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9:23 a.m. - 04-08-2003
Pools, Ponds and I got whacked.
"I will fong you...pain. A lot of pain."
I hurt. I hurt bad. And it's all the wife's fault. Yes, that's it. It's the wife's fault. Lemme 'splain.
The wife's been working on a little pond/water garden for the past few weeks. Basically, it's a little plastic kiddie pool that she's got various water plants in and has added a neat little fountain. It's cool. Well, a while back, she spotted a 35 gallon pond kit at K-Mart and decided that she wanted to move up from the kiddie pool. We went yesterday to get it. No big deal. Of course, nothing we do can go right, right?
I didn't think about it until we got to the store, but the box for this pond was not going to fit in our car. We have a tiny little Ford Festiva and they weren't built for cargo. What do we do? Well, I had a brainstorm. We take out the child seat, lay the back seat down and slide the box in that way. The wife holds Icebear Jr. in her lap and we carefully drive home using the back streets, to avoid police and traffic. It's only about a 5 minute drive. Ok, let's do it.
The wife pays for the pond and I lug the box out to the car...good thing I parked close. It wasn't really that heavy, anyway, it's just a big piece of molded plastic. It was more awkward than heavy. Well, we get to the car and I pop the hatchback while the wife unlocks the doors and takes out the car seat, then lays down the back seat. I lift the box and slide it in and it just fits between the hooks for the back seat. Perfect. But, the box is just a bit too long. Oh well, that's what bungee cords are for, right?
About a month ago, we got a few items at Home Despot that wouldn't fit into our car so I bought a container of bungee cords. There are 3 of them and they're 36" long. We used them to hold down the hatchback and have used them many times since. Well, I snag the cord that's free and begin to hook it up. Now, unfortunately, the hatchback on this car wasn't really designed with this kind of shit in mind. Meaning, there aren't any hooks or really any place at all to hook a bungee cord. What I ended up doing is kind of "McGuyvering" the thing. There are 2 plastic "latches" that hold the cover panel for the "trunk area" in place. These are pretty sturdy so I slide the cord into one of these and then stretch the hooks on either end underneath the car and hook them to the frame. With 36" of stretchy cord to work with, I ususally have enough to get them both hooked into good, sturdy places. Usually.
Yesterday, I've got the cord afixed to the "latch" and am pulling on the ends to get them underneath the car. Meanwhile, the wife is pushing on the hatchback to give me a bit more slack. Now, if I was smart, what I would have done was, hook one of the hooks and then taken the other one, reeled in the slack and hooked that one. But no, I'm not smart. I'm bloody fuckin' stupid. What I do is hold both hooks in one hand and start tugging as I go down to my knees to get under the car. Underneath the back of the car, about 6 inches is a piece of the frame that has a bracket or something that's got an oval hole in it. I think it's for hooking on a tow bar or something, but I don't care. It works great for the bungee cords and this is where I plan to hook them. Now, if I'd done this the way I said I should have, I could have easily hooked the first one through the hole, then drawn in the tension with the second one and hooked it and we'd be sound. But, like I said. I'm not smart and I never do things the way I should.
While tugging on both hooks, I manage to finagle one onto the bracket, but I don't have the hook through the hole, it's just hooked around the edge of the bracket. Well, I tell myself, this won't do. I'd better undo it and hook them one at a time. See, I do figure things out, but usually it's after I really needed to...like now. Not thinking, I'm still applying tension with the second hook while I'm trying to unhook the first one. I should have just let the second one go, releasing the tension and then unfastened the first one, but again, I'm stupid. Just as I think I've got a good grip on the first hook, it slips and before I can even realize what's happening...THWACK!!
The hook, luckily made of a very solid, hard plastic instead of metal, comes zinging out from under the car at about 100 mph and nails me on the right side of my chest, about 4 inches to the right of my neck and about 6 inches down from my shoulder. My whole right arm goes numb for about 10 seconds and my throat constricts a little bit, making it kind of hard to breathe. "Fuck! Goddamn it!" Hey, it hurt, I'm allowed. The wife, knowing I'm in a lot of pain and rather pissed (I'm sure I turned blood red) just backs away and stands next to Icebear Jr. That's fucking it. Moving back to the rear of the car, I toss the bungee cord inside and grab the hatchback and slam it down on the end of the box, latching it shut. The wife piles into the car with Icebear Jr. and we head home in a quite aura of anger.
The bad part about where it hit was that it's right on my pectoral muscle, so when I use my right arm for anything it fuckin' hurts. I don't have a bruise, but I'm sure I will. All I have right now is a nice reddish pink hook mark emblazoned on my chest. It still hurts, but not as bad as when it first happened. And all this so the wife could have another fuckin' pond. She told me yesterday that I spoil her and I have to admit, I think she's right.
I do have to admit, though, that she did do something pretty cool with it. The pond we got is meant to be put in the ground, but we didn't dig a hole for it because we're renting and we don't want to go to the trouble for it if we're going to move anyway. So, realizing that the new pond was taller than the kiddie pool, she had a brainstorm. She put the new pond next to the kiddie pool pond with one end hanging over the kiddie pool. She then hooked a hose to the fountain pump in the kiddie pool and ran it to a little fish fountian that she had and put that in the new pond. Now, the fish fountain "spits" water into the new pond and that water runs over the edge and into the kiddie pool pond. It's rather cool. Once she gets more flowers and stuff into it, I think it's going to look pretty cool. I'll try to get a photo or two of it up when I can.
Well, I have to go. I've got to call a guy about a house. There's a house right across the street from MonkeyBoy's school that's for sale. It's a 5 BR/2 bath house with a great back yard and a cool screened in porch in back. It's a HUD home so that means, I think, that we'll have to bid on it and we really want to get this house. We've got a number for a realtor, or something, who's selling it, I guess, and I need to call him and see about getting the ball rolling. Wish us luck.
