There it was.
Flapping in the breeze.
Like a giant middle finger wagging in my face.
That stupid plastic grocery bag stuck at the top of the tree.
Positioned, as luck would have it, precisely at eye level.
Due to the downward slope of my yard, only the upper portion of the trees behind my house are visible while you sit and drink your coffee, taking in the view of the woods.
It’s supposed to be calming. Pleasing.
The plastic bag made it stressful. Infuriating.
Not only because I hate litter.
But also because the bag reminded me of a terrible decision I’d made.
The bag resembled an artifact of that decision.
Only a few months earlier, the large piece of plastic—the artifact—that had been stuck in a different tree for five years had finally let go and flown away.
Do you notice something different? I asked my wife.
It was late-autumn, and we were standing in the kitchen.
The leaves had fallen, revealing the usual collection of bare branches with which we’d be left until spring.
Something’s missing, I said.
But I couldn’t put my finger on it.
She figured it out before I did.
“It’s gone!” my wife said. “It’s finally gone.”
It was true.
That ugly, forlorn piece of packaging that had once covered a load of shingles had decided to move on.
The bully was no longer at the bus stop.
This, after having tormented us for half a decade.
It all started with a hailstorm.
They’re pretty common in the Midwest in spring.
The morning following a storm, our neighborhood will swarm with dudes in pickup trucks from various roofing companies.
If the storm is big enough, guys will come from as far away as Colorado.
I was out on my driveway, picking up fallen branches following such a storm when my neighbor called to me from across the street.
There was a pickup truck from a roofing company in his driveway and a guy climbing around on his roof.
“Want me to send him over to your place when he’s done with mine?” asked my neighbor. “Might be a good idea to get your roof checked after last night.”
Sure, I said.
I knew that if I invited the barber over to advise me whether I needed a haircut, he would undoubtedly tell me I did.
But I also knew that obligated me to nothing.
Sure enough, the guy went climbing around my roof and came down with pictures of “clear, unmistakable evidence of hail damage.”
His words.
The problem with such damage, he explained, was that, gone unrepaired, it could lead to water intrusion.
That’s bad.
He said he could work up an estimate that day and begin work that same week.
Of course.
I took his card and told him I’d get back to him.
Having no intention whatsoever of doing so.
I did, however, call my insurance company.
Given the age of my house, I figured it was about due for a new roof.
And why not buy one with an insurance claim?
I mean, I pay for the stuff but hardly ever use it.
I told the person with whom I spoke at the insurance agency about the storm and the roofing guy’s assessment.
“Yeah, you likely have some real damage there,” the person said.
Could he recommend a roofing company?
I sure as shit wasn’t going to trust the opportunists who showed up in the neighborhood after every storm.
“No,” he said. “We’re not in the business of recommending any companies.”
That made sense.
I could see potential for conflicts of interest there.
“But I can send over our adjustor to have a look at your roof,” he concluded.
Great.
The next day, during my drive to work, I caught sight of a roofing company whose office I’d passed a thousand times, but never noticed.
It had a large banner out front announcing its selection as one of the town’s small businesses of the year.
Interesting.
I like to support local businesses.
I took a quick look online and saw that the company had decent reviews.
So, I gave the owner a call and arranged to have him come out to my house to inspect the roof.
What’s the risk? I thought.
I figured roofing companies were like airlines.
They all sucked the same, right?
“Have you called your insurance company?” the owner asked.
Yes, I told him.
“Okay. Let me know when the adjustor is supposed to show up, and I’ll meet him at your house,” he said.
The owner explained that he liked to accompany adjustors on roof inspections to ensure they were properly assessed.
And to improve the odds the insurance company would support a claim.
Which, of course, was good for his business.
I didn’t have any issue with that.
A couple days later, I met the adjustor in my driveway.
He seemed young, but said he’d spent a decade in the roofing business before moving into insurance.
I had alerted him that the local roofing guy would be accompanying him on the inspection, and he hadn’t objected.
As we chatted, he eventually asked the name of the roofing company with which I was working.
“Oh,” he replied when I told him. “Yeah, I know those guys.”
His response was very . . . neutral.
Certainly not a ringing endorsement, but not a thumbs-down, either.
In retrospect, that should have been a red flag.
The owner of the roofing company arrived a few minutes later.
He, too, looked young.
But, as we made introductions, he quickly explained that he’d recently taken the business over from his retiring father.
He’d grown up in roofing.
That made me feel better.
Then I noticed he was wearing a pair of clunky cowboy boots, which struck me as an odd choice of footwear for climbing around a steeply pitched roof.
But he managed just fine.
Following the inspection, the adjustor agreed the hail damage was sufficient to warrant a claim.
I would get my new roof.
Awesome.
But that would be the last bit of good news I’d receive.
For months.
Things went downhill fast with the boy-wonder roofing company owner.
He said he had an extensive backlog of projects but should be able to complete my roof before the end of summer.
After numerous delays, he didn’t begin work until November.
He’d found ways to string me along the entire time.
“Big demand for shingles right now,” he’d said. “Should only be another week before we get the materials.”
Whatever, dude.
Then, when the work finally began, I came home one evening to find a pile of sheetrock fragments and dust in my living room.
One of his guys had dropped a hammer through the open roof and sent it crashing through the ceiling.
He had it fixed, but I was mildly perturbed with the inconvenience.
And the sloppiness.
Then, a short time later, his gutter and downspout subcontractor showed up.
Both he and his crew looked like they were on a work release program from a maximum-security prison.
Whatever their looks, it appeared they’d done good work.
Which I appreciated.
But I absolutely did not appreciate it when the subcontractor banged on my door when he’d finished and demanded that he be paid, in cash, on the spot.
I politely declined.
And then called the roofing company owner.
What the fuck was that all about? I asked him.
“Yeah, Jim’s a little quirky,” he said, dismissively.
Finally, the best part.
I was chatting with a neighbor at a holiday house party.
She lived in the house adjacent to mine that overlooked my back yard.
“Who’s your roofing contractor?” she asked me.
When I told her she, she said, “Well, you might want to tell him not to let his guys urinate in the bushes in your yard. I almost called the cops.”
I apologized profusely and sent the owner a sternly worded email when I got home.
I don’t think I should have to tell you this, I wrote to him, but please instruct your workers not to piss in my bushes.
And then I happily informed him the incident had been shared with several of my neighbors, sullying his company’s reputation in what could have been a lucrative corner of town for him.
He left me numerous, apologizing voicemails, which I was content to ignore.
When the job was finally finished, I’d come to distrust the owner and his work thoroughly enough to hire a home inspector to critique the finished product.
“I don’t see any issues,” the inspector said. “Looks like they did a good enough job.”
And that was that.
Except for that goddamn piece of plastic.
At some point during the work, the wrapper from a package of shingles had blown off the roof and into the top of a tree in the back yard.
It was extremely unsightly, but I doubted it would stay there for long.
We get a lot of wind in my area, sometimes approaching hurricane force.
But none of it was sufficient to dislodge that piece of plastic.
The sight of which reminded me, every day, for years, of the ordeal I’d experienced with the roofing contractor.
And the incredibly poor decision I’d made not only to hire him, but also to stick with him for months.
I pride myself on being an effective, mostly intuitive decision-maker.
Those faculties had failed me this time.
A little due diligence would have gone a long way.
So, you can see how this plastic grocery bag bothers me.
Taunts me.
And if it isn’t gone by next week,
I’m not waiting.
I’m cutting the goddamn tree down.
And I’m not even kidding.