24

Things I have said in the past 24 hours:

1- "It shouldn't take long at all. There's not that much roof on the whole house and we're only doing the back side and the new addition.."

2- "I thought you said we'd be nailing shingles by 9 o'clock?"

3- "Tell (your brother) to move the ladder so we can get down and we'll start bringing up the bundles and get everything ready."

4- "What are going to do? Jump off the front of the house?"

5- "Don't do that. Man, you're gonna break your damn leg."

6- "Dammit, (other sensible buddy)! He just broke his leg!"

7- "Dude...you're fucked up. Why didn't you just wait for (your brother) to move the ladder?"

8- (thought to myself when the paramedics cut his sock off) "Holy shit! That's his bone...and it's sticking way out of his leg. Why is it so hot all of a sudden? I think I'm gonna back over here and sit down a minute. I think they have it under control now."

9- (spoken as the doors to the ambulance were being closed) "Well (Geronimo's brother), I guess that makes you the foreman now."

And last but not least:

10 - "I told you so!"


Saturday morning, I was supposed to go help my friend/neighbor/co-worker put a roof on a new addition that he built onto a rental house that he owns. The job was supposed to be simple enough. 4 guys with hammers nailing on less than 10 squares (30 bundles) of shingles. 3 hours of work, maybe 4 tops. But only because there were several cuts to be made and 2 valleys to "lace". Once I arrived "on-site", he and his brother were running behind and still had a few more carpentry tasks to complete before we could get started on the roof. So the 4th buddy and myself set about preparing the roof for the new shingles. We tore off the temporary felt paper covering, removed the ridgecap, swept everything down and decided that while the two brothers finished the last few minutes of construction, we would just back the truck up to the eave of the house and one of us would hand the bundles of shingles up to the other one. The eave was only about 7 feet from the ground, no major task.

Sounds pretty good so far, right? It gets better (or worse). Keep reading.

The other brother is using the only ladder we have to cut off a ridgebeam under the gable of the new addition. So the neighbor friend (knows henceforth as "Geronimo") decides that we don't need to wait for the brother to finish and move the ladder. He'll just jump off the front of the house "like he's done a hundred times before" because, and I quote, "It ain't that high." (See where this is leading?) I'm standing about 3 feet from the eave of the house and tell him to just wait, we'd get the ladder and move the truck. I told him as he was squating down, "Man, you're gonna break your damn leg."

To make a longer story short. He did just that. When he hit the ground, me and Buddy #4 saw the leg fold up sideways. I yelled at his brother to get us the ladder and to go check on him because he just broke his leg. 911 was called. When the paramedics removed his sock, I almost puked. The bone was sticking at least 2 inches out of his skin. I had to quit looking at it or I would have been sick. He was taken to the local hospital and then transferred to a major medical facility for immediate surgery. We went to the hospital last night and he admitted that it was "stupid, stupid, stupid" to try that at his age (44). And that he wasn't as young (or light) as he used to be.

We finished half of the house with the other brother assuming the role of "crew boss" and will finish the rest this morning. Hopefully, without incident.

Anyone believe in intuition? My wife told me that when I left to go help them, she had "a bad feeling" and said a little prayer to not let anything happen to me up on that roof. She missed it by 3 feet.