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Sunday, November 12, 2006
When we last saw our hero, he was complaining that the building materials delivery people should have kowtowed to the fact that he was the boss. That situation has been permanently remedied. He is no longer the boss. There. That'll teach 'em. In fact, if there were a tier system to describe the pecking order of management in a Lowe's store, and of course there is, then he got bumped down three levels. This is two levels above unemployed. How did this happen, you ask? (Well, I hope someone is asking.) Simple. Telling it, however, is futile. The only thing that means anything out of this is that he will never be in management at a Lowe's store again. Now, that's not a bitter statement. He did not stand in a field in front of a smoldering Southern mansion chewing on a dried-up turnip with the sunlight fading away dramatically in the background and say, "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again! Or work in management for Lowe's, either!" No, no, it's not like that. He has been denied and demoted and spit upon and viewed with disgust before, and there is no way that "they" will ever let him into a management position again. So now that that's off my mind, here's what happened next with the floor. I actually did have to use the saw in the rain. Ah, but I never said I got wet. I got smart and built a shelter on the back deck, right at the patio door. (You know, now that I think about it, I don't particularly like the phrase "I got smart," because it implies that one was not smart before the event. I could understand it if you were talking about the time in the second grade when you had to go to the blackboard and multiply 2x3 for the first time, and on the way there from your desk, the answer came you. You actually did get smart, right at that moment! I, however, had already checked the weather and knew that it would rain soon. I planned ahead and bought the stuff I needed for the shelter. Did I get smarter? Nah.) I mounted a tarp to a couple of studs, spread them out, and propped them up against the roof. One went on the deck rail, and one went on a branch of the dogwood beside the deck. How did I keep them from blowing away? Duct tape. My ingenious design may never win any awards, but today is Sunday, and my portable workshop is still standing. I have sawdust all over the deck, but I don't have any in the house. More importantly, I don't have an angry, distressed wife in the house, or at least not about the sawdust. The goal for Tuesday was to completely cover the kitchen with the plywood. The old floor was two layers of vinyl, with a third layer of peel-and-stick squares applied very badly by the owners before Linda. There was no way I was going to pull it up. Water damage from a long time ago had made a weak spot in the middle of the floor. There was no way I was going to cut out that spot and custom-fit new subflooring in there. I took the scorched-earth path, and covered it all. It took me the better part of all day. I was exhausted when I got done, because there was a lot of up-and-down work, between measuring, screwing everything down with drywall screws, all that. Plus, a couple of the pieces weren't cut in two or anything, so they had to be carried in by me and put into place as whole sheets (see earlier rant about carrying heavy stuff to deck). All this proves my earlier statement. Home improvement is not for the fat. Next installment: Man, I didn't see that one coming!
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