“The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men, gang aft agley.” – Robert Burns
Despite my best efforts, I’ve not been terribly productive on my first day of vacation. I had planned on using today to finish the hole in Coleman’s ceiling. A series of unexpected events however, had other plans for me. It started with getting up too late (I can’t believe I consider 8:15 “late” now – I was once a champion sleeper, 1:00 in the afternoon and later was not unheard of. Of course, that was 20 years ago. A real job, with insurance, car payments, mortgages, children, therapies, pets, etc… all put a swift end to that. Notice I didn’t say marriage, Laura and I were cut from the same cloth when it comes to sleeping.) Anyway – I had to work a few hours in the morning (I thought this was vacation?) then, I come to find out the sheetrock that I bought was too thin. That meant another trip to the hardware store which would, of course, have to wait until after dinner.
So Julia and I take the truck to Home Depot, where we were promptly ignored by two clerks helping one person at the customer service desk. All I had was a simple question. When I finally got a chance to ask it, they couldn’t answer it and didn’t offer to find someone who could. Sigh. So we left and drove straight to Lowe’s, where we were greeted (in the parking lot!) and offered help immediately. Unfortunately, Lowe’s is a bit further away, but I think I will go to Lowe’s whenever possible.
It wasn’t all drudgery though, when we entered Lowe’s, a most unexpected sight awaited us. The Big Man himself was walking away from the register with his Lowe’s bag in hand. Surely the elves needed more nails in the workshop? He was wearing regular pants and a stylish red Gore-tex & fleece jacket. But there was no mistaking the belly, the full white beard and the genuine Santa hat. After Julia picked her jaw up off the floor, she was rendered speechless and was literally bouncing up and down off the floor with a grin from ear to ear. Then he stopped and took the time to talk to Julia, asked her what she wanted and wished us well. We didn’t think to check for the sleigh in the parking lot (do you suppose loose shopping carts run into the reindeer?)
So we bought the new drywall – this is 5/8″ inch drywall that would probably stop small caliber firearms and therefore, quite heavy. While Julia sat in the nice warm truck, I struggled with 125 pounds of drywall in 25 mph gusts in 32 degree weather. Finally got the drywall off the little cart and into the truck (that always has a bum wheel) and headed home.
After I got home and delivered the promised dessert and started bath time, I sat down to check my e-mail for just a moment. That was when I knew it.
“You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment when you know you just aren’t going to do anything productive for the rest of the day”
I hit that point at about 9:30 tonight. Not too bad, I suppose…