Wednesday afternoon my ex turned up to lay the parquet floor in my vestibule.
Before I say anything more, I have to stress that he was not doing this out of "the goodness of his heart", I seriously doubt he has any, but you'll find out why if you read on.
Anyway, he arrives, starts ordering me about "move this, shift that!" No please, no thank you, just very blunt orders. ...no....NOT requests.
Then he reads the instructions on the material. The floor needed priming first. A simple dilute PVA glue mix....but did he asks if I had any, nope! "I bet you don't have any PVA, have you!" Statement , not question. I knew exactly where it was, so I got it out, and put it on the sink, with a pot. "Oh hell! I need a paint brush to apply it" ( All swear words will be replaced by more palatable words, starting with hell....as that is definitely not what he said.)
Surprise, surprise, he had one in his tool caddy.
Then he tore open the packet of parquet flooring. I have had it a while, and the backing had degraded in some bits...so he ripped open the second pack. Air at this point turning blue due to swear words being used.
"I can't f@¢¥π®€ fit this, it will take for-f......-ever! I'll have to cut every piece." ( There was much more swearing than I am putting ...in fact, from now on, please just imagine that every other word is one.)
I pointed out that no he would only have to cut the edges. At this point I was feeling stressed out, and suggested, calmly, that we went to the local DIY place and got something else. ( My parquet floor wasn't going to happen.)
Less than half an hour later we were back with some click-fit flooring. He laid the underlay, and said it was too late to continue. It was. He left saying "I don't know when I can come to finish it.". On reflection , maybe I should have just told him to bill me for what he'd done, and I would get someone else to finish it off. I did point out that Thursday had forecast rain all day, he works outside a lot.
Luckily I was up early Thursday, as he rang to tell me that was "pissing raining, so he'd be down to fit the click-fit.
It was all day, every other word, mostly to himself, swearing. Grunts and groans every minute, barking orders at me, and he doesn't move around at a measured pace to get stuff done, he rushes, knocking things over, which causes more swearing, as he has to right things. You get the picture. I got so fed up with being spoken to like something that he wiped off his shoes, or worse, that I asked him point blank, if he spoke to his other customers like that. He of course saw nothing wrong with how he was speaking to me, and said yes. I just told him that I bet that he didn't. Then told him to speak to me normally, as I wasn't having him talk to me like that. It quieted him down for a while, but after he left I was shaking, felt sick, and it had brought back to me exactly why I decided to divorce him back in 2000.
A friend later told me that it was PTSD that I had just put myself through. Well, never again will I ask him to do any jobs for me, neither paid, or a quick unpaid/usually bartered for. Oh yes, I forgot to say that if he wants a pair of trousers turning up, or another small sewing job. I do them and never ask for payment. Plus, while he was here I made him food to eat.
So once I have paid him, I intend to distance myself. For the good of my own mental health.
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