Hero to Zero in One Second

The house is eerily quiet right now when in reality Mark should be storming around, squealing about what an asshole I am, and bitching that I never can do anything right. He would have a point there. My projects always seem to go a wee bit awry, no matter how hard I try to do them correctly. Today's project was the repair of the deck out back. When I replaced the thing a couple of summers ago, I neglected to replace the small apron that spanned the gap between the main deck and the concrete pool deck. Naturally that has now rotted out, and after stepping through the rotted boards on my way out to the laundry room, I realized I had better fix it before one of my tenants broke a leg and sued me. So, armed with my circular saw, a drill, and a Diet Coke, I tackled that project.

Just the fact that there was a circular saw involved meant that there could eventually be some drama, but this time it seemed that all would turn out well. I had measured every board, and executed each cut with amazing precision. As I laid out the new section of the deck, it became apparent that this was going to turn out to be one of the finest jobs I had ever done. Each board fit perfectly, right down to the last one. As I stood back and admired my work Mark came out and started gushing, "Wow! That's great, you really did a nice job this time, but I do hope you will fill in that one little gap at the end.".
Of course I would. I got down and measured out exactly what I needed, three inches by twenty seven.
"Come over here and help me cut this board Mark. I'll just lay it out on the bar here, and you hold it steady."
I slowly moved the saw across the piece of wood, saw dust flying, Mark flinching. Then I hit something that kind of slowed the saw down, so I stopped and backed it off. Here's a little lesson for all of you, don't ever use a glass top table or bar to cut something with a circular saw. What I had hit was the frame to the glass top. In slow motion, the whole top of the bar fractured into tiny fragments, hovered in mid air for about a nanosecond, and then fell to the ground. With one loud squeal, Mark turned and stomped off into the house. Mark loved that bar. He had picked it up for fifty dollars, marked down from three hundred, and when Mark gets a bargain like that it's the same as a hit of heroin to an addict. So like I said, it's much too quiet, and I am waiting for the storm to hit. I know he's sitting in the bedroom seething. There is just one thing though, I never did like that stupid bar. I didn't destroy it on purpose, but now that it is destroyed I am not sorry.

It's so damn quiet though.