A Home Improvement Project

Phew.

It's hot today. 34° C (but feels like 42° C, according to the weather channel).

So hot that Kristin and I decided to try to tint our bedroom windows, since the curtains have to be specially ordered and will take a couple of weeks. Something that would block out some of the searing dry heat from the sun. And, basking in the glow of home ownership, and feeling pretty damn good about successfully installing our bathroom fixtures, we decided to do it ourselves.

Off we went to the nearby Home Depot to pick up some DIY tint. How difficult can putting up a thin layer of plastic be? (you know where this is going).

After all, we happen to think that being medical professionals, we're pretty damn smart. We've published papers, saved a few lives, thank you very much. We can handle this. And after all, the tint had 'EZmount' pasted all over it. The brochure had Grandpops and Grandma sitting at the coffee table, smiling while sipping their tea.

If some elderly people can mount this, cheh, certainly an endocrinologist and a cardiac-surgical ICU nurse can!

Now, months ago, Mr. H, a dear old patient of mine with diabetes, told me that if our relationship can make it through 2 weddings, moving, a new job and a new home all in a period of 2 months, then we'll know this will last forever.

Today I understood the wisdom of his words.

Kristin and I have never been so frustrated, agitated, angry, and 'verbally expressive' before. I'm known to outswear a drunken pirate, but even dainty, gentle Kristin was using the F*CK words several times.

Luckily for us, our anger was mainly directed not at each other, but at the f*cking window tint film.

2 hours, a lot of cussing and crying and trying not to bite off each others' heads, and $46 later, we finally have beautiful window tints in our bedroom to keep out the hot sun:

The f*cking thing looks like a flock of birds flew into our beautiful windows and cracked them. Our neighbours were probably sniggering to themselves as they saw us attempt to put this up.

"Dumb city slickers", they must have said.

Thankfully, this is only temporary until we get our curtains.

In the meantime, I'm going to shoot off a nasty letter to the makers of the tint to complaint about their misleading advertising. They really should relabel their packaging.