Saturday, April 11, 2009

The Porch/Sledge Hammer Story


This is not my porch, but you get the idea.


Another bad-old-days-drinking-story. Seriously - don't try this at home. Not only is it EXTREMELY dangerous. It's also just plain stupid. I know. I'm stupid.

My 20' x 20', roofed, screened-in porch was in horrible shape. So was I. I was pretty well lit and decided the porch needed to come down. I'm not a carpenter, so I didn't know the proper way to go about removing a porch. But I figured a sledge hammer would do the trick.

There were only two large corner posts holding up the structure. So it didn't seem like a big deal. A half case of beer and a good deal of "studying" the structure and I was ready.

Sledge hammer time ... WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! The first post fell to the ground and the porch moaned, but still stood.

The remaining half case of beer.

Over to the remaining post. This one was now supporting the entire structure. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! ... KABOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!! SPLINTER! RIPPPP! TEARRR!! GRINNDDD!!!! CRUNCHHHH!!! BOOOOMMMMMM!!! The remaining post flew out and the entire roof collapsed in a cloud of dust. Somehow it missed me.

I stood there, sledge hammer in hand, muscles glistening in the sun. A man. A drunken man. A stupid drunken man.

What I HADN'T planned on however, was that the ROOF of the porch was ATTACHED to the side of my house and when it all came down it ripped gigantic, ragged holes in the my home. Holes through which you could see the inner walls.

Oops.

Didn't know how to fix that.

But I got the sucker down.

What a man.

In retrospect, I probably SHOULD have sawed it loose from the house FIRST ... but then it probably would have just fallen onto my neighbor's house which wouldn't have been such a good thing considering he was the Mayor.

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