Monday, June 13, 2005

SO HERE'S THE (HAMMER) DRILL

You climb up the ladder, hammer drill in hand , in your pockets you have a pair of channel locks , two nutdrivers, 3/8" and 1/2" sizes , tape measure, ,and your trusty level....
On a previous trip up the ladder you have toted up your #3 sledge hammer , only to climb back down cussing under your breath, because you forgot the set tool .( My set tool is much cooler than this one as I've decorated it with red and black electrical tape, kind of a barber pole for the emotionally disturbed) you also have two lengths of all thread, several nuts and washers, a 12 inch length of unistrut and a pair of drop in anchors.
After you negotiate yet another fucking climb up the ladder, you realize you left the sharpie marker on the tool cart, so you climb down AGAIN and retrieve it.
This is when you've noticed you have hit a random button on your cell phone and have left a 10 plus minute voice mail of you clanging and banging up and down a 12 foot ladder to someone you know and love.
Then you arrange yourself amongst the myriad of pipes and ducts and racks already snaking along the ceiling and attempt to measure for your holes...2 1/2" off the beam and another 10 inches from there.
You hoist the hammer drill into position and drill the holes, when the concrete dust hits your face, you curse, by the time you drill the second hole, all you can taste and smell is the dust, which smells vaguely of burnt hair, your blue shirt is now a kind of crap gray and your forearms look like a statues concrete appendages.And you're sweating, because it's fucking hot 16 feet in the air.
Pound in the anchors after you feel every pocket to remember where the set tool is...screw in the all thread hand tight and finish with the channel locks, cinch up the nuts and level the all thread. Drop level.
Climb down the god damn ladder and retrieve level. Level the other piece of all thread. Attach one side of the unistrut while simultaneously laying in the conduit, attach the other side, drop washer, pull throw down washer out of your shirt pocket because you will not climb down and back up that ladder for a fucking fender washer. Level pipe, attach straps using nutdrivers x2. Insert 10 more feet of conduit, climb down with your arsenal of tools move ladder 8 feet, repeat ( in this case ) seven times and in the process have to bust through two cinderblock walls to get there.
Go to lunch.

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