No handles - no bamba
Do you remember the show where Jerry brings his car to a mechanic to
fix, and the mechanic refuses to give Jerry his car back because Jerry
is not taking a proper care of it? The mechanic then proceeds to run
to another state (in Jerry's car, of course), to save the poor car
from neglect. I always thought this character (of the mechanic, of
course) was completely fictional. I mean, come on! Now I know
otherwise, because I met this guy in real life: he is our carpenter.
You see, we bought a house several months ago, and one of the big
renovations we did was to replace the kitchen. Well, to be more
precise, to create a kitchen, since what was there before was not
adequate even for making a cup of tea (no, I am not exaggerating -
the person who was renting this house before had a startup; enough
said, right? you can understand very clearly that his time was divided
between the home office, in which he had probably 10 servers or so,
and the bedroom; I am quite sure that he never put a foot in the
kitchen). So, we contacted a carpenter. Actually, our architect
contacted a carpenter and presented him with a kitchen plan. So far so
good, right? Then, me and our architect went to buy handles for the
doors of kitchen cabinets. As you probably know, the doors are not
made of wood, so they cannot be crafted by the carpenter. Hence, they
should be bought in a store. So, following our architect's advice and
our taste, we bought long thin straight handles, all of the same
length. The cabinet doors actually come in two widths, due to the
kitchen design: part of them are 90 cm wide, and the other part is 60
cm wide. All the handles are 58 cm long, and should be placed
horizontally. I am sorry to bore you with these details, but you will
see that they are essential for the story.
So, finally there came a day when the carpenter came to install our
new kitchen (and frankly, at this point we were extremely bored with
eating sandwiches all the time, so we were very excited about the
prospect of finally having a kitchen). When it was time to screw the
handles on, the carpenter looked at the handles and said: "I am not
putting these!" "Why not?" - I asked. The carpenter then proceeded to
explain to me that it is absolutely impossible to put the same length
handles on both wide and narrow cabinets. "It won't look good!" - he
said. "You must keep the same proportion! I absolutely refuse to do
that! I am not putting these handles on! Please go now and exchange
part of them to shorter ones, to fit the narrow cabinets!" You see,
technically there was no problem to put the handles - all of them were
shorter than even the narrowest cabinets. What bothered our carpenter
was the clash between this and his aesthetic sense. "But the architect
said all the handles should be the same!" - I said, very surprised -
"and also, I like it this way". "No!" - said the carpenter. "I don't
care about what the architect said - I am not installing these and it
is final". To make the long story short, after an hour and a half of
negotiation (!!), I finally convinced him to talk with the architect
on the phone. "Come here right now and see for yourself how horrendous
this looks with the long handles" - demanded the carpenter from the
architect.
Fortunately, our architect is a great diplomat (probably one of the
most important requirements of the trade). I was really happy we had
him, because I already started to envision our carpenter dismantling
the whole kitchen and taking it away, because we don't deserve it. I
am sure that if the police in Seinfeld had even a half of the
diplomatic abilities our architect has, the mechanic wouldn't run away
with Jerry's car after all. So our story had a happy ending. The
architect came, saw, confirmed that this is what he planned, and
promised the carpenter to take full responsibility for the view of the
kitchen. The carpenter put on the handles (very unhappily, I must say)
and left, saying that this is one kitchen he is not proud of.
You know what? I think it looks great with these handles. But I am
afraid to say this to the carpenter - who knows, this might be the
last straw for him ...
H.
fix, and the mechanic refuses to give Jerry his car back because Jerry
is not taking a proper care of it? The mechanic then proceeds to run
to another state (in Jerry's car, of course), to save the poor car
from neglect. I always thought this character (of the mechanic, of
course) was completely fictional. I mean, come on! Now I know
otherwise, because I met this guy in real life: he is our carpenter.
You see, we bought a house several months ago, and one of the big
renovations we did was to replace the kitchen. Well, to be more
precise, to create a kitchen, since what was there before was not
adequate even for making a cup of tea (no, I am not exaggerating -
the person who was renting this house before had a startup; enough
said, right? you can understand very clearly that his time was divided
between the home office, in which he had probably 10 servers or so,
and the bedroom; I am quite sure that he never put a foot in the
kitchen). So, we contacted a carpenter. Actually, our architect
contacted a carpenter and presented him with a kitchen plan. So far so
good, right? Then, me and our architect went to buy handles for the
doors of kitchen cabinets. As you probably know, the doors are not
made of wood, so they cannot be crafted by the carpenter. Hence, they
should be bought in a store. So, following our architect's advice and
our taste, we bought long thin straight handles, all of the same
length. The cabinet doors actually come in two widths, due to the
kitchen design: part of them are 90 cm wide, and the other part is 60
cm wide. All the handles are 58 cm long, and should be placed
horizontally. I am sorry to bore you with these details, but you will
see that they are essential for the story.
So, finally there came a day when the carpenter came to install our
new kitchen (and frankly, at this point we were extremely bored with
eating sandwiches all the time, so we were very excited about the
prospect of finally having a kitchen). When it was time to screw the
handles on, the carpenter looked at the handles and said: "I am not
putting these!" "Why not?" - I asked. The carpenter then proceeded to
explain to me that it is absolutely impossible to put the same length
handles on both wide and narrow cabinets. "It won't look good!" - he
said. "You must keep the same proportion! I absolutely refuse to do
that! I am not putting these handles on! Please go now and exchange
part of them to shorter ones, to fit the narrow cabinets!" You see,
technically there was no problem to put the handles - all of them were
shorter than even the narrowest cabinets. What bothered our carpenter
was the clash between this and his aesthetic sense. "But the architect
said all the handles should be the same!" - I said, very surprised -
"and also, I like it this way". "No!" - said the carpenter. "I don't
care about what the architect said - I am not installing these and it
is final". To make the long story short, after an hour and a half of
negotiation (!!), I finally convinced him to talk with the architect
on the phone. "Come here right now and see for yourself how horrendous
this looks with the long handles" - demanded the carpenter from the
architect.
Fortunately, our architect is a great diplomat (probably one of the
most important requirements of the trade). I was really happy we had
him, because I already started to envision our carpenter dismantling
the whole kitchen and taking it away, because we don't deserve it. I
am sure that if the police in Seinfeld had even a half of the
diplomatic abilities our architect has, the mechanic wouldn't run away
with Jerry's car after all. So our story had a happy ending. The
architect came, saw, confirmed that this is what he planned, and
promised the carpenter to take full responsibility for the view of the
kitchen. The carpenter put on the handles (very unhappily, I must say)
and left, saying that this is one kitchen he is not proud of.
You know what? I think it looks great with these handles. But I am
afraid to say this to the carpenter - who knows, this might be the
last straw for him ...
H.