16 Comments
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Sari Botton's avatar

Relatable. In bargaining with my husband, who prefers to DIY everything, I will hire the least expensive person for the job, always with bad results. The worst was the listless guy I engaged to paint a room in our house, from a flier he'd tacked up at the post office. At noon on the day he started, after not much progress, he asked, "Can I have a hot dog?" when there is not one thing in my house to suggest I am any kind of purveyor of such. He did not complete even half the job, and was picked up at the end of the day by his parole officer, who was a complete jerk to me when I declined to have the guy return the next day.

Julieanne Smolinski's avatar

okay bonus points for the arrival of a PO (this applies to any story)

jessamyn's avatar

Amazing!

My husband does the man thing where he insists we absolutely do not need to hire a professional but then will never ever do it. I’ve given up The house is a shit hole and I’ve given up!!

Madigan Armstrong's avatar

I’ve cancelled all my subscriptions except this one and my decision to keep yours was reinforced by my huge ugly laughter this morning which my kids told me to stop because I would start crying but the tears were already there!! Thank you for the big ugly laugh 😹

Claire Zulkey's avatar

Julianne I'm so glad none of htese people murdered you so that you are alive today to write this entertaining issue.

Also we hired a pro organizer once to do the kids' toys and she found a very scary chalk drawing of what appeared to be Edward Cullen that nobody in our house had done.

Julieanne Smolinski's avatar

HAHhaahhahahahahahah oh my god.

MissOmlettes's avatar

When I first moved to LA I hired Henry from TaskRabbit to install those very basic wire shelves that everyone has-it should have taken an hour but after commenting on “how unhappy you seem” he spent the next three hours proselytizing to me about Jesus and didn’t even finish. I asked him to leave at 9pm. He didn’t charge me for the extra two hours and promised I could have him back again to finish the install. I live in NYC now and have had multiple task rabbits here all without incident. Henry was part of a string of absolutely bonkers people I met from Taskrabbit while I was in LA. PS I loved your writing on XOJane and am so happy that you are writing here.

Julieanne Smolinski's avatar

oh no -- HENRY!!!! and thank you ♥️♥️♥️♥️

Ted Travelstead's avatar

Julieanne, your writing hits my funnybone’s sweet spot everytime. ✨🎯✨

Julieanne Smolinski's avatar

xoxoxoxo THANK YOU TED

mía lee g's avatar

This had me HOWLING! Mostly because I relate with the "Give people a chance! Oops, never again" cycle as well.

Christina Martinson's avatar

This is DELIGHTFUL!

Julie Klam's avatar

I am so disappointed in Carrie! I desperately want a real ghost communicator. And if they can detail a car? All the better.

Julieanne Smolinski's avatar

you and me both!!!!

carrie can only be carrie, alas.

Chris Spooner's avatar

I need to see this painting.

jessamyn's avatar

I live in smallish Northern California so feel like a task rabbit situation would be very similar but also somehow then our moms would know each other. Like the time I was 23 with no dental insurance so went to the community college to have my teeth cleaned for free by the dental hygienist students … and I ended up with my godfather’s sister, who was probably 50 and by far the slowest and most struggling student. I had a migraine from opening my mouth for 3 hours. And couldn’t ghost the follow up visit without disappointing my extremely kind godmother!!