Adventures in Home Ownership, Part II

I typed “home ownershit.” Hee. Good thing I find it funny, because:
The roofers are here today. Not the actual roofers, but the guys who did the siding and who, the contractor assures me, have much experience with metal roofing. OK.
So I go out at noon, and they’ve already finished putting the metal panels on the roof of the porch. Now, the roof of the porch and the carport and this section back here is roll roofing, with no shingles. But still:  this seems odd to me. Why wouldn’t you take off the singles from the rest of the roof first and then start installing the panels? So when they come back from lunch, I ask them about the shingles, and the guy says yeah, they’ll remove them from the sloped roof. I SWEAR this is what he said to me. I swear.
Pardon me if I’m a little suspicious. Back when we decided to do the metal roof, I checked online and did some research, and it says that you can install the metal over one layer of shingles but that, if you have two layers, they need to come off. The estimate didn’t say anything about removing the shingles, so I asked the guy about it. He said they could do it either way, and I told him what I’d read. He said they’d remove the singles. I had him write out a new estimate saying that, and he did.
So about half an hour ago, I’m sitting out here  realizing that the sound of things being screwed into place is getting closer and closer to this side of the house, but I’ve yet to hear any shingles being removed. I haven’t yet seen a single shingle fall from the roof.
[Let me add here that The EGE and I had a little discussion about this at lunch, one in which he did not actually accuse me of being distrustful or suspicious but said that the contractor had told him on Thursday that they were removing the shingles and that I had nothing to worry about. Let me just add that.]
I go outside, and the front slope of the roof is covered. It’s lovely, indeed, in all its shiny, copper-colored glory. And one guy asks, “How do you like it?” And I say, “It looks great, but where are the shingles you removed?”
And they look at each other. “Were we supposed to remove the shingles?”
I point out to them, with what I believe was remarkable equanimity, that that’s what I asked them about at lunch. Well, you can imagine what transpires:  they look at each other, they look at me, they say they didn’t know anything about removing shingles.
I want to ask, “Then what, exactly, did you think I was talking about at lunch when I asked you about removing the shingles?”
Instead I come in, call the contractor, who, of course, is not in the office. I get his cell number, which he didn’t answer, and leave a message. No, I did not cuss. No, I did not yell. But as I’m talking, I’m standing in the sewing room waving the estimate in my hand, reminding him in a loud and veryveryfast voice that we’d talked about this very thing.
Well. The rest of the story:  The contractor called them. They’re removing the panels now and will begin ripping off the shingles. I apologized to them—it’s hot, they thought they’d be through with the front part today. They were very nice about it, saying I had no need to apologize, that they should have asked. “No, he should have told us,” the other one said.
Whatever. All I know is this:  call it anal-retentive, call it distrustful, call it suspicious. Call it whatever you want. But there are times when someone—someone, somewhere—has to do it:  check and double-check and then check again. Everyone else may think we’re perhaps the tiniest bit crazy—at the very least, a complete pain in the butt. But we’re the ones who make sure the space shuttle doors have the good seal and the sensor for the airbags is working. We’re the ones who go around making sure the fires are out and the electricity is turned off.
And the shingles are removed.
Thank us, and be glad you aren’t us.
{Update:  as I finish typing this, they come to the door and tell me they’re going home for the day because it’s too hot to rip off the shingles. They’ll do it tomorrow, they say. As my mother would say, “We’ll see.]