Nailed it on the worry front

Our son is building a house. As his parents, we are pleased with this accomplishment, but it has also caused us sleepless nights and worry.

Probably because we know our son. Or at least the kid he was growing up. He was the one who assembled things without reading directions, the one who selectively applied himself in high school and splatter painted a pair of shoes in college and tried to convince us it was art.

Yep. That was the look we had, too. You do what you can.

Today he is a registered architect. He’s worked on small projects, big projects and his company jets him all around to check on all sorts of projects.

Why worry? He does modern, that’s why. Sometimes modern is hard to understand.

Yes, those lights from www.neonfilter.com are striking, but there are other elements we don’t quite understand.

His original house design involved using materials like burnt wood and weathered metal.

We asked why he wouldn’t use new materials on a new house. We watch the home design channel; we know those materials are hip, but we asked anyway.

We also worry the roof is flat.

He says it’s not flat, it has a slight incline.

Once it’s finished, we’ll probably drive by after the first heavy snow to see if the snow slid off or is piling on the roof and the roof about to collapse on his wife and kids, and we should evacuate them.

They are building in the middle of the woods and we worry there are trees too close to the house, that the trees will one day be old and brittle and fall on the house.

He cites the species of the trees and says they will live many, many years.

We worry because the house has extremely large windows and we’ve seen the speeds his kids reach and how they ricochet off the walls.

He calmly says the glass is thick and the kids will be fine.

The other night I woke up wondering how expensive an insurance premium might be on a house with wood exterior. I decided to call our insurance company in the morning and ask a few questions. Not wanting anyone to know I was checking up on a grown son, I decided I wouldn’t give my name.

The voice on the other end of the line answered and said, “Hello. Is this Lori?”

Caller ID. So much for remaining anonymous.

An agent fielded my questions and assured me there would be no problem, especially since the location was not far from a fire department.

The husband asked what I found out.

“I found out what we’ve suspected all along-the kid knows what he’s doing.”

“I wondered if that wasn’t the case,” he said.

“No need to mention any of our concerns to him,” I say. “Besides, we’ll probably have a list of new concerns next week.”

Share This:

Comments

comments