Done!

OK, the piano music starts, as in South Park, and Plotnik says: "You know, I learned something today."

What he learned is that professionals usually do things better than non-professionals, even when the non-professionals think they're pretty hot stuff to have been saving all that money all these years by doing everything themselves.

The Great Plotnik recalls that when he and Duck bought their farm in Pennsylvania 36 years ago, the farmhouse was falling over and Plot and Duck had to fix everything. At that point Plotnik did not know which one was the hammer and which one was the nail.

Over the years Patient Plot learned to listen to Designer Duck, who always knew everything about tools and projects and take a little off here and put a little back over there and just ease the drill and use 120 grit sandpaper and make sure the nails in the grooves of the floorboards are put in at a 45 degree angle and why buy kitchen cabinets and a sofa, why don't we just build 'em?

It usually worked. Those who knew fine carpentry probably got some chuckles out of Plot's cabinets, but the concept of doing things for themselves was something that always appealed to all the Plotniks. PunkyDunky has the same bug now, BZWZ has it too. And Isabella won't let ANYONE feed her anymore.

OK, the floors. Duck had had some trouble the last time, when she attempted to polyurethane the new floors in her office, and was reticent to try it again. It's tricky. You have to have a light hand and the right products. Plotnik figured Duckie can do anything, and prevailed on her to give sanding, staining and poly-ing the 100-year-old floors another go, so they could save money and get to feel self-righteous at the end, especially when talking to Schmeckl and Mummy Plotnik.

Wrong. Ten days and a few hundred dollars into the process, the Plotniks bailed and called Peter Nguyen. He took one look and started completely over, resanding (oh, so THAT'S how they avoid those black lines), restaining (oh, so THAT'S how they don't get those lap marks) and re-polying three coats (oh, so THAT'S how they manage to get it on there so thinly). It didn't cost that much, either.

(The piano music stops here.) OK, one time, big deal. Plotnik is heading down to the lumberyard to get the new wall molding. Can't have clean floors without new molding.