I heard a joke once about how if you had a house in Texas and one in Hell, you should rent out the one in Texas and live in Hell. It must have originally been written about someone working outdoors in west Texas during the summer. Understand. I have lived in Texas all my life, so it is really not a question of not being use to the heat. I am use to it, in fact, I think I am well done at this point.
My son and I started out on a three day mission this last weekend to build a metal storage shed for my mother out of one of those boxes of metal fragments that Sears laughingly refers to as a kit. The kit comes with everything you need to make a complete ass out of yourself, and in fact also comes with a free hat that says "Idiot" across the front.
Step one which was actually the most pleasant single event of the weekend was the five-hour drive from Dallas to Snyder. We got up a little early on Saturday and had a very pleasant breakfast at the Original Pancake House on Northwest Highway, if you have never eaten there, you have missed out on one of the best breakfast places ever. Then we drove listening to each other's music alternately for the next few hours. A bit of Metallica, followed by the Killers, then Springsteen, then Coldplay. Plus we actually talked about life, the universe, and everything. Eventually reaching the conclusion that the answer to the ultimate question is indeed 42 just as stated in the Hitchhiker's Guide.
Then we arrived at our destination, Hell, Uh, I mean Snyder. It is a bit less scenic than Hell.
I began, as all guys should, by attempting to locate the instructions, which are usually phrases somewhat incorrectly translated from Korean into English, and contain curious phrases like, "Be happy in your work, Joe. Insert clip nodule previously labeled B into subcutaneous slot A-1, but first…" Retrieving the instructions proved to be my second mistake. The first one was sitting down on a chair on my mother's patio without examining the legs which were completely rusted through. I did learn one thing. Despite my advanced years, I am still able to do a complete, reverse summersault ending in a pike position, the Russian judge still gave me too low of a mark in my estimation.
Battered and bruised by my unexpected flip, I found the afore mentioned instruction sheet and I commenced. Curious word commence, it implies a beginning and an end, a series of planned events, like the 12 grade steps of finishing an education. The construction of the shed proved to be more like trying to make sense of the order of events while trapped in a food processor.
The first day, after working on the shed for what seemed like eighteen hours in just a three-hour period, I succumbed to the exhaustion that 103 degree heat can inflict on you with the curious plan to "Finish tomorrow," when the temperature would only be 104. Let me just say, Al Gore could make a compelling argument for global warming by spending a week in Summer in Snyder, of course it has been that way since way before I was born. All things considered I would have rather built the shed in Philadelphia, but my mom insisted, unreasonably I might add, that the shed be in her backyard.
The next day, I was greeted by my mom waking me up so I could get an early start and avoid the heat. She woke me by telling me, "It is almost seven." It was 4:30. I suppose it was almost seven, somewhere. That day, things progressed in the same deliberate way that greeted Sisyphus on his workdays. It is amazing how sharp the edges on the metal sheets were, a slip and know doubt I could have sliced off an appendage that I have grown rather attached to over time. Fortunately, my wounds were confined to my hands, but I did note that the instructions clearly stated, "Be happy in your work Joe, and wear coverings such as chainmaille gauntlets on your hands."
After a sixteen hour work day, we were nearing completion, when the next-door neighbor, Mr. Vernon, leaned over the fence, to helpfully inform us that he could see daylight between the seams. I feel kind of bad about killing him with a screwdriver, but in all fairness, it had to be done.
Well the story ended well, we completed the task at hand, the storage building was completed. It almost looked like someone put it together that knew what they were doing, almost.
The drive home on Monday was more subdued. Not only had we forgotten what the ultimate question was, we no longer cared. I did learn one thing be nice to everyone because I know what hell is like. And it involves building a metal shed on a concrete slab in Texas on a hot summer afternoon. Well it might not be that bad, but I bet it is kind of unpleasant too.
