The Kitchen of Theseus: A Meditation on Competence

Early morning and I'm standing in what used to be my kitchen, holding a prybar like it's evidence in a trial where I'm both defendant and prosecutor.

There are no walls. There is no backsplash. There is a cat on top of the refrigerator—the only appliance still plugged in—watching me with the expression of someone who's seen this episode before and knows how it ends.

Jayden, my Russian Blue, has excellent taste in schadenfreude.

Three weeks ago, this was supposed to be a simple update: remove the 1972 colonial backsplash that had survived both disco and détente. Paint some cabinets. Install lighting that didn't hum like a refrigerator having an anxiety attack.

We hired the same contractor who had done beautiful work on our previous house—a calm, competent man who always smelled faintly of sawdust and reasonable expectations.

Week two, he checked himself into a hospital. Complete nervous breakdown.

I don't blame him. Somewhere between the demolition and the drywall, this kitchen revealed itself as less a renovation and more a philosophical thought experiment—whether anything can truly be fixed, or if we're all just rearranging the deck chairs on our own personal Titanics.

He saw the truth before I did. Now I'm here, holding a trowel, Googling "what even is grout."

What followed was a parade of temporary characters—each one arriving like they'd been cast in a sitcom pilot that never made it past episode three.

The drywaller who measured everything twice, sighed deeply, and said he'd "have to check his schedule." He did not check his schedule.

The tile guy who showed up, studied my substrate, and delivered a monologue about moisture barriers that felt like a TED Talk I hadn't signed up for. He also did not return.

The painter who nodded thoughtfully at every question, said "shouldn't be a problem," and then ghosted me like a bad Tinder date.

By week three, I had become the general contractor of my own undoing—a role I was spectacularly unqualified for, but one that apparently came with the mortgage.

Ellie, my Irish Setter, contributed by napping directly in the center of whatever space I needed to occupy. Not near it. Not adjacent to it. Dead center—like a furry, immovable traffic cone with no regard for project timelines.

Jayden contributed by judging me from elevated surfaces.

It was, in its own way, a team effort.

So I did what any modern homeowner does when abandoned by professionals: I enrolled at YouTube University.

Here's where we are as a civilization: I had the choice between hiring someone with thirty-five years of experience who could look at a wall and know things—or taking advice from a stranger in a well-lit garage explaining grout application in six minutes while their golden retriever wandered through the frame.

I chose the stranger. The algorithm chose me. We were both probably wrong, but at least it was free.

I earned my Master's in That'll Probably Hold. I learned to float drywall seams, grout tile, and interpret the phrase "close enough" as a spiritual practice rather than a moral failing.

I watched men with perfect lighting and inexplicable confidence explain vapor barriers like they were teaching kindergarten. I nodded along. I understood almost none of it. I did it anyway.

There's a certain freedom in being completely out of your depth—a moment when you stop worrying about doing it right and start worrying about doing it done.

At one point, Ellie wandered over to inspect my work, sniffed the wet grout with the discernment of a health inspector who'd already made up her mind, and returned to her nap in the hallway.

Jayden didn't move from the refrigerator.

Even the pets had given up on quality control.

Five weeks past the original deadline, the kitchen was finished.

The lights turned on without sparking. The cabinets hung level-ish—a term I now use professionally. The backsplash gleamed with the stubborn shine of something that had survived me.

My wife walked in, looked around, and smiled.

Not the smile you give a professional. The smile you give someone who tried very hard, mostly succeeded, and also you'd like to make toast again without navigating a construction zone.

That's when I knew we were done.

The kids, naturally, declared they liked the old kitchen better. "It felt cozier," one said, like a Yelp reviewer with no taste and too much audacity.

I nodded. Then I mentally removed them from the will. And the Christmas card list.

Here's the thing about home improvement: it's never really about the countertops.

It's about standing in a gutted room at 11 p.m., holding a tool you don't fully understand, realizing that competence is a myth we tell ourselves so we can sleep at night—that most of life is held together with caulk and goodwill.

The kitchen isn't perfect. There's a seam in the drywall I can see if I stand at exactly the wrong angle. One cabinet door doesn't quite align, and I've decided that's character.

But the lights work. The sink drains. And every time I walk in, I think about that contractor—wherever he is—and hope he's doing better.

Because somewhere between the demolition and the grout, I learned what he already knew:

Sometimes the house wins. You just do your best and hope the walls stay up.

And if they don't, well—there's always YouTube.