chainsaws & stingers

(and you knew i would elaborate…)

saturday i had to work. yeah, well, sucks to be me, right? so, i was leaving the house to go pick up some pre-work bar-b-que when i heard that echoing of the door lock catching in my head indicating to me that my keys were in fact NOT in my pocket.

so, i had to break into the house.

i saw a paint can tool i knew i could use to jimmy a window, but when i went to grab it from behind something in the garage, i discovered the OTHER thing in that little space – a hornet’s nest. (they apparently partied the night before and were not cool to being woke up at 10:30 on a saturday morning). the first couple nailed me in the upper arm / shoulder area (i was wearing a sleeveless shirt) but another of the little turds got up on my face and stung me twice on the upper lip.

(for those of you taking notes at home, that hurts a LOT – although not as bad as my LAST time i got stung, which was on my left EYELID!!!)

so now my lip is swelling, my nose is running, i’m in a shitload of pain, i’m still locked out of the house, and i’m barefoot (because the shoes i was going to where to work were locked in the car). i crawled through an unlocked window and got back in the house to call the office and tell them i would be in when i knew exactly how much my lip would swell…

(not bad, really – not bar fight kinda swollen, just pleasured a woman that wasn’t clean kinda swollen)

post work i grabbed grub at sandy’s and headed down to san marcos to hang with harold and the sharp things crew and watch san marcos kids get busted (the cops were out HARD ’cause it was graduation night for college and the last free weekend for high school kids). the two funniest ones?

1. the girl who had a cop sitting behind her at a stoplight WITH his lights on, and she proceeds to go through the intersection and turn the wrong way down a one way street and drive that way for a BLOCK before getting the hint and pulling over.

and…

2. the two teenage kids that rolled PAST said idiot with their windows down, radio cranked, and beer in hand in front of two police cars AND a state trooper. when the cop pulled the beer cans out of the car and started to run their paperwork, one of them started to drink from a pepsi bottle. the state trooper noticed and yelled to the cop. the cop snatched it out of his hand, saw it was pepsi, and started to give it back…but at the last minute decided to sniff it first. pepsi, adult style. they went to jail.

my sunday i had set into motion post sandy’s and pre sharp things. for the last several weeks i had been trying to borrow a friend’s dad’s chainsaw to trim a tree that was attempting to grow THROUGH my house to no avail…we just couldn’t get our schedule’s synced up to make this happen. then it occurred to me – i HAVE known his dad for eighteen frickin’ years, why not just call him direct? i did, and the next day i had a chainsaw in my hands.

he he he…

me and a chainsaw. for five hours. i HAVE to get me one of these. plus, all those sleepless nights watching crappy late night espn 2 paid off – i knew to cut a wedge out of large branches to control where they fell and NOT pinch the blade. it was the stuff i had to do while i was on the roof that was a bit dangerous.

for some reason my phone went into analog roam mode and wouldn’t get out – so if any of you called on sunday and wondered why i never called back, that should explain it. but it also meant my girlfriend couldn’t reach me, which was both good AND bad. if we could talk, i probably would have been a bit more detailed with my plans than i was. and if there’s one thing i’ve learned about long distance relationships, it’s not to tease out the worry factor – which saying something to the effect of:

”baby, i’ve got to run up on the roof with a chainsaw now by myself for a couple of hours, but i’ll call you later, okay?”

would have done. so, it sucked not being able to talk to her, and i missed her a lot…but there was some goodness that came out of it. the sad part? the only time i almost DID take a header off the side of the house involved a push broom, not a chainsaw. after all the trimming (and the fact that these limbs had been up there a while) there was significant saw dust and tree shrapnel that needed to be cleaned off the roof. while i was up there i noticed what was left of the broken limb still dangling by what looked to be only bark (about six feet long, eight inches in diameter, probably around a hundred pounds). it was too far to reach with the chainsaw, but i could whack it like a pinata with the push broom, which is what i did.

first swing – foul tip
second swing – home run

i heard the branch start to give as it swung like a pendulum, then with one last crack is swung off the tree – and right into my ladder. the ladder started to fall, but i dove for it and grabbed it with my feet about two feet off the edge of the roof. i pulled it back upright, but the branch was still hung on it, so i had to shake and twist it till it fell so the ladder would stay upright and i could crawl down.

but after all THAT, i was cool, and it was time for the evening cigar and the simpsons.

now i just have a couple more trees to take care of…