Filthy Anderson, the sleazy-sight-supervisor (who was) doing the dirty office-girl (who must have a Robbin Williams man-fur fetish) has obviously not come to this same conclusion as men far younger and more attractive than him. He’s old. At the grand old age of fifty, there’s nothing grand about a man that doesn’t realize he’s old enough to be your father, and that hitting on you is just Filthy. “Being old is a state of mind” according to Mr Anderson. I beg to differ; being old is a state of grey hair, bad teeth and remembering what things were like during ‘Nam’. In the months since moving into Far Kew and the beginning of The Boat saga, Filthy has done just about all he can to, as the kids say these days, ‘have a crack’. I made the error of believing it was better to be nice to the men fixing their own inferior workmanship on The Boat than to yell at them for screwing it up in the first place. The Norwegian had warned me against being nice to men over 25, but I ignored it. Just because he is a perve that thinks everyone wants to sleep with him (Segway-they so do, but shhhh!) doesn’t mean every other man is that vain or self-deluded. The old saying, ‘You attract more flies with honey…’ surely had to be true, and I wanted my parents’ house fixed so I could get back to work. Unfortunately, it is Oh So true. In this case I attracted a massive blow fly, Filthy Anderson. And I gotta tell ya, Loui ain’t got nothin’ on him.
It all began with chats at the front door that ran longer than The Never Ending Story. I was Atreyu stuck in a mud; the more I struggled to get away, the deeper I would sink into the muck. An annoying insect, Filthy would intrude on the peace of the household, inviting himself for cups of coffee, and staying far longer than was tolerable when he’d only been let in to deliver materials. “Drop off some screws, stay for a screw,” The Little Carpenter Boy would mock.
When Filthy Anderson would drool over the women on the cover of my Vanity Fair each month, I just ignored it. That is, until he began breaking them down for me to what it was he found most sexy about them, and relating such traits back to me. It didn’t take long for me to hide any new issues in my desk drawer. And when he began showing me the dirty jokes his friends would text one another I told him I thought they were disgusting (truth be told, piss funny) and walked away. All in all, he’s not so bad, right? He is a builder and one expects a certain lack of refinement. I’m not that sensitive of a girl that I can’t cut a guy a little slack and ignore a few undesired attempts at flirtation or the grot I heard him saying about me when he thought the door offered any trace of soundproofing. No harm, no foul, right? Water off a ducks back… until one Friday evening when he dropped by the house and a rather surprised me answered the door, red wine in hand. Frankly, by now I really should have known better. Of course Filthy took one look at the glass in hand and invited himself in for a drink. Mentally I was Dobby in a Harry Potter moment smashing my head against various hard surfaces. “STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID!! BAD KAT!!!” Smack, smack, smash, crack!
Filthy finished the bottle (I had just opened) and was vocally disappointed when I lied through my twenty-six year-old teeth, ”Sorry, that was the last bottle and my brothers must have finished all the beer last weekend,” and SUBTLEY showed him the way out.
I was standing at the threshold of grossed out and needing an iodine bath (AKA, my front door) when Filthy turned to me, his shirt slightly unbuttoned making visible the thick blooms of grey fur that wrapped around the cheap, gold, chain hanging from his neck, and gave me The Look. All girls, and I’m sure some boys too, know the look I mean. The expression suitors have on their faces at the end of a date. The look that tells you they’re debating exactly when and how to go in for the awkward ‘first date kiss’.
How on Earth do was I meant to deal with that?
I needed this man to finish the work on the Boat; water was literally pouring into the ceiling, the floor needed replacing and the down-pipes had to be fixed and and and the entire house had to be rebuilt in one form or another, and all the work orders required Filthy’s signature. His badly stained teeth flashed before me as did the years of therapy that would be required to get past this moment. ‘Think Dobby, think think!’ Drawing inspiration from the Bible (read: Sex And The City) I punched him in the shoulder and said “So, tiler on Monday?”
An hour later I sat on my couch making my way through a bottle of Victorian Shiraz, trying to repress the memory of The Look and generally feeling proud of how skillfully I’d quashed that whole silliness. I was happily sipping away when I got a call from the Little Carpenter Boy. “Filthy thinks you want him and when the Far Kew job is over he thinks he’s going to Far Kew.”
The wall now needs repainting. I spat red-wine all over it and they obviously did not use the Wash and Wear paint they were contractually required to.
