a few contractors who don’t seem to realize that my service calls are NOT everyday usual.  Or maybe my droopiness is just part of who I am, the sort of person that goes a little crazy when encountering waste and ineffectiveness.

After we unexpectedly hosted 4 to 5 inches of sewer water Monday morning, we engaged a remediation company to come dry and sterilize our basement.  Had my husband and I not been in attendance, the company technician would have left before the job was done.   As it was, the young man was forced to snake his hose down the basement stairwell three times — once of his own accord, another when my husband told him to try again, and a third when I sent him back down to the bowels of the house.  Our ‘worker’ reminded me of a young child doing something he didn’t wish to do; and though I can’t say that I blame him, we needed someone who took pride in his work,  someone who cared about the finished result rather than one simply going through the motions of fulfilling a checklist.

Ironically, our heating and air contractor told my husband that he was not too impressed with our remediation technician, that he would have expected a more thorough result.  As it was, Mr. Heat and Air opened up the blower, removed the saturated filter, slapped in a new one and turned on the system.  This time it was me telling my husband that I expected more — I imagined Mr. Heat and Air would have contacted the manufacturer to assess impact of sewage waters on the system — or advise us on unit sterilization.  But instead,  he left us with a new filter and a horrible musty smell coming out of our duct work.

I confess to expecting too much from others; I expect my contractors to care for my home as I do.  And while I’m in the confessional, I admit that I expect too much from myself as well.

I wish I could be more like my rock ‘n roll husband, who is steady as a rock in a crisis and rolls with the punches of everyday life.  Or I wish I could be more like my garden that bounced back quick from Monday’s destructive rainstorm.  But instead I am who I am — more than a little wilted after the storm.