Lost The Translation
I really didn’t think I’d be writing this so soon. I’m building a swimming pool in the backyard, and I expected to have a few choice stories like everyone does who lives to tell about a construction project. I just thought I’d get further than five minutes into the project before I regretted thinking I could do this by myself.
A little background may help you appreciate the situation. I suffer from a rare genetic disorder that makes me think I can do things that I know absolutely nothing about. I do this for a number of reasons: I think I’m so smart, I enjoy challenges, and my short term memory is shot so I’ve forgotten the problems I had the last time I tried something like this. But the real reason has more to do with my metaphysical relationship with the world, and how I approach almost everything in life. I’m cheap. Real cheap. I still think a candy bar should cost five cents. Not a pretty picture but it’s the only one I got. Work with me here.
So I’m going to build this pool without a contractor. I mean, how hard can it be? Dig a hole, put some concrete in it, and fill ‘er up. Hire a few key guys to do the work and I’ll save a bundle. The preparation has been going on for months. Getting permits from the city-don’t even ask. Design issues. Cost analysis. More cost analysis. Neighbors saying ‘you’re nuts’ (not the first time I’ve heard that). Worrying that I’m forgetting something really crucial and this thing will end up costing more than if I just hired a pool contractor to do it. Calling pool contractors and seeing what they’d charge to build it. (Evidently none of them object to the current price of a candy bar). Redesign issues. Etc., etc. By the time I’m ready to actually start doing the work I’m so stressed that I feel like eating something sweet. Not in the budget.
So I schedule the guy to dig the hole, a guy to put in the steel, a gunite guy, an electrician, a plumber, a plaster guy, and a tile guy. Everyone’s got a date to do his job. Lined up with precision timing. Some of them are actually courteous, at least on the phone. Now I’m really nervous. I have a recurring dream that all these guys are in a bar together telling stories about me and laughing and clanging beer mugs together: “And then Rizzo wanted me to put the steel in before the hemowhatsit guy came to deburr the soil. HAW! HAW! HAW! HAW!” I’m slinked down in the corner feeling like I’m still attending parochial school. Feeling like Sister Mary Shoulder Pads used to make me feel.
But I’m nothing if not determined. So the day before the litany of lined up workers is scheduled to start, I get up early, go pick up a non English speaking manual laborer, buy a shovel, and have him start to dig up the plants and grass, and roughly try to level the site. I try to show this guy, who turned out to be a terrific worker, what to do. I give him the shovel, and retreat into the house, the full horror of the reality of what I’m doing starting to hit me now. Man, am I nervous. OK, calm down. Go hide in the bathroom. Close door. Lock it. Sit down. Breath. It’s gonna be OK. That’s when I started to hear it. Faintly at first, then slightly louder with each incantation.
Deep male voice, slightly muffled, as behind a door:
“Bah-Doke.”
Pause.
“Bah-Doke.”
Pause.
“Bah-Doke.”
Is someone talking to me? Who could it be? And why? It started again:
“Bah-Doke.”
Pause.
Louder now, imploring.
“Bah-Doke!”
“Bah-Doke!”
Bah-doke? What the heck does that mean? Oh, it’s the laborer. OK, time to exit the cocoon (bathroom) and face the music. Man, I was in here less than a minute. What could possibly have happened in a minute?
I go outside and look at the laborer. In his hand he’s holding that brand new shovel, which is now in two pieces. The handle snapped off an inch above where it joins the blade. THIS WAS A BRAND NEW SHOVEL, FOR PETE’S SAKE! It must have broken on the second or third shovelful. And all this poor guy could say, in his best second language of English was that the shovel Bah-Doke (he rolls his R’s). Did I mention I purchased the least expensive shovel they had?