Approximately one year ago today was when I was convinced that Dirt Candy would never open. This was after Anthony, my first contractor, had called his mother during a meeting (“Mom! Mom! She says I’m a liar! I’m not a liar!” he whined), this was after he had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for three days and his foreman, Colin, tried to steal the job from him, and this was after he suddenly presented me with an extra bill for close to $100,000 in excess of what we’d contracted for including such interesting charges like $6,000 to level a wall (that still wasn’t level – after he left I measured with a laser thingie and saw that the top was three inches off from the bottom). But a year ago today (roughly) was when he walked off the job. As bad as a contractor is, you never want to have to get rid of one in the middle of a job, and so this was around the time last year when I started looking into selling the space and walking away.

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From what I understand, Anthony went into bankruptcy for his business to get rid of debts, and he and Colin are still out there working and doing jobs. If you happen to be thinking about working with a contractor named Colin or Anthony drop me a line and I’ll be happy to walk down memory lane with you.