I had to leave for a sales meeting last Sunday and just got home last night. Meetings are always a mixture of good and bad: it's good to see the other salesmen, but it's bad to be away from customers for so long, especially when you're in a different time zone and the only time you can try to reach them by phone is when they are at lunch.

The hotel was pretty crappy. One guy showed us -- fortunately not until the last morning, when we had all checked out -- a picture of a bedbug that he took with his cell phone. Of course we ate and drank too much, and of all things, I won something called The President's Award, which comes with a ring, a certificate and some cash. This has long been a big deal to the company that bought us 11 years ago, but no one from my particular part of the company has ever won it before. When they gave it to me I was speechless for probably the first time in my life. There are guys who have been there much longer and sold much more, but apparently I represent the new business model. The big boss said that long before they went to the team concept of sales, I was a team player -- in fact, he said I made one guy, now retired, a very wealthy man. It has to do with specifications and territories and is way too complicated to explain.

It doesn't look like they did anything on the house while I was gone. They did finish the stucco, but the carpenter apparently wasn't here at all. A while back they put a door on the guest bath and I was so thrilled that I had privacy again --- but then they pulled the commode so they could tile the floor, and they never put it back. The Professor says the plumbers are supposed to be here today to reinstall the commode, put in the kitchen faucet and hook up the dishwasher. No one has installed the cooktop or the ovens, or the hearth in front of the fireplace, or the new stairs and bannister, or .... well, I could go on and on.

But the good news is that I don't have to go out of town next week as I had planned. I really need a little time to regroup and to start kicking the builder's butt. I have been way too nice and accepted things, but now it looks like they are going to ruin Christmas for me by not being done in time. You do NOT mess with my Christmas. No more patient nice guy ---Dr. Jekyll is about to become Ms. Hyde. I will make his life hell until he gets the full crew back out here and gets the house done. Christmas is my very favorite time of year and I am not letting them take that away from me.

Strapping on my six-guns .... working up to my full bitchiness potential ... stay tuned for the results....