You know that saying.  You’ve probably said it.  But trust me, you have no idea what it really means unless you are a post-menopausal woman who’s just heard her husband blamed for a problem he had nothing to do with.  I am still mad!

We went to Reno today to the stoneyard, where we approved another pair of slabs.  As those of you know who’ve been following the kitchen renovation saga, the first time the granite countertops were installed, it turned out they were not cut to measurements, and they were incorrectly installed.  I don’t know who is to blame.  I do know that U.S. Granite, the company contracted by Home Depot to fabricate and install the countertops we purchased from Home Depot, tried to cut their losses by creating new pieces, from a new slab, for just three of the countertops.  They left two pieces in place.  And not only did the new countertops for the sink base and over the dishwasher still not fit, all the new pieces were several shades darker than the original pieces that were left in.  That is not what I paid for, and that is not what we are going to settle for.

We were told when we chose the second slab that the new pieces would lighten up as they dried out, which they did.  But because those pieces were cut from a different block of granite (from the same mine in Brazil) than the pieces cut from the first slab, they were very much a mis-match in color.  That means that the countertops for the whole kitchen, both sides, have to be re-cut.

After we approved the newest slabs today, we talked with the scheduler/manager of this branch of the company.  He seems a nice young man, but I was very upset with him today.  He mentioned that they are going to send the templater down again with thin wooden templates cut out to the measurements the templater took originally with a digital camera and program that encodes the information so that it can be fed to the cutting machine digitally.  That sounds good.  Then this nice young man says, “And you’ll sign off on the templates, and then we’ll come back and set the stones.”

Whoa.  I am nice, but I am not stupid.  I held up my hand.  “What do you mean, sign off on the templates?  Then if there’s a problem with the countertops, you’re absolved of responsibility?  I don’t think so.”  I told him straight out that we were not signing off on anything until the job was done and inspected for quality control.  And I told him a few other things, such as whatever crew he sent down to this job had better have the right equipment to control the stone dust, because I already have it all throughout my house, and I don’t need to be breathing it or cleaning up any more of it.

He said, “Well, we have to make sure that no one is moving slabs and causing a problem.”  What? It turns out the installer told the manager that Dennis had moved the slabs, and that was what caused the problem.

That’s when I got really hot under the collar.  “Honey,” I said to this youngster who could have been my son, “there is no way this man was moving those slabs around.  You know yourself how heavy they are.  You think he has one of those suction thingies they use to move those slabs hiding out under his tee shirt? There was no moving of slabs by anyone but your installers, so don’t let anybody tell you different.”  I must have sounded like his mother, because he backed down on that point and on the idea of us signing anything before the job is done.  And it had better not come up again.

Believe you me, Home Depot is going to get an earful from me tomorrow morning.  I am still steaming.