My Childhood: Nancy Adds On

After my parents finished their addition to their house, our next door neighbor, Nancy, decided her house needed to be larger. Of course, she wanted to make her addition even bigger and better than the one my parents built. Not only did she want to "keep up with the Jones", she wanted to one-up them.

Since Nancy and her husband, Curt, were amateur home-improvement experts, they decided to build the entire room addition themselves. They planned on making a two-story addition, which would add four rooms to their house. The whole structure was to be sunk four feet into the ground in order to give her house a "split-level look".

Nancy was a very thrifty woman. She believed in saving a buck or two whenever she could. So when she needed to dig out a large hole for her add-on, she asked the local children to do the job for her.

She promised each of us $1.25 an hour for the work that we did. At that time in my life, that was an unheard-of amount of money. It was a kings ransom. I volunteered immediately, and started digging the hole the next day.

For over three weeks I worked, along with several other neighborhood children. We dug and dug and dug. First, we shovel the dirt into a wheel barrel. Then, once that was full, we’d drag it over to the back of her yard and dump the dirt in a huge pile.

I worked each day after school, long into the night, with the hole illuminated by large floodlights. I worked weekends, starting early in the morning and continuing until well after dark. I gave three long weeks of my life to that woman.

When we were finished, she started on the next phase of her project - she poured the slab, put together the walls, added the floor and roof, and finished the place with tar, stucco, wiring, plumbing and carpeting. It looked very good when she was completed.

Then it was time to pay everyone who had helped her. At this point, she decided she would reward us with a party. She loaded us all into her car and took us to the local part, where we ate hot dogs, roasted marshmallows and had a great time.

It was a great time, that is, until she dropped a bombshell on us. When the party was finishing up, and we were cleaning up after ourselves, I nervously walked over to her. I was curious as to when we’d be paid for all of the work that we had done.

I mentioned to Nancy that she owed each of us several hundred dollars, which she had promised us before we started. She claimed she had made no such agreement with any of us! She said I was a little liar, and told me I should be ashamed of myself for trying to cheat her out of her hard earned money!

I was very angry, but there was nothing that I could do. Nancy denied ever making such an agreement, and no adult had been present at the time the promise was made. I didn’t get any money, but from that point on, I never helped Nancy on any of her "home-improvement" projects again.