HAT TIPS
Hello,
You know, I’m not very handy. Oh, I can pull a calf with a leg back. I used to be able to saddle a skittish colt or stretch up a broken wire. I could put plugs in an “A” John Deere. “I can skin a buck deer or run a trap line.” Naw, that’s just the words of a song that HAT TIPS started running through my head. And they are probably wrong.
I mean to say; I am just not real handy around the house. This came to mind the other night while helping paint a new entryway. All I did was volunteer to let Daryl use my paint sprayer. I even said I would deliver it. Shirley said to take along some old clothes to paint in. Like I was going to paint!
I think it would have been all right if I hadn’t stopped off for a game of pinochle and refreshments at “the pipe.” But you know how that “one more game and we’ll all go” turns out. By the time I started painting, I thought I was Michelangelo painting the ceiling. Only I wasn’t going to spend quite as much time.
Kind of wish I had taken some other clothes along. But for now, if you need someone with new “old” clothes, I’d be your guy!
Then, Shirley stooped to a new low. She brought up the last time I convinced her that she should not hire a “handy” man when she was married to one.
That was when we put some new carpet in. A long, long time ago. In a galaxy far, far away.
The bedroom doors drug heavily on the new carpet. Shirley wanted to hire someone to trim a little off these doors. Now, I had a skill saw in the shop. And a chainsaw in the pickup. I can lift heavy objects. Just why the heck would she think she had to hire someone.
The first door didn’t go too bad. Oh, I scratched the paint on the wall up a little, trying to get the hinges loose. They hadn’t been apart since the early thirties. But I got them out. And I didn’t need one of those fancy, fold up metal saw horses like carpenters throw in back of their pickup.
No, I could just lay that heavy old door on the kitchen island. Then I could draw a straight line along the bottom, using the edge of a case of beer for a straight edge. Oh, I had to empty the box first, but that’s another story. I got that line drawn, told Shirley to stand back. I started cutting over her objections, which were pretty hard to hear with that skill saw screaming. I whacked that baby off perfectly straight.
As I lifted the door off, Shirley let out a … I know women shouldn’t swear, but then again. I had cut the door off pretty good. You could see how straight my cut was by the nice straight line, a quarter inch deep, that runs the length of the kitchen island. Guess I should have moved the door a little farther to the east.
Although Shirley was getting pretty vocal in her objections, by now I was getting into the carpenter thing. I pulled another door off. Going to trim a half-inch off. Made sure the door extended beyond the island. Drew as straight a line as I could using that beer box and fighting off a mad woman. Got that skill saw screaming and sliced off a half inch of smoking wood from that door. Shirley’s tears looked real.
I carried that door down the hall and put it on. Still drug pretty heavy on that carpet. I had trimmed a half-inch off the top of the door!
Did I ever tell you about when I fixed the screen door?
Think I’ll go riding.
Later,
Dean