Not exactly misspent youthbut what happens when you dont misspend your youth enough and by default grow old enough for things like this to happen. True storyhappened in 2001.

Mona

4F: A Cautionary Tale

I am writing this all down, not so much as to tell a story or simply get this all off my chest (Lord knows, I need to keep what I have), or even earn Top Blogger points, but, rather, as a kind of public service announcement--a warning, if you will, to any other hapless individuals (and as you read, you will know who you are) who may find themselves in a similar situation.

First, I must introduce the characters. Besides myself,

the Innocent Bystander :

there is my husband, whom we will charitably call Leonard , since that is his name and this is a family show:

NOW

(can you pick him out of the line-up?)

and our dog Huckleberry , a lively coonhound/pointer mix of uncertain parentage, quite similar to Leonard, now that I think about it:

Leonard is what some might call a handyman or do-it-yourselfer, but certainly not anyone who has lived with him for 20+ years. When I am being kind, I prefer "procrastinator" and "an accident waiting to happen," if you get my drift. He is a former industrial arts teacher, grandson of a former industrial arts teacher; and is convinced he, and he alone, through the miracle of DNA, can handle any home repair project from plumbing to electricity, sometimes undertaking both tasks at the same time with shocking results. So, it follows that our house is always in some state between torn apart and nearly-but-not-quite finished, and I have 911 on my speed dial.

His current undertaking is kitchen remodeling. By "current,"you need to think in terms of geologic time. I mean this project was started 13 years ago and is now in its third incarnation. He has torn out a wall to open the space between the kitchen and living room, removed the original wallpaper and replaced it with paneling, installed some new cupboards (but never got around to finishing them off or installing the final countertop), removed said cabinets, which are now conveniently and attractively, I might add, stored sideways in the family room, replaced the original linoleum, and as recently as last May began replacing the tiles that had replaced the original linoleum in the early years of this project.

The first time he redid the floor, it went very quickly, a matter of no more than a week at most. Of course, he was 15 years younger and had the help of our teenage son. I was pleasantly surprised. This time around, things are not going so well, an understatement if I ever made one. It seems the years have added pounds and stiffness to my former football player/wrestler:

THEN

His knees are bad. His shoulders are bad. He is limited in what he can accomplish in one squatting. For instance, Labor Day weekend, he managed to lay four squares of new tile. As you can imagine, he was very worn out by this extreme burst of exertion and required heavy doses of football to recover his strength. (Labor Day is in September, mind you. See above for May reference.) I told him by time he finishes with the last tile, it will be time to start over again with the first. He did not find this as pithy as I did. Either that, or he didn't realize I was casting asparagus on his efforts.

Moving right along to October 30, his tools are on the kitchen floor just waiting to have something to do. Here's the process, finessed during weeks of sofa-sitting, picturing it all play out on the insides of his eyelids: In order to loosen the old tiles, he has been using a paint stripper to blow hot air on the tiles to soften the adhesive backing, which makes them easier to lift off the floor. For efficiencys sake, he devised a system whereby he places the paint stripper through a hole he has cut in a cardboard box, which is then placed over the next tile to come off. When the paint stripper is turned on, the hot air is contained inside the box, focusing it on the tile beneath. Once the tile is off, he expeditiously cleans any adhesive residue off the plywood underlayment with paint thinner and/or rubbing alcohol. On paper this seems like a plan:

So the scene is set for our little drama: Box over tile, paint stripper through hole in box and (this is important!) plugged into socket, paint thinner and alcohol nearby on the floor; dog is alone in the house, as husband has exited stage left and is at work and I went out to run an errand.

To be continued.