The following story is from my book PALS: Part Two.
Have you ever been frustrated trying to assemble various
items? You’ll relate to my story.
“The
Open Door Policy”
“Whoosh” went the airbrakes
from the semi tractor-trailer that was now parked in front of my house. I saw
the driver walk towards my front door. Oh boy, I was excited. He was from
Roadway Express and here to deliver my metal shed. A shed I intended to put to
good use as storage in the pool area. But first I had to put it together.
“Where do you want this
thing?” the driver asked.
I walked a fast pace in
front of him, and pointed. “ Here, I’ll show you. Can you get it up here under
the carport?”
He scratched his head and
looked puzzled. “There’s no way my forklift will make it under here. But I’ll try
to get it as close as I can.”
And the next thing I knew,
the noise of the forklift starting, the loud tailgate dropping, and the racket
from him loading my shed, brought out a couple neighbors and then kids on
bicycles. Cars were lined up behind the semi because there was not enough room
to pass. I just realized that it was 5:30 P.M. and the neighbors were coming
home from work.
I felt the heavy thud on
the cement as he dropped the back half of the palate and shed. The closest he
could get to being under my carport was halfway. I signed the papers and turned
to look at what lay in front of me. Cautious optimism fell over me and I
swallowed a big gulp. I can do this thing, I said to myself. How difficult can
it be?
Having been out of graduate
school for three years, my thinking was still in the scientific mode. I learned
to think that way because of my didactic training. I took the 147-page manual
into the house, sat at the table, and began using my yellow highlighter
leftover from my biostatistics class.
The first step was to take
an inventory. Great. I thought. That makes perfect sense. That is logical. I
could not contain my excitement, and after I finished supper, I decided to
start my new project. It was only after I headed out the door that I remembered
it was 7:10 P.M.
Earlier, I had skimmed the
first forty-three pages of the manual and my highlighter was dry from
everything I’d underlined. But that didn’t matter because the seven pages of
inventory were cut and dried. Any idiot could follow those directions. Using a
steak knife I sliced into the taped carton on all sides. I lifted the five-foot
by seven-foot cover off and set it out of my way on the far side of the
carport. That cover reminded me of a larger version of the donut boxes outside
The Milk House in Dubuque. Those stolen donuts sure tasted great.
I turned on the porch
lights and found the bags of screws, nuts, bolts, washers, miscellaneous parts,
and unknown plastic pieces. I squatted with both knees bent, tightened my
stomach, and lifted the first thirty-pound bag of fasteners out of the box. The
second bag was not nearly as heavy.
I used the lid for a
collection surface for all the pieces. I marked each lettered item on the lid
and then placed the corresponding pieces next to it. I placed a check mark by
each item in the manual. I was up to the stock letters AAAA when I finished
inventorying the first bag. Thankfully, I had a piece of plywood leaning
against the pool fence. I lugged the sap-soaked board under the carport to use
as a collection surface for the second bag of fasteners. Weeks before I learned
how well gasoline removes tree sap. After washing my hands in gas and wiping them
dry, I lit a cigar and marveled at the project I would complete in a day. It
was now 9:25 P.M.
Heat lightening, I thought
as I opened my back door to go inside and get a cold beer. I stood in amazement
and gulped a few swigs of beer. I wiped sweat from my face. I had never seen so
many pieces to one single unit. And those were just the small pieces. I didn’t
inventory the main parts. I used my cap to wipe the sweat from my bald head and
went back inside to get a dry cap. The heat lightening continued.
The humidity was so heavy
it actually felt moveable, like a person could move it with their hands and
arms. Within moments my new cap and my shirt were soaked. Having a second beer
and still looking at what lay in front of me, I decided the only thing to do
was to attack. Something nudged at me though and I remembered thinking how
impressive the frequent heat lightening was that night.
It was about an hour later
when the flashlight quit for the first time. I looked everywhere for size D batteries
in the house and found none. I found that when I banged the flashlight against
the cement it would glow just long enough to find a piece or a part. The
process slowed my progress but not my enthusiasm. I was sort-of having fun. I
was no longer soaked from the humidity or heat. As a matter of fact, I
remembered being somewhat cool from the drop in temperature and slight breeze.
That felt nice.
Somewhere around 1 A.M., I
felt a little puff of wind. I was reading the manual on or around page
seventy-six. I had three sides of the shed assembled. It became quite difficult
to balance those sides, hold a broken flashlight and to read instructions at
the same time. The wind began to increase and I noticed how the sides made
warbling sounds. As the wind increased so did the tin melody. I saw the
illumination of a porch light being turned on at one of the neighbor’s houses.
And then I realized: I was trapped in a three-sided metal snarl.
I used what little common sense
I had and shimmied and shoved the contraption across the driveway. It sure did
make a lot of noise scraping against that cement. I made it to the side of the
house and propped one end against the house. Two more neighbors’ lights helped
illuminate my work area. I went inside and returned with a mop. I used the mop
to balance the other sides. The music from the sides whipping in the wind
stopped.
When the first pine cone
fell, but didn’t hit the ground because of heavy winds, I suspected I could be
in trouble. I was reading the manual when I noticed a red stop sign around a
boxed-in information piece. It read: ”Caution. Do NOT assemble in High Winds.”
The rains came whipping
sideways, pine needles were flying through the air like darts in a tournament,
and the entire packing crate was soaked from the downpour. The box top skimmed
across the cement like a magic carpet. I chased it down my driveway after
tripping on that damn flashlight. All the hardware was scattered throughout the
box lid. Most of my lettering was bleeding beyond distinction from the rain.
I pulled the box back under
the carport and secured it with the corner of the plywood. In doing so, I slid
all the hardware off the wood. I went into the house to make a pot of coffee.
It was 1:30 A.M. The storm passed about forty-five minutes later and I was
blowing on my cup of coffee looking at the mess. I brought out an extension
cord and adapters. I took three table lamps from the living room and plugged
them into the outlets. Presto! It looked like Yankee Stadium lit up for a night
game. I felt like telling my thoughtful neighbors I didn’t need their lights
anymore. There were now five houses lit up and a few dogs barking somewhere.
I re-inventoried the pieces
I could find and sat on a lawn chair trying to figure what to do. I analyzed, synthesized,
and hypothesized. My next goal was to get that fourth side up and screwed down
so the unit was secured. I then noticed a cartoon of someone smiling in the
manual.
The caption read:
“Congratulations. You have completed Part One. You only have four more parts to
go. This should have taken a total of two hours to complete.” It took me eight
hours. Eight hours. I am trying to make this story acceptable for all ages – so
I will not write what I said. I went to bed. It was 3 A.M.
In our family, whenever we
screw something up or go about an activity the wrong way, we refer to that as
the Rick Factor. The term is named in honor of my brother Richard. He can go
off like a rocket with any mechanical failure or any time things don’t go quite
right. One time I saw him throw rocks at his car when it wouldn’t start. I
watched him bend the new oven burner in two parts because he could not get it
anchored correctly and smacked and cut his head on the oven door. As I lay in
bed evaluating the previous eight hours or so, I smiled and called my project
the Rick Factor. I promised myself that my next attempt to finish the project
would be much better. I drifted off to sleep thinking of that damn flashlight.
7 A.M. came early for me,
way too early. I had a fitful four hours of sleep and I dreamt I was on a magic
carpet made of cardboard. During the ride, I avoided asteroids that looked like
screws, bolts and pinecones. After waking, I made coffee and went back to my
project. I stood under the carport evaluating all the pieces remaining to
connect while I enjoyed my morning brew. I turned to go back into the house and
noticed something odd. I saw five houses with their outside lights still
burning. Wasting electricity, I thought.
I scraped the four-walled
structure across the cement. It had been propped near the house and I needed it
to be in the center of the carport. I heard a dog howl somewhere nearby. There
was no wind like last night, so the structure stayed in place. I connected
cross-brace AABC to its counterpart on the side at the hole marked JJKY. Using
washer NNOP, I balanced the bolt, labeled GOGD and used nut labeled POOP to
secure the brace. One down and seven to go, I thought.
A couple hours later I had
the bracing complete and was ready for the roof panels. The next and last thing
would be the installation of the doors. I noticed quite a bit of fine print on
each page, but didn’t slow down to read all of it. I could see where everything
was really going and was on a roll now.
It took two more hours before
I finished the top and while the doors were confusing, I connected them without
difficulty. I remember one place in which there was no hole drilled for my
bolt. I almost drilled a new hole, but decided to step back a minute and I’m
glad I did. I was trying to put the door on upside down. That would indeed have
been a Rick Factor.
Now, I only had three pages
left go. I was excited, happy, and having fun – right up to the point where I
fell off the ladder and into the metal roof. I had been on the top rung of my
ladder anchoring the panels. I had just one more panel to go and it was quite a
stretch. I felt the ladder wobbling. I lost my balance and put a huge dent in
the left roof panel (item number WWOW) with my elbow.
Now another part of the
Rick Factor is the loss of patience when things don’t go quite like they’re
supposed to go. We cuss! We throw things! We scream! We may even break stuff. I
calmly dropped to the cement, walked into the shed, and with my fist, I hit
that roof with all my strength. One factor about metal is that it’s near
impossible to return it to its original shape after being bent. I learned that
in summer school in physics class.
I climbed back to the top
of the ladder and didn’t need to look far to see the damage. That panel had a
pretty good-sized bubble projecting out. Ah, nobody will see it anyway, I
thought. I covered every nut with special tape on the inside of the shed. This
was to keep it from leaking. I was pretty proud of myself and celebrated by
getting a beer and lighting a cigar.
Moments later I was blowing
smoke rings across the carport and into the shed. I bit down on my cigar with
my teeth and stood facing my masterpiece and closed the doors. “Son-of-a-Bitch!”
I yelled. The doors did not meet!
There was a three-inch gap. I bit my cigar in
half and kicked the nearly full can of beer onto my plywood work surface. I
threw a pair of vice grips, two screwdrivers, and a ratchet into the front
yard. I let loose with a litany of cuss words that would have made a sailor
blush. Have you ever noticed how many parts there are to a flashlight? I
separated all of them with a few direct smashes against the driveway. All of
them.
The neighborhood kids who
were using my pool at that moment slammed into me, and sprinted out the gate
towards their homes. My tantrum must have frightened them. They scattered in
different directions like a nest of cockroaches when a light is lit in a dark
room. I had forgotten they were using my pool. That same dog from the night
before howled from all the commotion coming from under my carport. I yelled, I
punched my fists into the air and finally screamed. THAT, my friends, is the
Rick Factor!
It was two days later that
I was calm enough to re-read the instruction book. I returned to the section
about the doors. In the fine print appeared a stop sign logo that mentioned the
exact way to connect the door panels. When I attempted to hang the door panel
upside down, I had read the identifying letters incorrectly. All the M’s looked
like W’s. As fate would have it, the door panel marked W was to be placed on
the opposite site.
I gave some kid a dollar to
look for tools in my yard while I removed the roof panel tape. Yep, I had to
remove the entire roof, change the doors, and re-apply the roof - again. I
finished just in time as several of my buddies began to arrive. They came to
help carry the storage shed and place it along the fence inside the pool area.
We were all enjoying a beer
except for Dan. He had not touched his. He was too busy inspecting the shed. He
laughed. “Hey, Nelson why is there a bubble in the roof? Does that have
something to do with physics also?”
Be sure to check out my
book about child abuse. It’s called The
Shade Tree Choir
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