Carpenters (standard:humor, 1467 words)
Author: Walt	Added: Nov 04 2006	Views/Reads: 3512/2303	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A 5:15 Gang story - The wives plan a trip to Las Vegas . . .

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

only damage was to the pound of bacon and Jerry's reputation. 

Martha said that the only thing John could cook was cold cereal and even
then, their two kids insisted on getting their own breakfast. Penny 
said Big Al preferred not to cook and she was happy with that 
arrangement since Al was helpful around the house with any repairs or 
renovations. 

"Repairs!" Thelma exclaimed. "That Fred is the worst person I know to
ask to fix something!" For some reason, I had thought that Freddie was 
a pretty good handyman, living out there on his farm in the country. "I 
asked Fred to fix the door on the bathroom last week. It was sticking 
and squeaking. I thought it only needed some oil on the hinges, but no, 
Fred said the wood had swelled from the moisture in the bathroom and he 
would have to plane it. He spent the whole weekend trying to fix that 
door!" 

"Gee, Thelma," I said, "Doors are hard to hang . . ." A look from my
wife reminded me that I was to be seen and not heard. 

"First he removed the door and then scratched the paint on the hallway
trying to get the door down to his workshop. Somehow he bent one of the 
hinges and had to go into to town to get another one. It wasn't the 
same size so he had to drill new holes for the screw nails. The holes 
were too big and now the door won't close at all because the top hinge 
is really loose. Now he's going to have to move the hinge down, fill 
the old screw holes with plastic wood and of course, that means we'll 
have to paint the door.  I'm sure all it needed was a little oil." 

"That sounds just like my John," Martha said. This was very
embarrassing, hearing about my friend's failures. "We did our 
recreation room last fall and so help me, I could have done it better 
and faster without John! He said it would be easy to put wood paneling 
halfway up the wall, using half a sheet for each section. Didn't he cut 
them wrong! He tried saying that the floor wasn't level, that the 
pieces of wallboard weren't square  really!" 

"Uh," I said, "I've found that recreation rooms are the hardest to work
on because the floors are hardly ever level . . ." 

Martha and the others ignored my comment. "We ended up having to buy
extra wide trim to make the whole thing presentable. And I put the trim 
on after he went and cut all the angles the same instead of making them 
complementary. It'll be a long time before we tackle anything like that 
again." I felt some sympathy for John since I had that same problem 
once, trying to get two 45 degree pieces to make a square corner. It is 
not as easy as these women were making it out to be. 

"Well Peter admits that he's not much of a carpenter so we usually hire
someone to do that kind of work. But Peter likes to paint," Irene said. 
She went on to tell how Peter had run out of paint and had to pick up 
another quart to finish painting one of their bedrooms. Apparently, the 
lad in the paint store gave him the wrong paint and Pete did not notice 
the subtle shade difference until the whole room was dry. On the second 
try, he had upset his stepladder and it cost them sixty dollars to get 
the rug cleaned. Those things happen, I said to myself. 

Cindy then started a story about how Jerry had tried to fix the plumbing
and had somehow installed a sink that was not level. It cost them a new 
vanity top by the time he was finished and I guess it still drips a 
little. I could see that the story telling was working its way around 
the room and it would be my wife's turn next. There was no way I was 
going to sit through her telling about the time I tried to level the 
legs of a wooden antique table. I excused myself saying that I would go 
and warm the car. 

That damn table still wobbles. 


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