Ferg’sworld Japes and ladders
DIY Don
Some folks are simply not suited to home improvements or indeed maintenance, it is a complete anathema to them. ‘Some men are born stupid and some have stupidity thrust upon them’, might well be the maxim.
My old mucker Don recently took a week’s holiday to decorate his house, as indeed many folk do. He began what was to become a Herculean task on the Sunday, obviously to get a head start on the week. All went swimmingly for the first hour and he managed to coat quite a bit of the room he was working in. Whilst at the top of the steps he heard a ping and felt a slight movement in the steps. Looking down he espied a setscrew twirling around on the floor. Not thinking too much of it he continued with his rolling. The second ping pre-empted the parting of the steps, the legs moving rapidly in opposite directions. Their behaviour was aided by the plastic sheet he had placed on the floor to protect it. Don was at the apogee of his reach when he plummeted earthward reaching the floor with an almighty clatter and leaving a perfect stripe of paint on the wall. The only thought during his descent was ‘oh dear this is going to hurt’, and on this occasion he was quite correct.
Ladders, be they of the step variety or the normal straight ones with rungs, seem to dominate Don’s domestic mishaps. In another house the poor fellow was rolling the insulation along as he fitted the boards to a sun lounge ceiling. Climbing up into the roof he began tucking the insulation in when fate took a hand. Don had failed to notice the nail protruding from the top of one of the joists. He had in fact nailed it in himself at the start of the job to attach a line to ensure the boarding was straight. His foot caught the nail in mid step and he was propelled across the loft toward the open hatch. His first three steps landed on joists but momentum affected his judgement. Consequently he left the roof space rather more quickly than he had entered it. This in itself might not have been such a problem if it had been through the hatch. Unfortunately he went straight through the newly completed ceiling. Unbeknown to Don, his wife had begun to move furniture into the room and a cane chair halted his descent. Needless to say he went straight through it. It was not the best result for his labours and certainly not what he had planned. I understand the bruises healed quickly which was no doubt a relief for him.
The daftest incident occurred when Don decided to program his
burglar alarm after several libations. Normally this simple operation would not have been a problem for the average fellow but he did not have the code for the alarm. Everyone knows that you cannot re-program the alarm number without the code. To be fair, Don had only lived in the house for a short while before undertaking this task. Within seconds of his assault on the keypad we discovered that the alarm was in full working order. With the instruction manual in one hand, Don continued to pump random numbers in an ever more desperate fashion.
These ministrations ended with a punch and one or two choice curses. His alcohol-induced supreme confidence had taken something of a bashing and the look of complete and utter disbelief he wore as he returned to his gin on the table was something to behold. Naturally I had to get up and have a few dabs at the keypad myself, as indeed any chap would. Of course I faired no better than my unfortunate friend.
After twenty minutes of attempting to hold a conversation whilst the internal siren sounded, the hapless fellow decided that enough was enough. He removed the correct fuse and the back up battery; this silenced the wail within the house. However the external alarm continued to make its presence known. He tried to get at the bally thing from his bedroom window, alas to no avail. We both went outside and gazed upwards at the offending box from which the noise was horrendous. “We need a ladder”, said Don.
"I’ve got one on the stairs, I’ll pop over and get it”, I replied. I staggered across the road and got the ladder but it was too short, probably because I had cut several feet off the top so that I could get it around the top of the stairwell. "It's OK Don, I have the bit I cut off, it is on the landing, you get the gaffer tape and I'll go and find it", I shouted. We taped the off-cut to the rest of the ladder but alas we were still a couple of feet short. Don went back into the house and brought out a chair. With the ladder on top of the chair he was able to reach the alarm box.
After some considerable time he managed to remove the outer box, but could not stop the wailing banshee above him. Meanwhile I was bracing the ladder and trying to take some of the weight off it from the chair.
"I have had enough of this", he said. Don climbed down the ladder, took up a length of wood and with a mighty shove he knocked the box from the wall. The noise ceased immediately, though it took several snifters before the ringing in my ears abated. We congratulated ourselves on a job well done and went back inside to continue our celebrations. I have never been keen on DIY and now I know why, it ought to stand for ‘Destroy It Yourself’. Goodnight
The ROAD 61
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84