Page 33 of Love It or List It
Austin brought that too, and Joe pulled up a couple more treads and checked the stringers, but the dry rot hadn’t spread too far—just around that one step, it looked like.He put the crowbar down and sat back.
“Well, the good news is the rest of the stairs are sound and the repair is more of a pain in the ass than anything.”They’d have to replace the stringers on both sides, just to be safe, but the treads and risers could be reused.“Bad news is we’re gonna be skipping a step until then.”
“At least nobody’s sleeping upstairs right now.Kind of a nasty shock if you go downstairs to pee in the middle of the night.”
“Not recommended,” Joe agreed.Then he remembered their conversation from yesterday.“Hey—you said you found something cool?”
Austin pulled him to his feet.“Oh—yeah.Uh… after you, though.”
“What, you don’t trust me?”
“My abs still hurt from pulling myself out last night.Give me a break.At least I’ll be able to help you if we go up one at a time.”
Joe couldn’t argue with that, and he did actually trust his assessment of the stairs’ condition, so he trudged up, skipping over the ones he’d removed.He’d nail those back down later.
Austin followed and then led the way to the smallest bedroom, where two items remained—an ancient radio covered in dust, with a walnut veneer that had once been glossy but was now cracked and warped; and a blue Rubbermaid container on a shelf.
Austin took the container down and opened it with a flourish.“Voila.”
Joe hadn’t been that excited about the radio—it looked like it needed a ton of work—but the box was a different story.Grimy on the outside, sure, but inside it was neat and orderly and absolutely packed with old vinyl records.
Joe didn’t know a lot about record collecting, other than that it had come back into vogue.If that little radio had a working record player and they could get it looking good again, it might be worth something, but this bin could be worth five bucks for the plastic or five grand for the vinyls, depending what was in there.
“Am I supposed to be impressed?”he asked after a minute.
Austin reached into the bin and pulled out a handful of LPs.Most of them were bands Joe didn’t recognize, with the cardboard sleeves a little battered.He did recognize a few names, though—Jimi Hendrix.The Stones.And—
“Jesus Christ, what the hell is that?”
“That,” said Austin, “is the Beatles’Yesterday and Today.”
Joe stared at it, appalled.“Why are there decapitated dolls?And… meat?”
“This is like the Pepa question all over again.”Austin shook his head.“But it doesn’t matter.”He turned the album over.The weak light of the bare, pathetic bulb overhead glinted on the plastic wrap.“It’s in perfect condition.And this cover is rare.Apparently the 1960s were not ready for political commentary in the form of dead fake babies, so they pulled it and released it with a different image.”
Joe thought that was probably fair.
“But like I said,” Austin said, “it doesn’t matter, because it’s not an album.”
Joe blinked.“It’s not?”
“Nope.It’s a three-legged dog and some stair stringers.”
Huh.“Maybe we should’ve called her Yoko.”
“You said yes to Pepa.No takebacks.”
They carefully carted the record crate downstairs to sort through, and then it was late enough to hit Pet Valu for the essentials before they picked up Pepa.
The definition ofessentialswas pretty broad when you’d never owned a dog before.
“What’s, like, a good number of toys?”Austin asked ten minutes in.He was holding a sleeve of tennis balls, a larger knobbly ball, a porcupine stuffy, a rubber chicken, and a frisbee.It was possible the idea ofessentialsbecame even more impossible to define when you hadn’t had anything as a child.Then: “Do you think we need a cart?”
Joe got a cart.
They picked out a nice soft bed… and then a second firmer one in case she liked that better.A raised set of food and water dishes, because Austin had read online that it was helpful for dogs that had amputations.Joe thought that probably was more for dogs with front-limb loss, but whatever, the dishes looked nice.Three different bags of treats and a handful of what the sales girl called “bully sticks,” which Joe knew just enough about to avoid asking questions.
Joe selected a leash and harness while Austin chose a collar, and then they had a three-minute argument about whose phone number would go on her tag, which they eventually solved by flipping a coin.
