All jacked up

Okay, so last week I woke up Tuesday morning feeling like crap. I went to work, and ended up calling for a sub by 10:00 (for the next day). I took Wednesday last off, slept the day away, then came back to work, though noticeably grouchy (just ask some of my students, who are excellent barometers of the Rainey Grouch Factor). I limped through to the weekend.

Saturday morning, my mother-in-law called to ask if I was available to come trench out a line in her backyard for a permanent electrical connection to her pool (she bought an above-ground pool last summer, and has had to have its pump hooked up via extension cord all this time). Honestly, I was feeling pretty crunchy, but I agreed to go over to the rental place and get the trencher.

I got to Sunbelt Rentals, a new place next to the new Krispy Kreme and the new(er) Home Depot up off Andresen by New Heights Church. Everything seemed to be going fine, even when I asked Rental Guy if I could get a pair of ramps for the Ditch Witch.
"Oh, it's on a trailer," he assured me.
"Kewl", thought I. I am a MAN, I drive a TRUCK, and my TRUCK has a TOWING BALL on it. No emasculated little vehicle, this. (Granted, it's an '85 two-wheel drive Nissan King Cab, but, hey, it's paid for. And, it has a TOWING BALL). TOWING BALLS, in case you didn't know, make one "KEWL" instead of being plain ol' vanilla "cool." Never fear, for I am "kewl."

Not "kewl" enough, apparently, because my TOWING BALL was too small. Ah, yes, your mind should now turn to the immortal line uttered by Rick Moranis in "Spaceballs":

"Your schwartz is bigger than mine!"

Faced with TOWING BALL envy, I allowed Rental Guy to put a new TOWING BALL on. Oh, wait! Turns out my bumper was only made for one size of TOWING BALL; the one they had wouldn't fit. I guess size *does* matter, at least when it comes to TOWING BALLS. (Okay, okay, I'll drop the whole juvenile thing, but I know at least a couple of you out there were giggling).

Anyway, here it was, 11:00 AM, and we were due at a graduation party for Katrina's cousin at 3. Rental Guy assured me they would deliver me the trencher I'd rented within the hour. I went back to Eva's house to wait.

About 45 minutes later, Sparky (rental guy #2) drove up, with a shiny piece of equipment towed from behind his much larger truck (with its appropriately-sized TOWING BA- - oh, never mind). He ran me through its paces - turning it on, steering it, stopping it - all that good stuff. He backed it slowly down the ramp, its two-stroke engine sputtering loudly, and directed it to the middle of Eva's driveway.

After he left, I started the beast up, and maneuvered it slowly to the backyard. The distance (maybe 30 feet) took a good two minutes to traverse, with as slow as the device was going, and I began to ask some questions.

Mainly, where the hell was the trenching blade?

See, trenchers are kind of like big chainsaws. Really big chainsaws, that move kinda slow, and chop up dirt and rocks instead of trees, and are attached to a big wheeled cart instead of being hand-held. Besides that, they're almost exactly like chainsaws.

Now, one of the main design items of a chainsaw (and a trencher) is the blade. It's a chain-mounted series of cutters, which rotate around a fixed arm at the front of either device. In the case of a trencher, it's supposed to be on this long arm that you can lower into the dirt.

The huge machine that I was putt-putting into the backyard didn't seem to have this particular feature.

I stopped the motor (learned that from an old eight-fingered shop teacher), and did a quick diagnostic. I lifted up the rearmost metal guards. Instead of one big chainsaw-like blade that could be lowered into the ground, I had a series of curved blades, all on one axle.



In short, I had a rototiller.



Well, whaddya know 'bout that.


I went and checked my receipt, and lo and behold it stated that I had indeed rented the correct item, but, by some twist of fate, Rental Guy #2 had brought me a completely different piece of equipment.

For those of you who are city-bound and not entirely up on the whole difference betwixt the two, it would be kinda like asking for a hammer and getting a screwdriver. A really nice, bright and shiny, barely used screwdriver, but a screwdriver nonetheless.


Anyway, I called Rental Guy, who had Rental Guy #2 come back and trade them out. (I didn't get to see him - I was getting ready for the grad party. Probably helped save his esteem a bit, as I could've been quite sarcastic with him). We all agreed that we could keep the trencher until Monday, and that I would do the work Sunday after church.

Sunday afternoon, I started the trenching job, right alongside Eva's pool. Turns out, the pool sits on a base of beach sand, so as soon as I started the trencher up, its right wheel dug right down into that sand and stuck fast, with about sixteen inches of trench dug.

Well, crap.

I walked around to the front of the machine, grabbed hold of its twin metal guard bars, and started pulling.

Bad idea.

I guess you can never really call it a "good thing" when you can actually feel your spine pulling apart...


...I did finally manage to get the trench dug, after Eva and the electrician who was there helped me pull the trencher out of its, uh, trench. I ran it twenty feet, deftly avoiding the sprinkler lines I'd installed last summer...except for the final two feet that I ran from the pump perpendicular to the first trench. With a snapping of PVC, a good eight feet of sprinkler pipe flung into the air, ripped from the rest of the line by the force of the trencher. (Thankfully, I'd thought to turn off the main line to the sprinklers, otherwise, I would've been drenched in addition to being sore).

I went to work the next day, and kind of limped my way around. The kids were watching "Gone With the Wind," so it was a pretty mellow day. I also noticed the cold that was bothering me a week earlier seemed to be coming back.

Tuesday the kids went on the 8th grade end-of-the-year trip to Bullwinkle's down in Wilsonville, and I stayed home, with the intent of going to see the doctor. I didn't want to see my primary care physician; she and we are in kind of a feud right now over our adoption (more on that in the next post on the adoption).

Anyway, I was seen by this tall, bald guy named Dr. Pavel Somethink-or-otherskiy. (I can make Russian jokes - my children most likely speak Russian). Dr. Pavel was quite severe - spoke hardly a word as he looked me over.

When he was done, he pronounced his diagnosis.

"You haff conjunctivitis in both eyes, vhich hass shpread to the other parts of your body."

Well, whaddya know.

Conjunctivitis. Pinkeye, to you.

A) Injured back
B) Incredibly contagious, ucky eye condition
C) Trip to New York and DC tomorrow night.

I'm off to see the chiro to take care of problem A. I'll keep y'all updated on everything else.