This is fresh. Like, tonight.
This is kinda stupid to explain, but quite a while back, I rearranged landscaping rock by shoveling it under the back deck. This turned out to be a Very Bad Idea, because there was a cold air return to the crawl space that was nestled under the boards of the back deck, and when it rained hard, the water now had no place to go, thanks to this new pile of landscape rock in the way, and a bunch of it (the water) went through the cold air return, which went into the crawl space, and then cascaded down into the finished basement, where we suddenly had the dreaded Water Intrusion (politically correct term for "flood").
I'm no engineer. Who knew that moving rock could do that?
So I then unbolted the deck, shoveled out a bunch of the landscape rock, and it made it better, but we still ended up with Dreaded Water Intrusion one night. Sigh. (And just so you know, "Sigh" doesn't begin to cover the mostly sleepless night and fans and towels and water vac and general PITA factor that results.)
So I had this big ol' tarp which I would sometimes use to cover Grandma's van floor when we made the occasional dump run, and I decided to take the tarp out to the back deck to cover it when weather threatened, and maybe that bad ol' rainwater would run off the tarp and get diverted away from the deck.
All that is a backdrop, or one of them, to tonight.
We just replaced our furnace, which is a whole 'nother story, but it was warm in the house tonight, and we hadn't yet mastered the new smart thermostat. In my old age, my legs can weirdly get hot, and lemme tell you, after watching tonight's chapter of "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History" and FDR's battle with polio, I'm just happy that my legs are as functional as they are.
But I digress.
My legs were hot, and it's our house and our space, so I told Grandma that I was taking off my pants, and it was a pleasant surprise that she didn't object. However, after viewing more "Roosevelt" and a glass of wine later, she looked out and remarked that my tarp had wandered, due to the wind, from the deck to the back yard. She said I ought to take it back to where it belonged.
I said, "I'll do that, but I don't have pants on." She said, "Well, take the dog. There might be raccoons out there."
?????????????
Well, I've been married for four decades, and I've learned to pick my challenges, and this was not one of them. But I wondered about some pervert raccoon who would be focused on an aging human male, without pants, to pick on. I mean, is there some previously unknown species of raccoon out there with an affinity to human bare leg flesh?
So I turned off all the house lights that might shine on and illuminate me to the public, just in case the neighbors would look outside for the entertainment value of an old guy with shirt, boxer briefs, and no pants, although I was pretty sure they would wind up vomiting soon after registering the sight on their neurons. I called the dog, and she followed me out the back porch door, until I picked up the tarp, at which point she was bored out of her skull, and she went back inside, leaving me to the tender mercies of the Raccoons Who Attacked Aged Male Bare Legs.
I got the tarp back where it needed to be. No raccoons. No dog. No neighbors peering out of their windows (as far as I know) to watch me prancing around in shirt, socks, and boxer briefs.
But my heart was in my throat the whole time.
This is kinda stupid to explain, but quite a while back, I rearranged landscaping rock by shoveling it under the back deck. This turned out to be a Very Bad Idea, because there was a cold air return to the crawl space that was nestled under the boards of the back deck, and when it rained hard, the water now had no place to go, thanks to this new pile of landscape rock in the way, and a bunch of it (the water) went through the cold air return, which went into the crawl space, and then cascaded down into the finished basement, where we suddenly had the dreaded Water Intrusion (politically correct term for "flood").
I'm no engineer. Who knew that moving rock could do that?
So I then unbolted the deck, shoveled out a bunch of the landscape rock, and it made it better, but we still ended up with Dreaded Water Intrusion one night. Sigh. (And just so you know, "Sigh" doesn't begin to cover the mostly sleepless night and fans and towels and water vac and general PITA factor that results.)
So I had this big ol' tarp which I would sometimes use to cover Grandma's van floor when we made the occasional dump run, and I decided to take the tarp out to the back deck to cover it when weather threatened, and maybe that bad ol' rainwater would run off the tarp and get diverted away from the deck.
All that is a backdrop, or one of them, to tonight.
We just replaced our furnace, which is a whole 'nother story, but it was warm in the house tonight, and we hadn't yet mastered the new smart thermostat. In my old age, my legs can weirdly get hot, and lemme tell you, after watching tonight's chapter of "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History" and FDR's battle with polio, I'm just happy that my legs are as functional as they are.
But I digress.
My legs were hot, and it's our house and our space, so I told Grandma that I was taking off my pants, and it was a pleasant surprise that she didn't object. However, after viewing more "Roosevelt" and a glass of wine later, she looked out and remarked that my tarp had wandered, due to the wind, from the deck to the back yard. She said I ought to take it back to where it belonged.
I said, "I'll do that, but I don't have pants on." She said, "Well, take the dog. There might be raccoons out there."
?????????????
Well, I've been married for four decades, and I've learned to pick my challenges, and this was not one of them. But I wondered about some pervert raccoon who would be focused on an aging human male, without pants, to pick on. I mean, is there some previously unknown species of raccoon out there with an affinity to human bare leg flesh?
So I turned off all the house lights that might shine on and illuminate me to the public, just in case the neighbors would look outside for the entertainment value of an old guy with shirt, boxer briefs, and no pants, although I was pretty sure they would wind up vomiting soon after registering the sight on their neurons. I called the dog, and she followed me out the back porch door, until I picked up the tarp, at which point she was bored out of her skull, and she went back inside, leaving me to the tender mercies of the Raccoons Who Attacked Aged Male Bare Legs.
I got the tarp back where it needed to be. No raccoons. No dog. No neighbors peering out of their windows (as far as I know) to watch me prancing around in shirt, socks, and boxer briefs.
But my heart was in my throat the whole time.