The plan today was to get started on the dog house immediately as rain is expected late
tonight. As grateful as I was for Brad’s
plans, I am apparently not skilled at reading blueprints as I had no idea what those
little triangle lines meant. L had said
he would get together a list for me, but here it is, almost 11 and…oh,
wait! It’s in my email! Ethan and I headed off to Home Depot with
plans of getting the lumber, dropping it off at home and picking Mags up at the
gf’s house by 1:45 (per Maggie’s instructions).
We walked into Home Depot and the first person I saw was Darren, the manager. “Hi!
Good to see you! Did you call in your
order?” “Me: “Well, I tried – they said
they can’t do that.” Darren: <quizzical
look> “Oh, it must have transferred
you over to the general phone. C’mon,
let’s get you what you need.” Darren brought me over to John, and
introduced me as Home Depot’s “best customer.”
Really – that’s how he introduced me.
Ok, that may have been a bit of overkill, but it does help out when you
have The Manager helping out. John was
wonderful – grabbed all the 2X4’s, then got 2 pieces of plywood and cut
everything up. Easy as pie. Life.Was.Good.
Until I saw my keys dangling from the ignition switch.. .all
windows closed…no Maggie to rescue us.
<deep sigh> Well,
hell. I called my neighbor to see if he
could get my spare keys, but no answer.
Farmer’s Roadside assistance, here we are! The benefit to locking my keys in the car was
(**silver lining moment**) that I had time to sit in the Home Depot parking lot
with Ethan and reflect…and label the lumber.
The 50”ers! He forgot to cut
them! So I went back inside while Ethan
guarded the goods and had those cut. Then
I enjoyed a nice conversation with a lady in a BMW about trading my Mercedes
for the Mazda …I go off-road, anyway, plus the upkeep was ridiculous. Finally, Car Rescue Dude stopped by and we
talked about building dog houses as he unlocked the car. He suggested drilling pilot holes first. Hmmm……Noted.
Got home, dropped the lumber off, went to pick up Maggie at the GFs…and
ended up right behind L’s dually. I knew
L wasn’t driving it – he was at work. I
pulled into the driveway following them and waited for Maggie. The GF and her people were all outside,
pointing at me when the guys in the dually turned around and headed towards me
at a much faster speed than I liked, so I got pissed off and started backing
up, much faster than I should have…and hit my driver’s side/mirror on the brick
lamp post…and the guys laughed at me.
This is where a huge and LOUD “FUCK YOU” went through my head, but I
just straightened out and backed off and got the hell off their property. Assholes.
“Where are you?” I texted Maggie…within a few moments she walked up the driveway
and headed to my car. It’s just a car, but
I want to stay away from those people.
Mags and I headed home…Ethan had easily finished the outside
frame for the bottom plate (technical terminology for what I called the base),
so we started attaching the plywood…but.could.not. I burnt my finger on a hot drill piece…I went
inside looking for my 18V battery charger,..and could not find it…because Ethan
had not put it back, so I mistakenly put it with recip saw stuff and gave it
back to L. Then I slammed my head into a
corner shelf very hard…the day was
just breaking into a million pieces of BAD. I
wanted to cry. I actually did cry
when I hit my head, but I wanted to just scream/cry at how the day was
unfolding. This meant I had to go to Home
Depot for some pilot hole bits and I had to BACK
to L’s gf house to go get my charger.
Fan-frickin-tastic. So off we
went – HD, fill up the tank (it still
almost costs me $40 – how is this
possible??), back to The House. I pulled
in and there was jackass, standing by the garage. I stared at him with an angry look on my face
as L brought me the stuff. “BE careful…” he said.
I had texted him about what I did.
“I suck backing up” “No, you just
suck backing up fast.” I think still worries about me. He doesn’t realize what a badass I am.
Ethan and I got busy
- that boy blew me away. He was
completely comfortable and skilled with the drill and we had the dog house
framed in no time. He and I had such a
fun time putting the doghouse together and I was so impressed with him…he is a
natural – he was able to see things that I couldn’t in terms of layout (ok, ok,
my left brain really isn’t helpful to me at all…). I’d
day we had the house completed in about 2 and
half hours. The dogs were in and
out of it as we built it, too. Ethan insisted
Maggie come out and that we all hold on to the drill as he screwed in the final
screw, then he wrote “Built by Ethan, Ali and Maggie”. “But I didn’t build it!” said Mags…”Yes, you
did! You helped put in the final screw!” We all sat around the fire for about an hour
when the rain slowly started, building up to a steady rain within ten
minutes. What an incredible experience. Now, my Maggie is her room, looking at her
Kindle, my boy is in the kitchen, scouring the Mac for speakers or super-rad
airsoft guns…. “We’re going to bed
soon! It’s almost 1!!!” I yell, as I
heat my broken body with a rice sock.
Oh, these days…<smile>
Pictures: The beautiful sunset-popcorn-cloud sky I wouldn't have ever seen if I hadn't gone back to That House; The results of our building!! Well, mostly Ethan....<proud mama>; Celebration fire
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