Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009 Hung Part II So on Thursday, I had a big old chunk of new drywall hanging from my bathroom ceiling. On Friday, it rained. That night, just for fun, I pressed my finger against the spot at the top of the upstairs bathroom wall where it used to get soft every time it rained, just to see that my roof repair job was holding up. Like it had the last time it had rained. My finger went right through. And I'd thought this was going to be fun? Tracing the path of the stream along the slope of the ceiling that the guy with the infrared camera had shown me, it didn't feel wet, but there were a couple of nail holes under the surface that had gotten pretty mushy. I told myself it wasn't that bad. That this was just a minor leak, compared to what had been happening before. That maybe this was something we could live with. Then I went downstairs to look at the ceiling in progress. That giant piece of drywall that Trash and I had wrestled into place just the day before? Was wet. You know that bit in The Empire Strikes Back where Luke wails, "No! That's not true! That's impossible!" That's pretty much what I did. Seriously, I was beyond discouraged. Here I'd been congratulating myself on keeping this project on schedule, and now, with three weeks to the target date, I was back where I'd been a month ago. I told Trash, and she wasn't nearly as upset as I was. "We could move," she suggested. As mad as I was at myself for blowing this, she just wouldn't help me gang up on me. She's so disloyal sometimes. But as much as I wanted to continue the Episode V parallel by throwing myself from a great height (preferably my leaky-ass roof), what I did instead was reach out to my father (who has never once cut off my hand). Again, he came to the rescue, driving in the next day after everything had dried off, climbing up on that roof, and actually getting under the shingles to plug up spots I'd missed on my first trip up there the previous month. And then, if that weren't enough, he helped me put up the second piece of sheetrock in the bathroom. Which unfortunately didn't fit as well as the first, so the lightness of it was easily outweighed by all the trimming we had to do to make it fit. Now, I know what you're thinking. Why finish putting up the ceiling when we still weren't sure if it would still be dry after the next rain? Well, as Dad said, the wet ceiling downstairs wasn't the cause, but a symptom. The wetness I'd spotted the night before, as much as it rent my heart in two when I'd first seen it, had really only affected the very edge of the new ceiling, well within the area the new crown molding would hide, so it didn't need to be replaced. And since it's in a bathroom, it's moisture and mold-resistant anyway, so bonus! Just don't, you know, make it permanent yet. So I decided to hold off on the taping and mudding and priming and painting and crown molding installation and crown molding priming and crown molding painting. I could do all that the morning of the party anyway. Sunday it rained again, first in the afternoon and then all night. Monday morning, every place inside that had been wet two days before was bone-dry. I called my dad to let him know his patch job had held up, and to thank him for his help. I may have also considered offering to join him and rule the galaxy together, or that might have just been in my head.  
posted by M. Giant
6:00 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Three cheers for Dad!
By My parents have often rescued me in parallel situations. They kind of like to, I think, so I'm sure your dad was glad to help. Good for you!
By 
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