There are roughly seven billion humans on this planet, and I would wager that the number of them who have injured themselves with a hammer while performing gardening chores is pretty doggone low. But that number grew by one recently.
See, here's the thing: I'm not particularly handy. Many's the time I've attempted to fix something around the house and wound up causing a power outage in parts of Cleveland. And I don't even live anywhere near Cleveland.
But somehow, I always forget this failing the next time a project crops up, and the merry-go-round cranks up again, and people in Forest Hills and Buckeye - Shaker wind up sitting in the dark, missing the latest episode of Game of Thrones.
Such was the case a couple of weeks ago. We have a climbing vine of some sort outside our house, which has been there for several years. True to its nature, it has climbed, and thoroughly overwhelmed the trellis we had thoughtfully provided for it. Long ago, it reached the top of the trellis and then slumped downward again, as though exhausted and depressed. It looked like some sort of morose, leafy green waterfall.
My lovely and talented wife Kristin noticed it a few days ago, and suggested cutting down the vine.
"Nonsense!" I said. "That vine is healthy as a horse. All it needs is more support. Let's get another trellis and mount it on the wall above that one so it can continue to grow."
So we motored cheerfully to our local Lowe's. There I bought a new trellis that was roughly the same color as the one the vine had swallowed, although this one was rectangular, rather than fan-shaped. I took it home and began assembling the tools I needed to mount the new trellis to the brick wall above the vine.
"Are you sure you can do this?" Kristin asked. Her tone was dubious.
"Not a problem," I said, in a much deeper voice than I normally use. "I'm going to drill holes in the bricks using my masonry drill bit, then insert some plastic screw anchors and screw the new trellis in. No worries. I'll be done in 20 minutes."
"Okay," she said, then went inside to call Cleveland and alert them.
Roughly 90 minutes later, she came back outside with a tall glass of Milo's sweet tea. I was on my eight-foot stepladder, softly yet steadily swearing at the bricks as I attempted to drill the holes.
"Good news!" she said. "Cleveland reports that the Indians and the Cavaliers are both playing on the road tonight, so if the power goes out it won't affect the games. How's the project coming?"
I had drilled two of the four holes I needed for the screw anchors, and was working on the third. "This would go a lot faster if you would let me get a hammer drill, instead of this puny little regular drill," I complained. "I'd be done by now."
"Honey, the last time my father let you borrow his hammer drill, you accidentally hit a water pipe and drained the city pool," she reminded me. "There are eight separate municipal ordinances that prohibit you from getting within 31 feet of another hammer drill."
"Fine, whatever, I'm almost done, just leave me alone," I muttered. She tactfully withdrew, and I finished drilling the third hole before taking a break.
While I was sipping the Milo's tea (which is proof that God exists and wants us to be happy), I decided to stop drilling into the adamantium-and-Valyrian-steel bricks for a few minutes, and install the screw anchors into the holes I'd made. So I got my trusty hammer, and my ever-faithful plastic screw anchors, and climbed back up the stepladder.
The first anchor went right into the hole, with only a couple of taps. Progress! Hallelujah! The end of this blasted project was in sight. The second anchor went in, although it was a bit of a struggle -- I hadn't drilled that hole quite as straight as the first one.
The third hole was at a different spot on the wall, and I needed to move my stepladder to get to it. So I put the hammer aside, carefully climbed down the stepladder, and started to reposition it.
And the hammer, which I had laid across the top of the stepladder and forgotten in the length of time it took me to climb down, promptly fell off and hit me on the head.
Because I'm a guy, my first thought wasn't "How badly am I hurt?" or "What just hit me?" No, it was "I hope nobody saw that." I took a quick look around, but fortunately only one of my neighbors was outside, and I know he couldn't have seen me, because he was doubled over in his front yard laughing about something.
I picked up the hammer, checked my head for blood, and then finished the rest of the project fairly quickly -- by which I mean, before the heat death of the universe. Then I went inside to put ice on my head and listen to my wife field angry phone calls from media outlets and municipal officials in Cleveland.
Yesterday, once the swelling on my head went down, I walked around the corner of the house to admire my handiwork.
The vine is dying.
(c) 2015 John Puckett
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