Monday, November 27, 2006
Painting the basement floor
Needed a simple printout from Social Security; since there's an office up the street I take my chances there rather than requesting it online. Take a number, wait a few minutes, get called to the window, present my card (an original from the 60s). The system prints it out almost immediately but I have to wait my turn for someone to come out, call my name, & hand it to me. That wait is the gamble. Today, the whole deal took under 30 minutes. But if you have a real problem you better be prepared to spend some time in the waiting area with portraits of Bush & Cheney staring at you - a silly grin on Bush's face & a smirk on Cheney's, poorly touched up photos; screw you, let's privatize. Our Leaders. Seemed peculiar that the Vice President was there, but then, he's the boss. Hardly anyone had brought something to read.
A guy around corner hanging holiday lights on his house yesterday afternoon, had a ladder extended to the roof peak. More than I'd ever do. I don't like exposed heights. When my dad ordered me to paint the eaves on the house, I flat out refused, which so infuriated him that he made me paint the basement floor instead. He thought it was punishment, not being out in all that fresh damned air & sun damned shine. There I was, down in the cool basement on a few hot July days, rock & roll on the radio; a friend or two hanging out as I worked, I couldn't pull the classic Tom Sawyer picket fence scam on them. I remembered my older brother on a rickety wooden ladder braced against a 2x4 nailed into the sloping porch roof, precariously balancing himself & dripping sweat as he chipped away at old peeling paint above the little attic window, & that was only the first part of the dangerous job. Not a bad tradeoff, I thought. Of course, I didn't point it out to dad. Maybe I was like Tom Sawyer after all.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
A guy around corner hanging holiday lights on his house yesterday afternoon, had a ladder extended to the roof peak. More than I'd ever do. I don't like exposed heights. When my dad ordered me to paint the eaves on the house, I flat out refused, which so infuriated him that he made me paint the basement floor instead. He thought it was punishment, not being out in all that fresh damned air & sun damned shine. There I was, down in the cool basement on a few hot July days, rock & roll on the radio; a friend or two hanging out as I worked, I couldn't pull the classic Tom Sawyer picket fence scam on them. I remembered my older brother on a rickety wooden ladder braced against a 2x4 nailed into the sloping porch roof, precariously balancing himself & dripping sweat as he chipped away at old peeling paint above the little attic window, & that was only the first part of the dangerous job. Not a bad tradeoff, I thought. Of course, I didn't point it out to dad. Maybe I was like Tom Sawyer after all.
