DECK site unscene

 

      CAPTION: "Built it all myself? Well, no! To be fair, the boys helped a lot."    

          Where would MAN, (Archaic generic term for male and female examples of the species Homo Sapien), be without tools? I think for society on whole, life without tools would have us spending our days plucking dandelions out of the front yard.

         On the other hand MAN'S progress can be attributed, to some degree, to keeping tools of any kind out of some MEN'S hands.

        Here we go with:

 

                        ALL HANDS ON DECK

                             Part Seven

        Preparing a deck construction site appears to be a simple procedure if you absorb the instructions. Let's see it says here to square your deck up with the house. What that isn't telling you? There are not very many truly square houses  on the planet. So when you are about to give up finding a match, just move away from the wall ABOUT a foot and try to square it off at that point.

     At each corner of your new boxed in area you drive little stakes into the ground. To those stakes you attach strings all the way around, and voila, you have an official construction site. Typically you'll just want to leave it that way for about a week to build up the courage to move to the next step.

      FIVE DAYS LATER: It's time to get serious. Me and my stepsons Mike and Jeff are chompin' at the bit. The first task this day will be to put in those four by four posts. My take on the task is we just go out and rent a post hole digger, and DIG in. But the rest of the team reminds me the posts are the most important step in the process. They think we should give this step a lot of thought. As it looks like I'm going to protest? They show up with their physics books and a level.

       I know I'm not going to understand any of it, [got a 'D' in physics in high school] so I come up with an escape clause.

         "Well you guys go ahead and figure this out. I've got to go to the John."

         Two crossword puzzles later there is a knock on the bathroom door.

         "I think we've got it."

         "I knew you could do it. I'll be right out."

          I march to the dog run to see it all raked neatly with carefully placed markers denoting the post hole locations. I survey the site with a feigned air of self asssurance. I look at Mike and Jeff and shoot them an "I'm Proud of You" wink.

       "Looks just about right guys."

       Jeff's echo?

       "Looks just about right? It's perfect."

       "Yeah, like you say, perfect."

       What the hell do I know.

       Well, I tenuously venture, "let's go get a post hole digger."

        They are looking at me as if I've just asked where I could park my space ship. They carefully explain to me that when their dad built his award winning deck, he used a GAS POWERED AUGUR to put in his posts.

        Once again, what the hell do I know. So I give them money to go off and rent something called an augur.

         You ever used an augur? Me neither and neither have they.

         You'll want to be here for this augur initiation. See you tommorrow.