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Adventures With Dad - The Varmint Legacy
Jul. 17th, 2013 11:25 amMom was gone for the last two weeks, and you know what that means! Time for Adventures With Dad!
The first Adventure With Dad started while Mom was still around, the night before she left. The Fourth of July celebrations were marred, or enhanced if you’re like me, when some weather god left the Thunderstorm switch jammed on. So that night I went upstairs to make myself a snack, listening to the wind and the pouring rain and the thunder. Whoosh it went, and patapatapata, and CRACKA-BOOM!.
And then something on the roof went: WHUNKita-WHUNKita-WHUNKita-WHUNKA-WHUMPA THUD.
Well, shit, I thought. We’d just had the roof completely revamped, and here it sounded like Santa Claus’s drunken summer joyride had just gone horribly wrong all over it. I waited for the inevitable emerging of the other household members to inquire after that horrendous noise.
Nothing happened.
ME: Hey! Did anybody else hear a godawful noise just now?
DAD: *snore*
MOM: That’s just the thunder, honey. Go back to bed.
ME: Thunder makes a lot of noise, yes, but does not generally go “thud.”
Turns out the varmint caps Dad had installed a couple of years ago had been loosened by our roofing guy, and the wind had set a couple of them rolling merrily. We located one on the edge of the roof itself, but the other was nowhere to be found.
DAD: We should get out there and find it! And then put them back on! Right now! At 1:30 in the morning! In the pouring rain! With lightning and thunder around us!
ME: Dad, I am fairly sure no varmints are going to crawl into the chimney in the next 6 hours. Let’s wait until going on the roof doesn’t spell instant death, shall we?
We managed to convince him to go back to bed for a few hours. Fortunately the rain let up, and by the next morning it was clear enough that he could go out to track down the other cap (it was in the neighbors’ yard) while I took Mom to the airport.
When I got back, he was already on the roof.
ME: For crying out loud, you are a goddamn BRAIN AND SPINE doctor. Didn’t it occur to you that it was a basic safety precaution to have someone else around in case you fell ?
DAD: You were taking to long! THIS HAD TO BE DONE.
So the caps are back on, and Dad made it off the roof, and Mom made it to California.
DAD: *plaintive* Why do these disasters always happen when your mom leaves?
ME: It’s not so much that more disasters happen. It’s just that they feel disastrous because you and I are clueless goddamn morons when it comes to taking care of things.
DAD: You’re probably right. So, what shall we have for dinner tonight?
ME: Rice Krispies sounds great to me.
DAD: It’s going to be a long fortnight.
And it was. But it was a fun fortnight, too. Tune in next time for more Adventures, such as Cookin’ With Dad!
The first Adventure With Dad started while Mom was still around, the night before she left. The Fourth of July celebrations were marred, or enhanced if you’re like me, when some weather god left the Thunderstorm switch jammed on. So that night I went upstairs to make myself a snack, listening to the wind and the pouring rain and the thunder. Whoosh it went, and patapatapata, and CRACKA-BOOM!.
And then something on the roof went: WHUNKita-WHUNKita-WHUNKita-WHUNKA-WHUMPA THUD.
Well, shit, I thought. We’d just had the roof completely revamped, and here it sounded like Santa Claus’s drunken summer joyride had just gone horribly wrong all over it. I waited for the inevitable emerging of the other household members to inquire after that horrendous noise.
Nothing happened.
ME: Hey! Did anybody else hear a godawful noise just now?
DAD: *snore*
MOM: That’s just the thunder, honey. Go back to bed.
ME: Thunder makes a lot of noise, yes, but does not generally go “thud.”
Turns out the varmint caps Dad had installed a couple of years ago had been loosened by our roofing guy, and the wind had set a couple of them rolling merrily. We located one on the edge of the roof itself, but the other was nowhere to be found.
DAD: We should get out there and find it! And then put them back on! Right now! At 1:30 in the morning! In the pouring rain! With lightning and thunder around us!
ME: Dad, I am fairly sure no varmints are going to crawl into the chimney in the next 6 hours. Let’s wait until going on the roof doesn’t spell instant death, shall we?
We managed to convince him to go back to bed for a few hours. Fortunately the rain let up, and by the next morning it was clear enough that he could go out to track down the other cap (it was in the neighbors’ yard) while I took Mom to the airport.
When I got back, he was already on the roof.
ME: For crying out loud, you are a goddamn BRAIN AND SPINE doctor. Didn’t it occur to you that it was a basic safety precaution to have someone else around in case you fell ?
DAD: You were taking to long! THIS HAD TO BE DONE.
So the caps are back on, and Dad made it off the roof, and Mom made it to California.
DAD: *plaintive* Why do these disasters always happen when your mom leaves?
ME: It’s not so much that more disasters happen. It’s just that they feel disastrous because you and I are clueless goddamn morons when it comes to taking care of things.
DAD: You’re probably right. So, what shall we have for dinner tonight?
ME: Rice Krispies sounds great to me.
DAD: It’s going to be a long fortnight.
And it was. But it was a fun fortnight, too. Tune in next time for more Adventures, such as Cookin’ With Dad!
