Competition's  Only Healthy When I Win

Charlie calls from work, “I’m tired.”

“I’m hot,” I say.

“I want to take off early, but I don’t want to go home,” he says.  “I don’t want to be reminded of all the work I haven’t done.”

“Peet’s?”

“Ten minutes?”

“I’ll beat you there.”

“I don’t think so.”

We’re competitive people, Charlie and me.  Mostly we compete with ourselves, but we’ll compete with other people if we think there’s a good chance we’ll win. 

We compete in the dumbest ways, like who’ll get to Peet’s first.  Competing in important things, like racing times and stock market or real estate gains isn’t for us.  This kind of competition is plain irritating for everyone who has to listen to you brag.  We’d rather brag about who got to Peet’s first.

I won this time, only because Charlie couldn’t find a parking spot.  Once we were there, we stayed way too long since Peet’s has air conditioning and we don’t.  We raced home when we were done, forgetting promises we made to the skateboarders to take them to the pool hall tonight.  They have plans and the plans involve us, for once.

Before stepping out of my Jeep, the retired neighbor next door and his two adult sons and daughter-in-law saw us and started waving.  The neighbor said, “Are you coming or going?”

“Both.  We’re supposed to take the skateboarders out and beat them at pool.”

“Can I show my kids your living room colors?”

“Sure.”  There’s always time to brag.

The retired neighbor and his sons go inside the ranch house from hell with Charlie.  The daughter-in-law stops me before I could go inside and explain the paint color choices in exciting (or excruciating to other people) detail. 

This woman often weeds the pathetic patch of half-dead garden by our mailbox, bordering her father-in-law’s property.  It’s embarrassing when your neighbor’s daughter-in-law takes more care with your yard than you do. 

“I started weeding when your house was vacant for so long,” she said when I caught her with a handful of ugly dandelions once.  “I like gardening.” 

“Don’t bother,” I said.  “I have plans.” 

Now she sees the half-finished work in our yard and says, “What are you doing with your yard here?”

I start to tell her about day-lilies and rototilling.  I find myself standing up straighter and choosing my words more carefully than usual.  She’s very straightforward and confident.  I’ll bet she doesn’t lose at anything.

“Is this all you’re going to plant here?” she says.  “Where’s the river rock going to go?  I love river rock.   What’s your opinion on decorative grasses?”

This clearly is a woman whose thumb is a lot greener than mine.  I’m going to look stupid if we start talking about decorative grasses.  I tell her about an HGTV show I saw once about a nursery in Salem which specializes in decorative grasses, while inching toward the inside of our fixer.  When you can’t win, you change the subject.

The men stand around the mostly finished fireplace surround.  The neighbor’s younger son comes down every week or two to work on his Dad’s house.  He fixes up older houses for a living up North. The other son and his confident wife here come over and help sometimes, too. 

I’ve seen them all up on the roof scraping off shingles in 90 degree heat.  I waved at them through the closed windows of my air-conditioned Jeep and made jokes about them having to wait until the hottest days of the year to re-roof.  They said, “There’s plenty of work if you want to join us.”  I drove away and pretended I didn’t hear.

“You inspired us,” the fixer son tells Charlie.  “We had to do something about Dad’s house before it’s the worst house in the neighborhood.”

“You’ve re-roofed, remodeled a bathroom, tiled the kitchen and entryway, and there’s a French door sitting in your driveway waiting to be installed,” Charlie says.  “When I wake up to the sound of your tile saw buzzing, I know you’ve won the competition.  I’d saw my fingers off that early in the morning."

The retired neighbor looks at my beautiful paint colors.  “It’s so Mediterranean,” he says. 

“Mediterranean?” the fixer son says.  “How is this Mediterranean?”

“It’s not white.”

“See what I have to deal with?” 

“I’m going to have a pink room,” the retired neighbor tells us proudly.  “Somewhere in the house, I’m getting my pink room.”

“I’m going to paint the inside of a box pink and put it on your head,” his son replies.

“Before I do a house,” I tell the retired neighbor, “I think of what I want the finished house to look like.  If you don’t have a general plan before you start, it doesn’t all go together at the end.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him,” the fixer son says.  “Does he listen?  No.”

“I don’t care,” the retired neighbor says.  “I want a pink room somewhere in my house.”

“You should go to Home Depot with him,” the fixer son says.  “He says, ‘Let’s get this, no let’s do that.  This is nice.’  It’s like that every time.  Nothing goes together.  It drives me nuts.”

“Make everything pink if that’s the problem.”

“I tell him pink isn’t an easy color.”

“Someone once told me, ‘Every house is sold eventually,’” I said.  “You may not be the one selling it, but every house gets sold someday.  Keep that in mind when you’re deciding what you want.  You may want a red sink, but it won’t make the house easier to sell.’”

“He’s going to have to worry about that,” the retired neighbor says, pointing to his fixer son.  “I’m not going to be the one selling a house with a pink room.”

“Exactly,” the fixer son says.  “Do me a favor.”

“Paint’s easy,” the retired neighbor says.  “You can repaint my pink room before I’m cold and in the ground.”

“See what I have to deal with?”

We had to deal with the skateboarders.  They thought that since they’ve been playing Yahoo pool all summer, they’d win for once.  They win once in a while, but only after we win at least four games in a row.  Why do you think we’ll take them in the first place?

We let them break first and only one solid yellow ball went in a pocket.  “We’re the yellow team,” they said.  “Hit that other yellow one in and we win.”

“Go ahead,” Charlie said.  “That’s one of ours.”

“You’re gonna scratch,” my skateboarding son kept telling his buddy, right before he’d hit.

“I’m on your team,” he’d reply.  “Quit freaking me out.”

“Don’t hit the red one in this pocket,” my son told his buddy.  “There’s already a red one in there.  You’re gonna scratch, anyway.”

“Quit freaking me out!”

We lost all three games.  See if we ever take them to play pool again.

A little help? [] 6:15:13 PM