Fun in the snow

It started snowing (again) this afternoon, which prompted Jill and me to play one of our favorite guessing games: will Robert show up? Robert is one of the more colorful characters we've gotten to know as business owners. He's a small, wiry guy with gaunt cheeks and very few teeth, and on several occasions I've seen him with black eyes or lacerations on his face. He usually smells rather strong, some of his fingernails are black, he stoops, and his hands shake. He calls me "dear" and clings to me when we shake hands. I think he's about 40, although it looks like it hasn't been a very comfortable 40 years.

We first met him during the early stages of the building renovations. He was part of the concrete removal crew that excavated the old floor, and his job was to stand in the dumpster and move large pieces of concrete around. One day back in September, when I was taking a break from hammerdrilling plaster off the brick walls, Robert asked me what my plans were for snow removal. I had actually been wondering what we were going to do about that--I certainly did not plan to shovel snow off our sidewalk every morning before the cafe opened--so I was eager to hear Robert's proposal. He said he lived a few blocks away and had a snow-removal crew who would come three times a day, when necessary. He said they did snow removal for many businesses in the area, and he was only taking two more customers for this winter. I asked how much they charged, and he said he was running a September special: $150 pre-paid. I thought he meant $150 each time, which was outrageous, but he clarified that he meant $150 for the whole winter, which was also outrageous, in the other direction. I almost fell off my ladder in my haste to sign up. Robert went to great lengths to offer me references, including dragging one of his other clients into the building as the poor guy was walking past, and Robert also painstakingly hand-wrote a "contract" on a piece of notebook paper, pledging his services to "Mary and Jill".

During the rest of the fall, Robert showed up at various times looking for extra work, including on the day that I fired one of the painters who was supposed to do the exterior of the building. Robert said he did painting, and he quoted a very low price, so I hired him. I gave him half the money up front, but he didn't show up the first eight times he was supposed to paint. I called him every time, and sometimes he would tell me long stories about how his truck's transmission had broken for the second time in a year, so he bought a new truck, which then failed the emissions test, so he couldn't go pick up the power washer from Home Depot... One time he said he had had to go to an unexpected funeral. Another time he was supposed to meet me at the building at 9 am so I could let him in to plug in the power washer, and when he stood me up I got really mad because normally I am still asleep at that time, and instead I had gotten up just to stand around and wait for Robert. I called his house at 10 am and a woman answered whom I had obviously woken up, and when she put Robert on the line he told me that his water heater had broken and he'd had to fix it, but he'd be at the building the next day. Uh huh, and I'm the Energizer Bunny. He kept asking for more of the money (to pay the truck registration, rent the power washer, etc.). I finally told him to forget the power washing and do the painting or I was going to hire someone else and make Robert pay me back all the money I'd given him, and then he showed up and used a paint sprayer without masking the windows or ground, so there was blue paint all over the glass and sidewalk (there still is paint on the sidewalk). I told him he couldn't do any more painting, or have any more money, until he cleaned up the mess, which he never did. I figured we'd seen the last of Robert.

The first time it snowed, Robert and another guy showed up and shoveled, much to our surprise. Robert asked what time the cafe opened in the morning, so he could make sure he got there to clear the walk before our customers came. The second and third snowfalls, he didn't come. We bought a shovel and salt and did it ourselves. The next few times, Robert or the other guy came (whenever Robert came, he would knock on the window and wave to make sure I saw him), although they never managed to make it before the cafe opened. Whenever we saw Robert, he would say something like, "I'm going to come back tomorrow morning, before you open--no excuses this time!" About half the time he didn't come. Last month he told us that he was sorry about not coming sometimes, and he'd had to fire the guys who worked for him because they were so unreliable. From now on, he was going to take care of it himself. He didn't come the next time.

Robert did come this afternoon, although it's still snowing and he may or may not come tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, I unearthed my car and went in search of a cake box that's the right size for the birthday cake I'm making. We've had several requests for birthday cakes, and while that wasn't part of our original business plan, it gives me a chance to keep my cake decorating skills sharp, so I'm happy to oblige. One surprising thing is that many people who order birthday cakes can't decide what message they want me to write on the top. I kind of figured that was a rhetorical question. Anyway, to get the cake box for the big cake I'm making, I had to put up with the astounding number of drivers who go ten miles below the speed limit because of the snow, which is an inexplicable Denver phenomenon. Come on, I lived in California for the past seven years, there is no way I should be a better snow driver than most Denverites. Maybe this inability to drive in the snow is somehow related to the altitude.