This is not my normal happy, whimsical column. If you’re not prepared to read my whining complaints, if you don’t want to know how my wife and I have suffered, are suffering, through the process of getting a new kitchen installed, turn to the funnies now.

I admit we were out of touch with the way these things work. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm was a calculating riverboat gambler compared to us. We see those TV ads for one-day bathrooms and must have believed something similar would happen with a new kitchen. It doesn’t.

Happily oblivious to the maelstrom into which we were about to descend, we chose the style of cabinets, signed the contract and paid for everything in advance, electing to take out the old cabinets ourselves and save $800; chicken feed, of course, but as frugal do-it-yourselfers we knew we could handle that.

The designer made her measurements and turned in the order to the cabinet manufacturer. We picked a delivery date well in advance: June 4. I remember it well. When the cabinets were delivered, we foolishly believed that the cabinet installer and countertop maker, both separate companies but being contracted and in the loop, would be prepared to step in and do their parts, boom, boom, boom.

Ha.

The way it works in reality is: after the cabinets are delivered (and presently sitting in 54 boxes throughout our kitchen and living room, leaving narrow aisles for us to squeeze through the past half month), THEN the installer looks down the road to find the next available installation date, which happens to be today, June 22. When cabinets are in place and we choose a sink, THEN the countertop company will look for a date when its designer can measure for the granite countertop. THEN whenever the countertop company gets the countertop made, it scans the calendar for an installation date. And then, I suspect, Honey will have her new kitchen ready to cook Thanksgiving dinner.

Doing our part, with the help of son, son-in-law and grandsons, we disassembled and carted off our old oak kitchen cabinets. I sawed the laminate countertop in half, leaving the sink and dishwasher section to be disconnected and removed at the last moment, meaning today.

The delivery of the countertops on June 4, that date which will live in infamy, was itself traumatic. First the truck driver was afraid to come up our long brick driveway. Then the driver, a very large man, and his accomplice, a slim, wiry fellow, refused to carry the boxes up the wooden steps to our front door, saying they were rickety and unsafe. There were calls to their supervisor, and photos taken, and Honey angrily threatened to file a complaint. I tried to calm the troubled waters, and finally the little guy, a Laurel to his partner’s Hardy, began lugging in the smaller boxes by himself, while the fat one pushed them to the tailgate of the truck. I started helping the little guy with the big boxes, and the fat guy did help dolly up the last two heavy ones. We didn’t do the follow-up satisfaction survey.

As instructed, we dutifully inventoried the boxes and checked them off the manifest, but it was nuts to expect us to open 54 boxes and inspect the contents for damage.

As for the price of all this, $17,000 and change, which was what a house cost in our parents’ day, and would buy a used car for a grandson now, we didn’t blink an eye. We have the money.

When I related this cost to a friend, expecting her to be shocked, her reaction was “That’s all?”

So here we sit, practically helpless innocents, waiting for the installers to arrive, begin cutting open boxes and restore to us some faith in humanity.

My plan is to rig a temporary kitchen sink so we aren’t eating off paper plates for the next month. Or, eating out all the time, which Honey thinks wouldn’t be all that bad.