Short Stories in the Shuswap

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A NEW ROOF
by Douglas Monk

Part II:

So I phone Standard Roofing at the Industrial Park and spoke to a nice young man willing to answer my questions. "Can you install an ultra-white standing rib metal roof? And about how much will it cost?"

"Well they don't make white yet. You can have brown. And they are a little more pricey than duroid. But they do last forever." After he quotes me the price per square, I hang up wistfully and a bit crest fallen. Doriane and I go for the walk.

We walk, as usual through a maze of curved roads and cul de sacs, chockablock with homes which look just like ours, only a little bit different. Doriane opens the conversation; "What do you think about dual tone grey, like that place. It seems quite reflective, don't you think?"

"Grey? Grey is so putsy. You might just as well paint a big "L" on the garage doors for Loser."

"Yeah, grey is a bit light, like the house might just float right away."

"And grey doesn't say anything special about the owner. Nobody asks you why you chose grey."

"Oh look — Pinkey brown?"

"Too Gay"

"That dark brown roof looks nice."

"Yeah that's Autumn Brown."

"Isn't that a colour chip on our sample board?"

"Yeah I think it is."

"That means we could choose that colour."

"We could, but I don't want to have the same roof colour as a neighbour."

"This guy lives four blocks away!"

"I suppose. But I read an owner review on Duroid Owners Help Forum. Some guy wasn't happy with his."

"Why not?"

"He said his attic heated up like the inside of a pottery kiln."

"Oh. Could we be over-thinking this?"

"How can you say that? You remember how hot it was in the house last summer." In fact it was freaking hot in July and August, like the surface of Mercury hot, and it would never cool off. Even at 11 p.m. when the air outside was cool and inviting, inside our home was still baking like a pizza oven, and the ceiling fan was spinning crazily trying to cool the sweat on my brow. It seemed during those 40 days and 40 nights, like Global Warming was making a poster child of our house. We could have kept cooler melting bronze ingots and pouring molten metal and castings of the saviour Jesus in our family room, it was so hot after dinner.

"So why don't we get air conditioning. Then we could have a really dark roof and it wouldn't matter. Oh, look at the greeney-grey house with the antique moss shingles. I like that."

"Yeah but our house is pinkey beige and antique moss wouldn't look right would it? And I think that is real moss. Besides we'd have to cut down the blue spruce tree. Blue and green don't go together."

"So why don't we just get air conditioning, then we could have my favourite roof colour of all."

"What's that?"

"Black."

"Are you freaking out of your mind. That would mess up our whole carbon fibre footprint! Don't you feel any responsibility to the environment??"

"Maybe not."

"What do you mean."

"You could sell that one ton gas hog of a van you like to drive, and we could apply the carbon credits to the air conditioning bill."

"What are you talking about?"

"I use Google too, you know."

So this discussion is ongoing for about a week and a half. I feel we're making progress. We have tentatively chosen the Duroid colour "Mulled Rock". It's a very natural variegated midtone that looks like a mudslide in February at Three Valley Gap. I think it will look swell on our house under a thin skiff of snow.

Unfortunately the roofing contractor is now in the hospital. He has slit his wrists, mainly because of my e-mails, and because he hasn't had any work for a few months, and his family have left him. He kind of hinted that the bank might be repossessing his pickup truck and his nailguns, if we didn't make up our minds soon on the roof colour. But it's not like me to be pressured into a fast decision.

Recently I have been Googling aluminium foil house wrap. It is strong and reflective, and comes in 250' x 4' rolls at a very modest cost. They say that if you put it in your attic it will reflect infrared rays back into space, and keep the inside of your house cooler. Best of all it's kind of inexpensive, like 10 cents a square foot cheap. I'm pretty sure we'll be getting some.

The only problem is, it reminds me of an old friend of mine who used to wear a stainless steel bowl on his head, because he believed he had to stop the mother ship from beaming radio waves into his brain, and telling him to do bad things. That would be a side benefit, to be immune to radio waves from passing UFO's. I'm getting on the phone right now to order up 4000 sq ft of NASA space wrap from Texas. And I'll be letting our contractor know the colour we've chosen, just as soon as he gets well again, and they let him out of the hospital. I could make him a little foil hat

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