Isn't It Ironic?

And no, I'm not referring to that idiot song by Alanis what's-her-name in which NOTHING she says is actually ironic. Someone should buy that woman a dictionary and flag the page on which you'll find the definition of the word..

Anyway, here's our little bit of irony. As you may or may not know, we just moved into a new house. Prior to moving in, we and our home inspector collectively complained to the builder that the concrete on the back porch was pitched improperly and needed to be reskimmed. Otherwise, we'd have our own personalized lake in the kitchen at the sight of our first big storm.

The builder reluctantly agreed to do the job, and so began our story. First, the poles supporting our back porch needed to be removed, then the concrete repoured, skimmed, etc. It was, of course, boarded up around the edges to keep everything in place until it had completely cured. A few weeks go by, yes, a few weeks (which should be an indication of the reliability of our builder in following through with projects), and we complained for the 5th or 6th time that our porch was not completed. Finally, they got the message, and a man showed up to remove the wooden boards that had been put down to support the concrete. The poles, however, still remained leaning up against our house outside our family room window. We complained again. Finally, a rather disheveled looking man, who spoke almost NO English shows up in a bright lavendar van with clouds painted on the side and starts to install our poles. He worked for about an hour, measuring, cutting, drilling, installing supports, installing metal ribbons, etc.etc. He looked like he was doing a good job, a thorough job, but what do I know about concrete, porches, or poles. Anyway, after about 2 hours of this ruckus, he finished and packed up his stuff. The poles were in place, and the porch appeared done, except for one thing....

(now here's the ironic part......and remember, this all started because our concrete was improperly poured in the first place and had to be redone.)

...he cracked the concrete.

PS I've just met with a representative of the builder who informed me that they have to start over....which is, of course, not at all ironic....that just sucks. c'est la homeownership.