The Alternator Belt is not a Team Player.

Picture the scene. It's 1am. We have to go to work for a job that starts way too damn early. It's 25 degree's outside. I have already fed and watered the ungrateful hungry mouths. We grab our thermoses and some healthy fruit snacks and pile in the car. We scrape the frost off the windows, hop in, turn up the heat and drive off into the cold morning, on our way to work.

Except we never even made it to the main road because our alternator belt blew.

Do you know what it looks like when you loose an alternator belt?

The first clue is when the battery light comes on. The second clue is when the headlights start to dim. The third clue is when the care stops running.

Well, the first clue hit and we immediately turned around chanting our war chant. Which goes something like “oh, shit oh fuck oh shit oh fuck...” Then the second clue kicked in. Do you know what it's like to be traveling in a car, in the middle of goddamn nowhere, all the while the headlights are getting progressively dimmer and dimmer?

Basically it's like every horror movie ever.

Just thought I'd clear that up.

Luckily we made it home before the third clue hit us. Then it was excitement of calling people to inform work people that it didn't appear that we would be making worky work time. Then came the super fun time of searching the sheds in the hope that we had a spare belt. It was kinda of a useless act, because our car takes a very specific belt.

Let me put it this way. We didn't think to buy two belts the last time this happened and my late father did not own a compatible vehicle. So unless the dog had purchased a belt for our car, and put it somewhere that we could be able to find it in the shed, we didn't have one.

There wasn't much to be done at this point. I drank a cup of tea and ate a banana. I went and confirmed that the not being very helpful at this point dog was still sleeping peacefully in the bed. Under the covers. Asshole non parts buying dog.

Finally we just gave up and went back to bed to wait for an auto parts store to be open. Only to be woken up like three hours later when everyone started calling us back.

Fun.

Well after making a few calls later we found a local auto parts store that had the belt. Of which we only bought one because learning from our mistakes is stupid.

Installing the belt however, was a whole new level of awful. Like, okay, you know how Greek mythology has a lot of stories where the hero has to pass a bunch of really unpleasant and hard tasks to get whatever it is he wants? Yeah this was pretty much just like that. Except I think I would have rather had to face down a minotaur rather then change this belt again.

First off, it was 34 degrees outside. Which gets points for being 2 degrees above freezing, but you know what? My hands can't tell the difference. First off we had to take off the other belt, the one that was working fine, to get to the broken belt. Then we had to loosen the bolt that keeps tension on the belt. In a kind world that is all you would need to do to slip the new belt in place.

This is not a kind world.

We had to loosen almost every bolt going to the alternator. Loosen but not remove, otherwise the whole thing would have just fallen out of the car. Also, since our car is tiny and poorly designed, this involved me laying underneath the car. Under the alternator. Now I'm not really claustrophobic, but I do not like lying under a car when it is jacked up. For one, when you jack it up it always makes weird moaning sounds like the car itself hates this but can't move away because you won't let it. Two, every little bit of dirt and metal crap and filth is falling into your face. Pro tip: Keep your mouth shut. Oh and you know what's really cold in the middle of November? It's the ground. The ground I was laying on.

It seemed to take forever to wriggle, pry, curse, loosen and cajole the alternator forward, wrestle the damn belt on, and then put the second belt back on. While tiny, tiny metal bits hit me in that face and every so often a socket would fall into the car, just to spice things up. It was one of those times that you can't even be bothered to notice your hands hurt from the cold, you just pray that they keep working because you kind of need them.

Okay really a lot need them.

Anyway, before we got like, I dunno, hand frostbite or some shit we reassembled the car, tested the belts, and felt the sweet, sweet relief of everything working again. I am pretty sure that when the car started and the belts went around smoothly a beam of the purest sunshine shot down from the heavens upon us.

Or at least that's how I remember it.

How To Denail a Board

How to denail a board in ten easy steps.

Materials Needed.

2 hammers

1 crowbar

A bunch of lumber that hates your guts has lots of nails in it.

Painkillers

Gloves

Step 1.

Place board between 2 sawhorses. If you do not have 2 sawhorses, place board on a upside down 5 gallon bucket and the giant stack of boards you have yet to denail. If you use the second method your lumber will be at knee height.

Step 2.

Flip board over so that the pointy nail ends are aiming up toward you.

Step 3.

Using your hammer, try to pound the nails until they are flush with the surface of the board. At this point the nails will go as limp as a straight mans cock at a pride parade and smush over on themselves. Using the claw of the hammer, try to straighten the nails. Repeat until over half the nails have broken off into unusable stumps.

Step 4.

Once you have pounded the nails through, flip the board over again so that the heads of the nails are now visible. Using the claw of the hammer, or the crow bar, attempt to remove the nails using a series of short jerking motions. None of the nails will come loose. Proceed to step 5.

Step 5.

Use the trick where you use the head of the hammer as a fulcrum for the crowbar. The crowbar will slide off and cut you.

Step 6.

Apply band aids to bleeding areas.

Step 7.

Get really angry. Get plumb mad dog Clint Eastwood angry. Manage to remove a few nails. At this point you should consider taking the pain killers.

Step 8.

You will need to curse at the remaining nails like you have never cursed at anything before. 'Son of a bitch' ain't gonna cut it. You need to call these nails 'Son's of a whore cunt' or maybe 'bastard shit fucking motherfuckers' Really get creative with it.

Step 9.

Do the last trick in your arsenal use the hammer to pound the end of the crow bar until the nail pops out. Immediately loose nail on the ground. You will hurt your hand in the process. Take more painkillers.

Step 10.

Repeat steps 5-9 until almost all of the nails are removed*. Become depressed over how many more boards you have to get through. Place board in the I-will-get-back-to-this-later-pile. Restart process again from step one.

And there you go! Remember not to get depressed and start drinking early in the day. It's hard to aim a hammer when you are drunk. Really hard.

Trust me on this one.

* Don't take anymore painkillers though. That would be bad.

Allegheny Power Hates Us.

I am fairly sure that Allegheny Power is spying on us. My theory is that they wait until we absolutely positively need power and then they shut it off. You probably think that sounds insane, but you should stop judging me like that. Besides after what happened a few days ago, I'm not so sure anymore.

We were going to collect rocks. Because I want to build my house out of rocks. This involves getting the rocks from the middle of the woods, swamp, field, bee nest, or brier patch where they happen to be and moving them to one central location. Now, in the past this has involved using the wheel barrow.

I need to take a moment to point out that the wheelbarrow hates me. Really Really hates me. It waits until I have a large load and I have to go down a hill, and then, without warning it would dig the front bar into the ground, which would accomplish two things.

     1. The wheelbarrow would keel over on it's side like a large whale filled with rocks thus spilling my hours  of goddamned labor all over the fucking lawn.

     2. Now according to physics, an object will remain in motion until a force, equal or greater, is applied to stop it. So my body was still moving, meaning that my shins would meet the metal back bar at a considerable  speed. Also, and unfortunately for me, this also meant that I would then need to use the rapidly descending back bar as a spring board to avoid the handles from sweeping me off my feet and smashing my face into a pile of rocks.*

So when Scott suggested we use the truck I enthusiastically seconded the motion. There was just one little problem. It wouldn't start. That's alright we said we'll just use the battery charger. We hooked up the battery charger and I went down to clean out the animal pens, because they just won't stop pooping.

Well I clean out the pens and spread the shit fertilizer on the garden. Then I gather the eggs and head inside to discover the power is out. Which means the truck hasn't been charging. I call the power company and then head outside to inform Scott that our ability to take a shower is just fucking gone, man. I was pretty sure I could here the wheelbarrow laughing at me as I went and got it out of the shed.

We did not move rocks with it however, and instead moved some dead leaves as mulch for the garden, but I could still feel it's smug sense of victory. Asshole wheelbarrow. 

Feeling like at least we had accomplished something we went back inside to discover the power was back on. But the Internet wasn't. The Internet would not work. Turns out the router had gone all crazy pants when the power went out.** Alright we said, we'll just find the disk and reconfigure it or whatever the hell it is that one does to make it work. (It should be pretty obvious that when I said 'we' I meant 'Scott.')

Except we couldn't find the disk. (And by 'we' I mean 'Scott')

We tore the house mobile home apart looking for that disk. Finally Scott announced that if he had put it somewhere he had put it into another dimension. We were just going to have to buy another router. It was the only way. So we bought another router and did the magic thing and it worked. Just like magic.

To recap, the power being out caused me to be subjected to the evil wheelbarrow and blew the Internet somehow so that we had to buy another router, and screwed me out of a day of rock collecting.

You win this round Allegheny Power. You win this round.


* Yes we checked the tire pressure. I still have no idea what causes this. Oh, wait yes I do, the wheel barrow hates me and everything I stand for.

** You know, I wonder if I had left the wheelbarrow near that window for any length of time.

Moving The Chickens

Well, the new chicken coup still does not have a metal roof, but the decision was made to move the chickens any way. The tar paper should be enough to keep the inside snug and dry, and so far it has. We actually moved the chickens a while ago, but I am just getting around to writing about it because I am a terrible lazy person.

Now, moving the chickens from the old coup to the new involved waiting until they were all inside and ready to sleep, and then catching them and carrying them to the new coup. We decided to use the net. Now the thing about the net is that the old coup is small, with a low ceiling. So bashing the net on things was almost a guarantee. Also, in order to get the nest boxes out, we had to remove the window. Or more correctly, what was once a window that was now a hole in the wall covered with chicken wire.

It was decided that I would be inside netting, and that Scott would stand outside the window, take the net and deposit the ruffled chickens to their new home. I got into position, cornered my prize rooster and swoop, in he goes. Then, as quick was he went in, he thrashed his way out of a rooster sized hole in the net and ended up back on the floor of the coup, looking around with a bemused expression.

On to plan B. Scott goes to fix the net and I pull the piece of mill felt that the previous owners had been using as window shutter down, and prop it closed with the remains of the window. I step back inside, and proceed to use my Level 6 Chicken Catching Skills to catch me some chickens. I am rather good at catching chickens, if I do say so myself.* I have caught and moved four chickens by the time Scott comes back. I revel that I have been doing all right without the net, but he feels the need to use it since he spent time fixing it. So in he goes.

Everything was going fine, surprisingly. He would hand me out the net, and I would grab the top to keep the desperately flapping bird inside, and run it over to the new coup, return the net, and the whole process would start again. I learned to keep the shutter flap down, since the guinea hens would fly for daylight if they could see it. I could not resist however, peeking through a corner, and watching the action.

Some of the chickens were quite stupid, and would panic, running out into the open and promptly getting caught. Others were smarter, hanging back at the edge of a large group, and tying to stay under the cover of the perches. It was great fun from my stand point, except that when one of the chickens would freak out and fly they would fan dust and dirt right into my face. My eyeballs were getting kinda gritty.

However, on the last bird, which turned out to be a god damned motherfucking guinea hen, everything went wrong. Scott passed her out, and I tried to close the top of the net, but she was in at such an angle that I couldn't get it closed all the way. Now let me take a moment to explain that guinea hens can fly. Not as good as ducks, mind you, but pretty god damed good. Like, way better then chickens good. Like, right out of the top of my shitty net good. I saw what was happening in slow motion,** but I wasn't fast enough. I could see her flapping away, the net coming off her like the cheap piece of shit it was, my hand letting go of the net and moving so fucking slow through the air. I meant to grab her wing, right at the shoulder, but she was already moving, her sleek gray body sliding away through the cold air.

I made a grab.

I felt my hand close around something, and I remember thinking 'I've got her!” Then time sped up again because he's a dick like that. I looked down to realize that I was holding a handful of tail feathers. I looked up to see the guinea hen flying majestically away into the woodland. Possibly to start a new life free of nets and humans and reliable feeding schedules.

Son of a bitch. Me and Scott made a half hearted attempt to look for her. Half hearted because we had no idea what we were going to do if we found her, and also because it was getting dark and cold. Luckily I found her the next morning, safe and sound in the old coup, where I promptly lost her through the window, chased her into a corner in the garden, netted her, and placed her into the new coup where she was reunited with her friends.

So the chickens were moved, and no body died, or got lost, or exploded or anything bad like that. Win? Win. WIN!

*Remind me to tell you about the time that the rooster got lose in my dad's house.

** I have always wanted time to slow down during a catastrophe. Normally when something terrible happens my auto pilot shows up and takes over and don't remember a thing from the moment the bad thing started till when it was over, besides running. It's always THAT'S FALLING! And then- “why am I standing all the way over here?” And the one time, the ONE TIME it does and it's all cool, it's all because of a stupid motherfucking guinea hen. Sonofabitch.

I am not good at things.

Life keeps demanding I do things. Things I am terrible at.

I have to order gravel today. Actually I tried to order gravel yesterday, but the gravel guy wasn't in. So he is supposed to give me a call back. I hate that. Anyway, I don't know how to order gravel. The lady in the store at the to her end of the line was- god save her- trying to help me. This is pretty much how our conversation went. I am not good with these things.

NANCY: “How much do you need?”

ME: “Um, I dunno. Like, a big truck, a really big truck.”

NANCY: “Okay, well the truck holds six tons. Is that how much you need?”

ME: “ Um, sure. How much does six tons of gravel cost?”

NANCY: “That depends on the type, what type do you need?”

ME: “I need to pour a small cement slab, and then use the left overs on the driveway.”

NANCY: “I don't know what kind that is, you'll have to talk to our gravel guy.”

First of all, I didn't know that builder supply places had gravel guy. Second, I am utterly incompetent when it comes to measuring distance or quantity by eye. Quantity is the worst though. I have no idea how men, who could have never even seen six tons of gravel before in their lives, can tell exactly how much they need to do a driveway. How in the hell do they do that?

These are the questions that keep me up at night people.

I like to be thought of as competent, but I'm not sure how people go about doing that. The little things always seem to trip me up. Like the time the ATM ate my debit card because I put it in while the advertisements between customers were still up. You know, when the guy in front of you leaves and then you step forward but the ATM is thinking or some shit so it runs ads for the bank you are already banking with because that makes sense. So I ram my card into the machine and it eats it. Apparently, even though the ATM is sitting idle, looking innocent, you are not supposed to use it until the little welcome screen pops up. How the fuck was I supposed to know that? It's not like there are warning labels on those things.

Is there a class I missed at college for this shit?

I feel like there was a class, or a pamphlet I missed out on that explained all this, like how to order gravel, and how not to confuse a ATM, or how to make small talk with delivery people so you don't feel awkward about the transaction, or how to make out a check while you are standing in your yard with out looking like an idiot.