The scene in my living room

The flood repair company didn't send out their usual crew, this time. Apparently, I'm now stuck in the Indie Comedy Movie version of my flood repairs.

They somehow didn't get the "Go around back and knock on the door to the basement suite" instructions, and so they've been ringing my landlord's doorbell all morning. I heard them when they came back and lunchtime, and actually had to do the Run After a Van While Waving My Arms.

It's a team of two that's nailing on the baseboards and hooking the baseboard heaters back up today. In their cast we have:

No-Nonsense Grandpa: I'm pretty sure that they would have cast Richard Farnsworth in this role, if he was still alive. (Can we please have a moment of silence in the memory of Richard Farnsworth. I'm still sad. Everything about his movie career made me sad, and then he died in a sad way. But I digress.) I can't quite place which actor has replaced him, but he's clearly a Canadian actor, with a background in both Shakespeare and TV roles that require a gruff grandpa. Maybe Gordon Pinsent.

No-nonsense Grandpa isn't exactly talkative, but he's asked me a bunch more questions than the other guys ever asked. He also asks permission to move things around.

And then we have his rapscallion apprentice, Aspiring Musician: As played by Jon Heder (but not in Napoleon Dynamite costume). AM would like you all to know that he only has this job for now, and that he hates work, and that he's going to quit as soon as his CD's released. He'd also like you to know that he's really sleepy, because he just got cable last night and he was watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He got one year of University (back on the East Coast), but he spent that year partying (and then got kicked out of school), and so now he's back to playing his guitar for eight hours a day, and working at this stupid job, where they make him manually take nails out of baseboards. He whistles and hums constantly, while he's working.

I played my role, Quirky Hermit Scholar. Messy hair, ancient cardigan, a t-shirt that references an internet cartoon. I made my lunch of perogies and then patiently explained to AM about what I study, and how no, even though I study Germany in the 1930s, I'm not really that interested in Aryans. We also talked about books (as he pulled out nails and I ate perogies) and attempted to speak each other's language at all. The fact that this is my ninth year in University blew his mind. The fact that I don't party at all, and that I have no idea what the University's music scene is like also astounded him. The fact that he and I are the same age entirely confounded me.

And then, as befits my role as Curiously Young Quirky Hermit Scholar, I excused myself to go work in my office, gave No-Nonsense Grandpa free reign to move around all the furniture he wishes, and went to post about this on my blog.

I'll tell you if any Wacky Hi-Jinks break out.