NOT My True Calling

It pains me to say it (really, I am actually in pain right now), but I think that becoming a manual laborer is not for me.

Yesterday I had grand plans to polyurethane the new dining room chairs and sand the drywall joins in the chicken coop (which I mudded, oh, last July). I put on my work clothes, and then... What did I do instead? I read Twilight. All of it.

So the grand plans got switched to today. After a few errands this morning, a late breakfast, and of course the crossword puzzle (I can't really do anything until that is out of the way... it being Thursday it took a little time to get it out of the way), I got down to work. First order of business, sanding the six chairs. (First find the sandpaper. Dickie said it was right here. Oh, here's the box. Empty. Expletive #1 of the day.) That done, I then got out the foam brushes. (This one won't even fit in the can of poly. Expletive #2.) Vaguely appropriately sized brush in hand I got to work. Drip, drip, splotch, and, somehow, a small white imprint of probably my elbow in the middle of the seat (Expletive #3), and the first chair was finished. The problem is that my skill level does not match my perfectionism. Sigh. Chair Two was a bit better, although, inevitably, I did end up getting poly on my forehead (Expletive #4).

I decided to let the chairs dry for a bit to see how they looked before I mauled the next four, so I got Dickie's plastering bucket and off I headed to the chicken coop (a two storey outbuilding that various members of the family have been working on fixing up for about the last decade. Drywalling started 5 years ago, and I am almost done with it). All I needed to do was sand the ceiling downstairs, then I could vacuum it all (LOTS of spiders and webs in there, as well as all the drywall dust), and then start on the second (and last, so help me god) layer of mud.

So I started to sand above my head, a fine, white powder flying everywhere and getting into every orifice (Expletives #5-25). I lasted about 15 minutes, finishing only half the room, before storming out in a billowy huff. I seem to have used about seven times as much mud on the first layer as necessary, and now it all needs to be sanded off. Clearly, the only thing that I know about drywalling is that it is worth paying someone else to do it.

But these aren't the only experiences that have hinted that maybe I'm not meant for a blue collar. The most dangerous thing I have to contend with in the classroom is sniffing too many markers. (One day I collected my kids from art class, and the teacher told me that they had been using permanent markers. My normally rambunctious class was basically silent and stoned.) With Dickie I've hit my thumb with hammers, kicked a saw blade, worried about falling off a room, and wrestled with various power tools (always wearing my safety glasses!).

A couple of weeks ago I was helping my brother (and his crew of three men in their 50s) build a 'shed'. (If anyone asks, it is a shed. Don't mind the fact that it is two storeys, has a shower, and costs more than some houses. According to zoning regulations, it is a shed. I think they are going to put a rake in it, for good measure.) I thrive on human interaction, so I was happy to be busy (more sanding, but not drywall) and have other people around. When I worked at school, I loved hanging out and talking with coworkers. We talked about all sorts of things. But here's a conversation I never had with them:

Ray: Do you want to see pictures of my (soon to be ex-)wife with her moose?
Me: Sure. Look at a little collection of photos of woman in camouflage, holding shotgun, standing next to gigantic moose on a hook. Other pictures of her next to wild (dead) boar. Wonder why he would leave her.
Rod: That's a nice crossbow you got there.
Bob: I shot a deer last year with a [blah, blah, blah, it is all Greek to me].

I have to say that I truly respect the fact that these guys can feed themselves rather than relying upon meat which comes conveniently anonymous and divided into little packages, but I'm just not quite used to conversations about various sorts of weaponry and tactics used to kill things.

Although earlier in the summer, when walking through Home Depot with Dickie, I, unemployed, suggested to him that I get a job there, he said, Sure, you're surly enough, (Um, Dickie, the adjective you were looking for is burly), I think I may just not be cut out for this.

Except for the week of trail clearing I'll be doing next week on an island in Maine, and the week of work I'll be doing later in the month with my friend in New York, that is. Then I'll get the iron out and start working on starching my white collars.