Once More Into the Breech
Sometimes it seems the only idle time in my life occurs at airports. I would hazard that ninety percent of my postings on this blog have been written in airport waiting areas. A few were even about airport waiting areas. This is the lowest form of introspection and humor. I’m not alone in this indulgence by any stretch. Comics and writers great and small spend so much of their lives traveling they are forced to write on the road and inevitably you end up with a lot of train, plane, and automobile jokes with some motel humor thrown in. Motel humor is my day job so I try to avoid it otherwise.
But I’m not going to write about sitting in the Washington/Dulles airport waiting for my delayed flight to Norfolk to do a WWDTM taping tomorrow night. I will tell you instead why I have posted so seldom as of late. Or perhaps it would be better to show you.
This is what’s left of our kitchen. We paid a crew of very talented young tradesmen to tear it to pieces and put it back together again in a different order. I’m playing the part of general contractor on the job, which means not only that I have to pay for everything, but I also have to figure out what everything is that I’m supposed to pay for and make sure it or he or she shows up when it or he or she is supposed to. Long ago and far away I did this sort of work everyday. For ten years. Let me tell you, it’s not like riding a bike. It’s more like solving quadratic equations. In other words, use it or lose it. Most days I feel like I’m solving some sinister Rubik’s Cube that changes colors as I go and bites me at every wrong move. Then while I sleep it arranges itself back the way it was.
The good news is that construction technology has come a long way since I tried to make a living at it. Cordless tools, high-tech plywood and weather seals, laser levels. If they’d had this stuff twenty years ago I might still be doing it. But, based on the frustrations and confusions of building that have not been improved upon, I probably wouldn’t be celebrating 16 years of sobriety if I was.
But I’m not going to write about sitting in the Washington/Dulles airport waiting for my delayed flight to Norfolk to do a WWDTM taping tomorrow night. I will tell you instead why I have posted so seldom as of late. Or perhaps it would be better to show you.
This is what’s left of our kitchen. We paid a crew of very talented young tradesmen to tear it to pieces and put it back together again in a different order. I’m playing the part of general contractor on the job, which means not only that I have to pay for everything, but I also have to figure out what everything is that I’m supposed to pay for and make sure it or he or she shows up when it or he or she is supposed to. Long ago and far away I did this sort of work everyday. For ten years. Let me tell you, it’s not like riding a bike. It’s more like solving quadratic equations. In other words, use it or lose it. Most days I feel like I’m solving some sinister Rubik’s Cube that changes colors as I go and bites me at every wrong move. Then while I sleep it arranges itself back the way it was.
The good news is that construction technology has come a long way since I tried to make a living at it. Cordless tools, high-tech plywood and weather seals, laser levels. If they’d had this stuff twenty years ago I might still be doing it. But, based on the frustrations and confusions of building that have not been improved upon, I probably wouldn’t be celebrating 16 years of sobriety if I was.
posted by Tom Bodett at 10:09 AM
4 Comments:
Tom,
It is always a pleasure to hear you on WWDTM and it was even better when I went to my first WWDTM taping in VA Beach and saw you were on the panel. An evening for me to remember. Thank you.
After your "hittable astranauts" comment on WWDTM, you might find a better audience on Don Imus program.
Man, I laughed out loud at the "hittable astronauts." I am wondering if you'll have to see Sex in the City now though!
I feel about Dulles the same way that Leo Getz (Joe Pesci) felt about the drive-thru. I can't recommend going through there.
Good luck with your construction.
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