Having to Do It Yourself
Grandad March 2nd, 2009
Some of you may be wondering why I haven’t posted earlier today.
The fact is, I was Out. [Why do people start sentences with ‘The fact is’? I hate that.]
I had to go to one of those great warehouses they call DIY stores. I had a load of stuff to buy, such as paint, wire netting, floorboards and a cattle prod.
I wandered around for half an hour. The musak was bloody awful so I tended to head for the quiet corner, which wasn’t very helpful as the only thing they had there was toilet seats.
Not wanting a toilet seat, just at the moment, I had to brave the musak and head out amongst the endless shelves of paint tins, claw hammers and things to hang on your wall. I found the paint easily enough as they had great stacks of the fucking stuff at the end of each aisle. Paint brushes were easy to find as they were strategically placed behind the lighting section. You couldn’t miss the floorboards as the pile was so big it looked like it was waiting to be loaded on a ship.
I couldn’t find the wire netting though.
I searched everywhere. I found wattle fencing and bamboo fencing. I found razor wire and I found three-core wire, but no wire netting.
I found a bloke who looked like he worked in the place.
‘Excuse me!’ says I. ‘Can you point me in the direction of the wire netting?’
He pondered this for a moment.
‘I know it’s around somewhere’ he said while looking at the ceiling for divine inspiration.
He wandered off, and I followed him.
He peered around a couple of corners and walked down a few aisles and eventually, he accidentally tripped over a roll of wire netting that someone had left lying out on the floor. He picked himself up, beamed at me with delight and then vanished as only a sales assistant can.
I now knew where everything was, and I did my calculations as to how much of what I wanted that I wanted. I then went up to the main information desk to find out where to get a bloke to help me carry the floorboards out as they were fucking heavy. She paged Paddy, and Paddy duly turned up. It was my friend of the wire netting fame.
He beamed at me again, and I explained to him that I needed someone to carry half a ton of floorboards. I told him I would do it, but that I had a bad back. He immediately claimed that he had a bad back too, so we looked each other up and down, and decided we were well matched liars. He grabbed one of those low loader things they have and headed off to the furniture section. I called him back and told him the floor boards were in the other direction. He looked a bit confused but followed me anyway.
We reached the flooring section, to his surprise and delight and loaded the trolley. I also loaded all the rest of my stuff.
‘Hold on’ says I, ‘I nearly forgot the wire netting.’
‘I don’t think we do wire netting’ he said apologetically.
And I thought I was bad.
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