Logo

 

You Don't Have To Sin To Go To Hell, You Can Actually Drive There

Instead of Christmas and birthday presents several years ago, Derita's mother Juanita asked us to help do a few "little" things around her house. So there we were, Derita and I, Spencer, Derita's brother Tony and Big Ben, Tony's friend, at Juanita's at 7:30 Saturday morning. On Memorial Day weekend. Getting ready to lay ceramic tile. Spencer and I were working in the utility room and Tony and Ben were laying tile in the bedroom. Derita and Juanita were talking. Imagine that. I learned that my back was no match for the backer board we were cutting. Ah the pain, the pain. The rest of the day I hobbled around, all bent over, the knuckles of one hand dragging the ground. I didn't even have to turn my head to look over my shoulder. Spencer and I had finished in the utility room and I was helping Tony and Ben clean tiles in the bedroom when Juanita came in and asked if I would check the water in her hot tub. Now this was about the 3rd or 4th time she or Derita had asked one of us to stop what we were doing and do something else. And not 30 minutes before Juanita said she never used her hot tub. I had to ask myself, why would you want to check the water if you never used it, and why now when I'm on my knees, sweat dripping off my face and pooling on the tiles? Anyway, I crawled over to the dressing table, pulled myself up to a reasonably erect position (remember my back?), and shuffled off to the deck. In a snit I opened the cover, turned on the jets, opened the cabinet and grabbed several bottles of chemicals and dumped about half of each in the water, threw in a test strip, and told Juanita "If  the flesh doesn't melt off your bones within 5 minutes, the water is fine". I  turned off the jets, closed the cover and crab-walked back to the bedroom to finish cleaning the tiles.

About 15 minutes later here they came. Again. "Can you mix paint for us? Mother and I want to paint the utility room", Derita said. "Now?" I asked. "Yes". Big sigh. I threw down the sponge, crawled over to the dressing table, pulled myself up and hobbled outside to mix the paint. A few minutes later Derita came outside, walked over and said, "You're going to be real upset". I just stared at her and in my mind I heard the crash of thunder. "Why", I asked. She says, " I was vacuuming the bedroom and the vacuum pulled up the grout". Sweet baby Jesus, I'm doomed. Will this day never end? I used a support beam to stand up, shuffled back to the bedroom, closed the door, and locked myself in. More importantly, I locked them out. I reapplied the grout and cleaned everything again. I gathered my tools, sneaked out of the house without being seen, loaded up my little truck, turned off my cell phone and got the hell out of Dodge.

8:30 Sunday morning: Juanita called. All the grout is coming up.....

 

Copyright 2011 - 2017
All Rights Reserved