Lori Clinch
Are We There Yet?
As my boys and I will readily tell you, living with my husband Pat is nothing short of life with Bob Villa.
While I’m sure that any woman who has been staring at a half-finished kitchen for five years would be green with envy, sometimes we grow tired of having air compressors sounding off at 6 a.m.
Alas, Pat accomplishes great things around the home front. The man can take a pile of boards and make them into a gazebo, turn scrap planks into a pergola, or spin a load of rubbish into a potting shed that would make a gardener’s mouth water.
Recently it was Lawrence’s day to be Pat’s young apprentice, and according to Lawrence, his father sang him awake long before the crack of dawn.
“Do you want to be your dear old Dad’s right-hand man today, Lawrence?” Pat asked him as if he were offering a day at an amusement park. “We’ll go to the lumber yards! I’ll buy you a Coke!”
Lawrence crawled out of bed and sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands as his father made him breakfast. According to Lawrence, he was two forkfuls into his eggs when his Dad took his plate and said, “Gotta go! We’re burning daylight.”
Now, a father-son day in the world of light construction might conjure up a Norman Rockwell image for some, and most likely these are people who have never spent a day on the job with Pat Clinch.
“We started in the yard, and Dad showed me how to work a shovel and I watched him do a lot of digging,” Lawrence said. “About 14 bajillion hours passed before Dad finally said, ‘Okay, Lawrence, you load up these tools and we’ll be done for the day. He didn’t mention that he needed to put a couple more loads of dirt on the side of the yard. So I stood and waited for him to do that, and then he started digging yet another hole. Then he gave me a big yardstick and said, ‘Stand over there; I need you to shoot a grade.’ I had no idea what it meant to shoot a grade, but it sounded a lot like something to do with school, so I wasn’t too happy. Then I’m, like, ‘Hey, Dad, I thought we were done!’ and he said, ‘Oh, we are, we just need to dig a bunch of holes for a bajillion hours first.’
“Then Dad said, ‘Let’s run to the lumberyard for a minute.’ And everyone who is anyone knows that Dad never stops at the lumberyard for just a minute. No sir, the last time he told me that we were stopping for just a minute, we were there for so long that my clothes went out of style. Dad said, ‘I just gotta pick up a box of nails.’ Dad saying that he just needs to pick up a box of nails is like Grandma saying that she just needs to run into the grocery store for a tomato.
“He took me to the nails and grabbed a box that was the size of a small car and handed them to me! So I’m holding a box that weighs a bajillion pounds and following Dad around the lumberyard while he stops to look at drill bits and handsaws and then the windshield cleaner. Who needs to look at windshield cleaner?” asked Lawrence as he threw his hands into the air.
I couldn’t help but chuckle as the little guy shook his head in dismay.
“Then Dad asked me, ‘Do you think that we want this kind?’ Now I ask you, Mom, who has an opinion on windshield cleaner when they’re holding a bajillion-pound box?
“ ‘Oh look!’ Dad said as if it were fun, ‘They have speed squares on sale!’ Then about three rows down, he happened along another selection of windshield cleaner and rubbed his whiskers as he compared the prices. He stood there for a while, found mosquito spray, picked up three bottles and put them on top of my large box, and walked away carrying nothing more than the windshield cleaner.
“I didn’t complain, because I thought that ought to wrap up our day. We were so close to the door that I could almost see daylight. I almost made a clean break, too – until Dad saw the oil filters. Then he turned the corner and disappeared into thin air.
“I waited in the aisle long enough for my hair to grow and my youth to pass me by. People came, people went, and just before my arms gave out for good, Dad finally re-appeared – empty-handed and complaining about the high cost of living.”
“But didn’t you learn a lot helping out your Dad today, Lawrence?” I asked.
“Yea! I learned that I never want to be Bob Villa’s right-hand man.”
Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book “Are We There Yet?” You can reach her at www.loriclinch.com.