Tackle that project men
May 27 - June 2, 2024
By Jay Edwards
A friend from Chattanooga, Tennessee sent me the following email
“Sometime today I’ve got to meet a plumber at home.
Someone has always hated the ugly paneling in the garage and decided to remove it.
Someone found that removing the studs, once the paneling was gone, was not easy.
Someone was swinging a big hammer with his right arm (the someone in question is left-handed) due to constant and aggravating pain in his left shoulder.
Someone took a big swing and hit the cute little pipe that brings water into someone’s home.
Someone made a big mess. Which is the story of someone’s life.”
What is it about guys and home improvements? I guess it’s part of that whole hunter/gatherer thing. You gather it and sooner or later you’re gonna have to fix it. But there is something also that we love about it. The chance to fix and prove to whoever will listen, that we have skills, like our forefathers who tamed the wild west and fought in the great wars. Yes, the world may be in shambles, but through all the chaos man still has his home, and if he’s fortunate enough, it’s falling apart all around him.
I’m no different. And while they will never inscribe, “He was a great handyman,” on my tombstone, I’ve been known to tackle those small to medium honey-dos in my 44-years of wedded marriage (OK, bliss).
I’ve taken out ceiling fans and put new ones in without electrocuting myself. I’ve even installed a new bathroom sink (Just once though, back when I was so young that I still believed money could buy happiness and politicians really cared.)
Anyway, last Saturday my project wasn’t nearly as ambitious as my friend’s from Chattanooga. I was only out to trim the hedges, those being seven very large Holly bushes that line the front of our house. It is a tedious and exhausting task, and one that requires spending a lot of time moving and climbing my eight-foot ladder.
KM recommended I hire someone, partly because she is a good and faithful wife who worries about my wellbeing, and partly because she hates the way I trim hedges. My goal is just to make them smaller so we can see out our windows. Her goal is more artistic, as in lawn-of-the-month club beauty.
I procrastinated Saturday, even spending a half hour trying to find mates for those lone dark socks in my drawer that keep multiplying.
Finally it was time. I thought of my Cairn Terrier Gus, who had gone on to that yellow brick road in the sky years ago, and who always contributed greatly during home improvement projects.
My goal was to finish and have everything cleaned up by 4:00. At 3:00 I had two bushes left, but they were also the largest and toughest to reach.
I got my ladder between the house and the last huge Holly, and began the fight, me cutting with my right hand while holding a top windowsill with my left, one foot on the ladder and the other on the narrow brick of the ledge. I cursed aloud as the angry Holly lunged back with prickly stabs.
I needed to reposition so I turned, with my foot landing in the right spot. But when I reached back for the top of the window I got nothing, only air and the sickening realization I was falling. It seemed like slow motion and I thought to myself, this isn’t going to end well.
My fall was broken by another thick bush which fortunately wasn’t a Holly.
I hung above the ground for about half a minute before lowering myself the rest of the way down, which was about a foot.
KM stood in the window, shaking her pretty head.
Curses.
