Over the summer, my mother spent a week at my house with her contractor friend making various repairs. This visit was punctuated with text message conversations like this one:

Mom : “Your shower door is stuck. It won’t open.”

The Great Unwashed : “So?”

Mom: “No one can take a shower.”

The Great Unwashed : “I’m not seeing the problem.”

Mom : “Other people might.”

The Great Unwashed : “Who are these hygiene obsessed fanatics and why are they staying at my house?”

Over the next six days my mother and her friend made various necessary (the roof) and unnecessary repairs (the shower door) to my home. Thus when Sula, my closest friend drove me back to my house I was somewhat surprised to find this.

Who needs a thermometer when you can reach through the hole in your wall to check whether to wear a jacket?

Sula: “Unwashed, there’s a hole your wall!”

The Great Unwashed: “It’s not a hole, it’s just an unplanned window. Admittedly a poorly placed one seeing as it’s directly underneath a window.”

Or maybe the window just had a baby?

Sula: “This is terrible!”

The Great Unwashed still nonplussed by the situation. “Well admittedly it is an awkward shape to find a screen for”

Sula: leans forward, inspects the unplanned window and adds in a horrified tone “It looks like something dug it’s way in.”

The Great Unwashed: “Cool! Free pet!”

Despite my need for light in this chronically frigid country, Sula insisted I stop up the hole before she left. Hence that entire wall is now covered in expanding blue foam. In my defense it was my first attempt at home repair and there is no longer a hole, however I question how the foam is made and whether or not my basement has become a biohazard, seeing as nothing natural expands to eight times it’s size.