“Why are you sweaty, Daddy?”

“Am I?” I ask, running my hand along my forearm, “I guess I am.”

Before we move on, it’s essential to disclose that I’m not too fond of the wind. In fact, I despise it. I am not a sailor or kite enthusiast. I only find the wind beneficial when it cools me down on a hot day, unless I’m on the golf course. 

While returning from a walk on a windy day late this spring, I noticed a small section of shingles that appeared to be missing near the highest peak of my roof. I snapped a picture with my phone and decided since I knew nothing about roofs, I would look for someone who did.  

My ability to ignore problems that I presume to be expensive is near a super-human level. 

That’s going to be expensive. Let’s ignore it, I thought when I felt my molar crack after biting into a boneless wing at Buffalo Wild Wings in my late twenties. Of course, my tooth had been sore for a while before it broke. An average person would have gone to a dentist as soon as possible. I pride myself on being below average, so I lived with aching pain on the left side of my face for at least a year. 

I discovered I could chew on one side of my mouth, and Ibuprofen would help me through most of it. What makes me so impressive is my ability to fight through the times when the pain consumed almost the entire left side of my face and still find a way to ignore the fact the problem would be solved by making an appointment. The bright side? Root canals aren’t bad when you have been in agony for months, aside from the Endodontist remarking at how sore the tooth must’ve been multiple times throughout the procedure. 

I knew. Jesus, I knew.

As days turned to weeks, my house felt like a sore tooth every time it rained. I would wince at the sight of dark clouds, knowing I had a potential problem above my head. 

The last week of June, the doorbell rang in the middle of the day. I answered, ignoring my desire to fall into my regular hiding routine when someone comes to my door. I worry, occasionally, that saying, “Don’t open the door,” as though the cartel or a bookie to whom I owe money is standing on the other side of the door hoping to get in, will give my children a complex. 

I guess I will find out in about twenty years or so.

I answered the door with the swagger of a man with nothing to hide, and a young man in his early twenties stood on my front step. He launched into his pitch when I opened the door, offering me a free roof inspection for hail damage. 

“I don’t know about hail damage, but I want to show a spot I know needs attention,” I said as he followed me into my front lawn to get a better vantage point to look at the section of roof I had seen in the spring. 

“I actually don’t know a lot about what happens next, but if you would like us to do an inspection, my boss will come over and take a look. He can answer your questions.”

I told him to send his boss over. I’ve been through this same song and dance before when a kid showed up at my door trying to sell me a Kirby vacuum. At least the kid from Kirby gave me a bag of gummy worms. 

When the boss man came to my door, he told me we had hail in August 2023. I informed him about the spot on my roof I was concerned about, but he made it clear his mission was to get on my roof and find hail damage. I left him to look around on my roof.

He finished his inspection in fifteen minutes and informed me he had found hail damage. He started scrolling through pictures of my roof on his phone; at least, that’s what he said. It could have been a picture of any roof. That is not to say I thought he was tricking me, but more to demonstrate that my knowledge of shingles is limited to the disgusting virus that showed up on my arm a couple of years ago. 

The salesman also showed me a crack in my siding, which I immediately called out was caused by my eight-year-old and not Mother Nature. My honesty was not the correct answer, as he explained that it had the characteristics of hail damage. 

He quickly explained the order of events, and I signed a few documents on an iPad. 

No, I didn’t read the agreements I was signing. Yes, he told me what the agreements said. No, I wasn’t listening. No, I didn’t ask any questions. Yes, I’m aware I should have gotten clarification on what I was agreeing to.  

My brain shut off when I recognized that getting a brand new roof due to hail damage is a big game I am forced to play because I own a house. 

He quickly had a representative from my home insurance company on speaker phone and began filing a claim. By the time he left, I had convinced myself all of this was great news since he seemed confident my insurance company would agree that I needed a new roof and new siding, all for the low price of my $1,000 insurance deductible. 

The following morning, I found myself in a terrific mood, trying to slow the pace of our Wednesday morning by snuggling with my daughter on the couch before taking her to daycare. Then, I got a text message from my insurance company, which gave me a brief policy outline and informed me about the cost of my deductible. 

Immediately, my mood improved as I patted myself on the back for remembering the cost of my deductible despite not thinking about home insurance since we bought our house six years ago. I read on to discover there was a little more to the story. 

This is when the heat in my chest began to build, and every inch of my skin started to sweat, prompting my daughters question. It turns out my deductible for wind and hail damage is $11,820. 

The extra twenty dollars feels a little excessive, doesn’t it?

I understand the reaction to that dollar amount will vary. I am aware that relative to the cost of a new roof and siding, it is a drop in the bucket. However, it feels substantial when you are an unemployed writer with an exceptionally small following. 

After I got my kids to school, I occupied the rest of my time conjuring up the different scenarios and paths I would lead my family down to financial ruin because I quit my job. 

It’s odd to be acutely aware when my mind spirals out of control. I have a voice in my head shouting rationalizations. Unfortunately, that voice exists in the way back of the vehicle, driving off a cliff into a pit of despair. 

A week later, I had an appointment with a roofing company representative and an adjuster from my insurance company. The plan was for the two of them to climb up on my roof and determine my fate as I curled up in the fetal position in my shower, fully clothed. However, due to the kind of communication you would expect from an insurance company, the adjuster never showed up. 

The gentleman from the roofing company got up to take a look for himself and promised to specifically examine the section of my roof that had started this mess. When he finished, he told me it looked like the section of roof I noticed had been previously repaired, but a shingle was missing up there. He then informed me, with confidence, that there was hail damage on the roof, and it would more than likely need to be replaced. The humid, eighty-five-degree weather allowed the sweat forming all over my body to go unnoticed. Or, at least, unquestioned.

I spent the next forty-eight hours trying to decide what soul-sucking job I should find to eat up the next twenty-five to thirty years of my life while I awaited the rescheduled appointment with the adjuster. 

A statistic about worry has popped up in multiple memes, videos, and posts on the internet. Cornell University did a study on worry and found 85% of what the subjects studied worried about never happened. With the 15% that did happen, subjects discovered they could handle it better than expected. I have yet to find the data on this study, but when I first read this statistic, I thought: I’m worried those people don’t know how to worry properly. 

Of course, we don’t need to find this study to know it is true. Even the most unseasoned of worriers know that most of the time, the real bad stuff in life is not the things that consume our thoughts. Instead, the bad stuff barges in unannounced, like the Kool-Aid Man. 

Knowing this doesn’t stop me.

When the insurance adjuster and the roofer showed up for the rescheduled appointment, I braced myself as I listened to their footsteps on the roof like a couple of reverse Santa Clause’s searching for a way to take eleven thousand dollars up the chimney. I distracted myself from that by wondering what my deductible would be if they took a wrong step and fell off my roof. 

The moment of truth came with a tap-tappity-tap-tap on my front door from the insurance adjuster.

After greeting me with one of the limpest handshakes I have ever been a part of, he began to give me his assessment of the damage. I braced for what I deemed to be the inevitable.

“Well, I got up there and took a look around. I have to say your roof is in great shape. There are some small impressions from hail…” I stopped listening as relief swept through my body, and I eyed the roofer. I expected to see an eye roll or a slight shake of the head as he listened to an assessment directly contradicting the reports I had gotten on the status of my roof. To my surprise, he stood resolute with a poker face that could inspire Lady Gaga to write a hit single. 

I decided to check back into the assessment. The insurance adjuster continued, “… you are missing a shingle, so you should get that repaired. Otherwise, your roof is in great shape.”

I positioned my hand for a fist bump to avoid another wet noodle handshake. The fist bump was only a fraction less awkward.

As the adjuster made his way to his truck, the roofer started in with his final assessment, “Yeah… So… Like he said, you’re roof is in good shape, and you just need to repair that shingle.” 

We had a brief discussion as I had questions, shockingly, about the cost of repairing a single shingle on a roof. He made it sound like they would send somebody out to fix it with little trouble. 

I decided to ask him what he thought about my wind and hail deductible, thinking that since he has these conversations often, he could let me know if my current deductible is higher than average. 

I missed the answer to my question because he spun off on a fifteen-minute tangent about hurricane insurance and how expensive it is for people who live in hurricane regions. As a guy in Minnesota who will never move to a state in a hurricane zone, this information will surely come in handy. 

As the roofer walked to his truck, I allowed myself a moment to enjoy the relief with the hot summer sun shining on my face. I imagine it’s what Andy Dufresne felt like his first morning on the beach in Zihuatanejo. 

The following morning, my phone rang. It was another roofing company offering a free inspection. Another roofing company called in the afternoon. Over the next ten days, I would receive forty-two calls from people wanting to get on my roof to check for damage. 

As I write this, my shingle is yet to be repaired. To make life more interesting, I have two weeks to find a new home insurance company as my current company is leaving the country. 

You may ask yourself, how can he continue to put these things off, knowing they will only cause unnecessary and prolonged anxiety?

As the old saying goes, I am one shingle short of a complete roof. Literally.

That’s how. 

Cheers.