Foghat—Last Train Home
MoTW—Daybreakers
Sometimes I like throwing on some nice duds (or "clothes" for the youth
reading this) and assimilating myself into a workforce somewhere. It's
just something to do to break up the monotony since siting around every
day getting stoned and drunk just ain't a happening thing. Most days it
is, some days it's just not what I want to do.
Last Wednesday after a busy day of joining in a couple board meetings
and conference calls, I headed home, thoughts of a nice cool drink
dancing like sugar plums in my head. It was a productive day, my pants
fit really well and I was looking sharp. What could go wrong?
We had been having problems with our sprinkler system, so I was manually
turning on the system and watering sections on a very irregular basis.
It was on my list of things to really work on one day because there were
rather large spots of dead grass popping up here, there and everywhere.
When I got home, I turned on the sprinklers for the front yard and
retired to the garage to have a cool, refreshing smoke. That's when I
noticed that the sprinklers didn't sound right. I've got me an ear for
those type of things cause I'm a professional.
I opened the garage door and saw that one of the sprinklers wasn't
rotating, or spitting out water like it should. Instead, it was just
weakly peeing a tiny stream of water, which upset me greatly.
I went over for a looksee and couldn't see anything wrong with the
sprinkler, so I jiggled it a bit, then manually turned it and, when
those didn't work, stepped on it. It went down, popped back up and then
continued with its weak pee.
Still wearing my fine dud, I got down to get a closer look. Being a
professional I had no clue what I was looking for, but I went ahead and
looked anyway, and everything looked fine. So I jiggled it some more and
the noticed that it was leaning a bit which, to me, was the problem.
I turned off the water, hunted down my nifty sprinkler head removal tool
and started turning the fucker. Soon the whole thing came loose,
sprinkler head and the casing (or whatever it is) that it rests in.
My hands now muddy, I have nowhere to wipe them off except on my tan
slacks, which I do. Then I try taking the sprinkler head out of its
casing and, after a bout of swearing and sweat dripping into my eyes, I
finally manage to dislodge the thing, but not without breaking of a tiny
piece of the sprinkler head.
I put the piece in a pocket and put the sprinkler head back into its
casing, this time making sure it was straight. Then I plugged the whole
thing back in the hole and turned the water back on.
Sadly, the piece I broke off was a little metal tab-like thing that
comes in contact with something on the sprinkler head that causes it to
go back the way it came from, then it does the same thing the other way.
Around. Like that. I'd have to show it to you to really make you
understand, but you get the gist if it. Maybe.
Now the sprinkler was going around and around, watering the garage and
the front of the house. Not good, so I turned the water off again and
cursed everything under the sun.
Luckily I've kept all the sprinklers I've replaced or mangled in the
past, so I hunted them down and started to look for something that would
work, as my hands kept getting muddier which made my pants and shirt
muddier.
I found a sprinkler head I thought would work, popped that fucker in and
turned the water on. This time the water shot straight up which really
pissed me off.
At this time, the young boy across the street walked by with his new
puppy and asked me why I was so muddy. I explained that I was having
issues with the sprinkler and that next time he spoke to me he damn well
better address me as "Mr. Johnson" to which he made some sort of smart
ass comment, so I grabbed his puppy, carried it around to the back
porch, fired up the grill and plopped that cute brown and white pup on
the bottom rack and shut the lid.
I fiddled around with the sprinkler for a little while longer and then
gave up, gave it a nice kick for good measure, and then went inside and
grabbed me a cold drink.
As we had our dinner that night, I told the woman about the sprinkler
issue and she said she would call the professionals and I told her that
wasn't necessary at that time since I would work on it some more during
the upcoming weekend and my, wasn't that meat a bit stringy?
The following Friday I worked on the sprinkler some more and still
couldn't get it to work. So the next day (today actually), I got my ass
up at 5am, took a shower and headed to Home Depot. There I picked up a
new Toro sprinkler head, and within half an hour I had the front
sprinkler system working like a charm. All because I'm a professional.
But what about that sprinkler in the backyard that wasn't rotating, you
ask?
COMING NEXT: More tomfoolery!
