English People Are Hilarious, Episode 2
(A wee story written in summer but only posted now).
My flatmate was building a shed, as I understand it boys do sometimes. The base was done, he was cutting sheets of prefab flooring with his brand new power saw when I got home that evening. It was still light, but deceptively late (as happens in these parts) and soon the screech of the power tool raised the similarly screechy ire of a nearby neighbour trying to get her kids to sleep.
Considerate neighbour that he is, he abandoned the flooring mission and started work putting the shed frame together. I watched for a while – I did consider offering to help, but figured it would take twice as long if I did – and then wandered back inside to sit on my arse for a while.
Dinner eaten, most of a novel devoured, I realised I hadn’t seen Mr Juicy in a while. I ventured back outside and was amazed to find a skeleton shed frame standing in our backyard. Mr Juicy was busily searching through a pile of metal sheets and a bucket of screws. Night has fallen properly by now, and he was perusing the shed assembly instructions by the light of the little blue screen of his mobile phone.
I decide to take the polite approach.
“Dude, you’re still at it?”
“Oh yeah, I’m on a roll.”
“But it’s dark!”
“Yeah, sure, but I’m managing.”
“Shall I bring my bedside lamp out here and plug it into the extension lead?”
“Oh, no, no, it’s fine.”
A pause. ‘He can’t be serious!’ I thought. ‘It’s pitch dark, he can’t possibly see what he is doing.’
“Would you like me to go and fetch the Maglite for you?”
“Oh no, this is fine. Spirit of the British Army and all that.” He launched into a mumbled monologue, lost in his own world: “Come on lads, here’s the farmhouse for the taking. We’re cold and hungry, our boots are rotten, our equipment’s shit, we’ve no light except this wad of cotton on a stick dipped in petrol, but by jove, we’ll get the job done.”
All the while, he was pacing around the backyard, looking for a missing piece by the light of his mobile phone. He looked up from monologue to see his Australian flatmate curled up on the ground, paralysed with choked laughter.
Once I could breathe again, I sat and watched him at it for a while. A few moments later, as he struggled to attach a cross beam, he muttered, half to himself, “my theory is, soon my night vision will kick in”. And I’m off again.
In the face of my hysterical laughter he did go and fetch a light source at one point - not a wussy lamp or torch, though – he chose an infrared bike light which he then held in his teeth – for a couple of moments. I then heard him cursing as he dropped a screw and asked what he’d done with the bike light. He replied, as he scrabbled in the grass for the screw, “I threw it away, disgusted with myself.”
He did it, you know. Stubborn, yes. Stupid, certainly – but still. Mr Juicy built a shed in the dark.
“And that’s how we won that old WWI”.
My flatmate was building a shed, as I understand it boys do sometimes. The base was done, he was cutting sheets of prefab flooring with his brand new power saw when I got home that evening. It was still light, but deceptively late (as happens in these parts) and soon the screech of the power tool raised the similarly screechy ire of a nearby neighbour trying to get her kids to sleep.
Considerate neighbour that he is, he abandoned the flooring mission and started work putting the shed frame together. I watched for a while – I did consider offering to help, but figured it would take twice as long if I did – and then wandered back inside to sit on my arse for a while.
Dinner eaten, most of a novel devoured, I realised I hadn’t seen Mr Juicy in a while. I ventured back outside and was amazed to find a skeleton shed frame standing in our backyard. Mr Juicy was busily searching through a pile of metal sheets and a bucket of screws. Night has fallen properly by now, and he was perusing the shed assembly instructions by the light of the little blue screen of his mobile phone.
I decide to take the polite approach.
“Dude, you’re still at it?”
“Oh yeah, I’m on a roll.”
“But it’s dark!”
“Yeah, sure, but I’m managing.”
“Shall I bring my bedside lamp out here and plug it into the extension lead?”
“Oh, no, no, it’s fine.”
A pause. ‘He can’t be serious!’ I thought. ‘It’s pitch dark, he can’t possibly see what he is doing.’
“Would you like me to go and fetch the Maglite for you?”
“Oh no, this is fine. Spirit of the British Army and all that.” He launched into a mumbled monologue, lost in his own world: “Come on lads, here’s the farmhouse for the taking. We’re cold and hungry, our boots are rotten, our equipment’s shit, we’ve no light except this wad of cotton on a stick dipped in petrol, but by jove, we’ll get the job done.”
All the while, he was pacing around the backyard, looking for a missing piece by the light of his mobile phone. He looked up from monologue to see his Australian flatmate curled up on the ground, paralysed with choked laughter.
Once I could breathe again, I sat and watched him at it for a while. A few moments later, as he struggled to attach a cross beam, he muttered, half to himself, “my theory is, soon my night vision will kick in”. And I’m off again.
In the face of my hysterical laughter he did go and fetch a light source at one point - not a wussy lamp or torch, though – he chose an infrared bike light which he then held in his teeth – for a couple of moments. I then heard him cursing as he dropped a screw and asked what he’d done with the bike light. He replied, as he scrabbled in the grass for the screw, “I threw it away, disgusted with myself.”
He did it, you know. Stubborn, yes. Stupid, certainly – but still. Mr Juicy built a shed in the dark.
“And that’s how we won that old WWI”.
posted by jLo at 5:55 PM
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