Beech Tree News Network

My Fourth of July was a working holiday.  Garey and I went to see his mom, Aggie, because she called the Friday before, upset over how the storms that swept through her area of Alabama a few days before had flooded her basement.  I didn’t need to see her basement to know exactly where the water had seeped in.  The origin wasn’t a mystery to either Garey or his sister, Charlotte.  Because of the countless times Garey’s cousin, Neal, had vacuumed up the flooded basement, he could also tell you at what point the water had entered the basement.  More than likely, Aggie’s dog, Angel, if prompted, could lead you to the exact point of the seepage.  The water always enters at the same source—the old chimney that has come loose from the house, leaving a gap in which water runs down the outer wall and into the basement.
    Aggie no longer uses the fireplace, and for years, I have listened to Garey and Charlotte try to convince her to have it removed.  Aggie always says the same thing, “I don’t know anybody who can do it.”  Before I understood that “I don’t know anybody who can do it” really means “I don’t know anybody who will do it for free,” I would myself try to convince her to hire a contractor by saying things like, “You know people who know people who can do it.”  I now know better, so I just sit back and let Garey and Charlotte argue with her.  Before you feel sorry for Aggie, you need to know she is not destitute.  I cannot disclose her net worth, but she has the funds to take down the chimney, replace the roof and install a rooftop Jacuzzi if she so desired.
    Garey and Charlotte are a lot more longsuffering with their mom than I probably would be after dealing with the same problems for years and years. Because Charlotte lives less than a thirty-minute drive from her mom, she has to deal with most of Aggie’s complaining and hand-wringing.  She has been there through Aggies switch from cable to Dish to Direct TV, and Aggie hasn’t been satisfied with any of them.  Charlotte took her to get a new sofa and love seat a couple of years ago, and Aggie complains about it every time we visit.  She says about the furniture delivered to her house, “I know that’s not the suit I picked out.”
    When we were there on the Fourth, Garey and Charlotte vacuumed out the water once again, while I stayed in the kitchen, cooking and washing dishes.  They also mowed the grass and trimmed the edges of the yard with the Weedeater.  Garey tuned up the old tractor and bush hogged the pasture.  Aggie said what she always says, “Every time you come down, you work all the time and we hardly get to visit.”  But she refuses to hire anybody to do those particular chores.
    Charlotte arranged for some guy who has a fix-it show on a local radio station to come by on a Monday while we were there, in order to give Aggie an estimate on the cost of removing the chimney and installing gutters.  Charlotte had to work, but reaffirmed the appointment with him that Monday morning.  The guy never showed, and hell hath no fury like Charlotte being stood up by a fix-it guy who has his own radio show.  She was fuming and promised to call into the show the next time he was on the air and give him a piece of her mind.  (Maybe I can find the station on the internet and listen in that day.  It’s got to be good entertainment.)
    After we got back to Kentucky, I picked up Garey’s phone to put it on the charger and noticed he’d missed a text from Charlotte.  It read, “Mom has decided to just install gutters and see if that fixes her problem.”  I told Garey he needed to call his sister.  Charlotte said she told her mom if she wasn’t going to fix the problem, not to call her the next time the basement flooded.  Garey told Charlotte he was going to tell his mom to call 1-800-Serve Pro.  As for me, I’m periodically checking the weather forecast for Corner, Alabama, in order to see when the next storm is approaching the area.  I need to know when to pack my suitcase and load up the Shopvac.