The Wifey is in charge though, and along with wonderful weather comes Wifey with good ideas… and it’s only a matter of time that one can dodge the bullet.
Why is it that my Wifeys good ideas always involve me and a shovel?
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I am not alone. We have some friends who upon each Saturday it is declared "A and E day"(the "E" means elbows)--which the husband and son are relegated to labor camp until such time as the work is done. I have listened in awe as my friend explained to me a typical A and E, and wondered how he had energy to make it in to work on Monday. I admit Wifey has allowed me most of the winter off while I languished in my mancave with John Wayne and others.
( It is important to note that the cowboys work six guns and not shovels).
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Ok, so anyhow we are "A and E" (the "E" means elbows) at La Casa de Pescador and my little truck has made 35 trips to Lowes in the last 3 weekends. She also knows that Waffle House and Nu-Way are both across the street so she has plied me with peanut butter waffles and chili dogs to keep me aligned as a consenting adult.
Today’s outside chore was the removal of a basketball goal. The plan was to dig around the goal with yon shovel, down and around the concrete, at which time some shaking and shimmying of the goal post would thereby loosen up the remains, of which I would haul off.
If only it were that easy.
Using my D handled implement of death I dug, and promptly ran into plastic pipe that I believe runs power to the house... "Call before you dig" entered my mind but there wasn't anyone to call and Wifey already had her hands on her hips watching. I maneuvered around and down, exposing the concrete enough that I thought I could shake it loose.
Har, Har, It was to laugh.
I tried getting a grip on the post and maybe pulling it loose. That would have been laughable had I not been on the verge of losing a testicle in the process.
My neighbor Mike heard me grunting, and offered his assistance. A few minutes later he showed up with a chain, truck, and trailer hitch-- we hooked up the chain to the post and then the trailer hitch and only managed to bend the post and goal over, although it was still securely in the ground—
How deep does a goal post need to go into the ground? Well, I didn’t know before and I don’t know now.
Normally in this part of the story I would have lost my temper and let a few adjectives fly--but I saw Wifey in my peripheral and bit down on my lower lip, deciding instead to hum "zip a dee do dah" instead.
Not to give in, Mike went back to his shop and got his Sawz-all, a manly testosterone drenched saw if there ever was such, and cut that everlasting infernal no good sonofayouknowwhat down at the root, thereby leaving me and my shovel to fill in the hole.
The thrill of victory. The agony of deshovel.
Back in olden times men only lived until they were in their 40s or 50s, (save perhaps for Ben Franklin, who was smart enough to trade in his shovel for writing letters to the editor and flying kites, and who was like 86 when he checked out)--at any rate the men died early in their lives not because of disease, famine, toothaches or even the common cold, but they expired from being worked to death. The foundation of all their back breaking labor was the shovel.
That holds true today.
Other tools of death are post hole diggers, axes, and sledge hammers--all equate to back breaking labor and by my calculations early death. Verily, these are the tools of chain gangs and hardened criminals who deserve such a fate.
But don’t take my word for it, folks, just do the math:
D=(A+E) x 52 {S2} (remember E is elbows)
L= -(L-F) no leisure no food
S = D+L
Thus S=D (shovel=death)
My math may be sketchy, but you’re just going to have to trust me.
