On the ROOF?! He was stunned.

Yes.

Not under the house? Is it a slab?

It’s a slab. It goes up and out. The guy had thought putting the motor that far away would help make it quieter for my hearing impairment but what it did instead was make the noise reverberate through the metal all the way down and it’s much louder.

He shook his head in disbelief. That’s the worst, he said. He couldn’t believe a contractor had done that.

He showed me the motor to a ventilation fan, how it was in this gray metal box. Just to be sure I was right. And then he apologized at how much it was going to cost us to replace the fan alone in that case. We’d already looked at and priced the cooktops.

This was at the place where I bought my Speed Queen washer and dryer, an independent company with a hundred-plus year history with the surrounding community to uphold–they know their stuff and their reputation to uphold and they’re good.

He could not have expected my reaction to the number he gave with apologies: profound relief, mixed with a whole lot of gratified self-satisfaction: I knew it. I knew it.

Then I gave him the number a contractor had given me for replacing the cooktop and fan, and the fact that he was close to ten thousand dollars cheaper. That is not a typo.

He was speechless again. And then–he didn’t want to badmouth the guy–but some contractors, you know, they think if you own a house you’re rich so they can quote anything, he told me.

So. The Hestan? It’s gorgeous and the lights on the knobs are great, but, he pointed out, those brass pieces on the burners? They won’t look like that. At all.

Okay, just saved me from that high end one.

The Bosch? He told me what he did and didn’t like about that one, my choice.

I explained about losing my balance in a car accident years ago and that I fall a lot–so I’d prefer the knobs be between me and the burners. I told him how with the current cooktop set so far forward, I’d set my sweater on fire. Twice.

His face! Man, I think that guy’s going to remember today’s customer.

So now Richard has to decide if he agrees with what and why the guy got me wanting the one I do now.

I am to call the guy’s installer to come look and measure first.

We are finally making some real progress and that portable one-burner Cuisinart we bought, woefully slow when you’re used to gas but immensely helpful in letting us take our time, will hopefully disappear off the countertop very soon.