Cathedral—The Guessing Game
MoTW—Pandorum
With this being Memorial Day weekend here in the USA, I figured I might
as well get my ass in gear and do some outside chores since it's a three
day weekend and all that jive.
What's interesting is that it shouldn't make a difference. Since I don't
work because I'm enormously wealthy, every weekend is at least a three
day weekend for me.
So what gives? Why is it that I was looking forward to this weekend to
work on the sprinklers when I could have done it any other day?
I DON'T KNOW!
Whatever the reason, I put aside a couple hours this weekend to get the
sprinklers fired up and ready to go. I always allow a couple hours for
this because I always forget how to turn them on and sit around smoking,
drinking, farting and swearing really loud because the bastards won't
fucking work.
This year it actually started out smoothly. I got the first section
going and was happy. Then the second section was powered up and ran fine
for about five minutes and then a couple of the sprinkler heads stopped
moving, happy to water just one particular section of grass.
For some reason the pressure dropped after those five minutes and I
couldn't figure it out. Then I remembered last year and how I had a
sprinkler head that was nicked by the snow blower blades when I was
going crazy one snowy day, so I checked out the heads nearest the
driveway and didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
Went on to the next section and had no problem. Section four had a
slight problem with a sprinkler head that was gushing water, but with my
know-how and brilliance, I was able to nip that fucker in the bud.
Section five was next and it too had a problem: No pressure and the
sprinklers weren't moving. That sucked. I went on to section six and
that was a-ok.
So back to section two and still the same problem. I walked around again
and saw that one of the heads in section one wasn't closing, so I
stomped it down and went back to section two which suddenly worked fine.
For five minutes. And then the same shit as before happened again.
I kicked one of the immobile sprinkler heads in disgust and the woman
asked if it made me feel better. I told her no, it didn't, because I
only gave it a glancing blow.
Went through the same thing as before, checking each section, walking
around and inspecting each sprinkler head and still couldn't find out
what the issue was.
So, naturally, I swore quite a bit and turned off the system, totally
disgusted. When I checked the time, three hours had passed and I was
pissed. I couldn't watch movies and do nothing. My day was ruined.
Today (Sunday) I went at it again and the second section worked fine.
Maybe it needed the night to think over it's purpose? I don't know, but
worked it did and I was happy.
I set up each section to water certain amounts of time and let that
sucker go. Section one went fine and dandy for its 20 minutes and the it
was section two's turn.
It started off like gangbusters but, you guessed it, after five minutes
the same two heads decided that they didn't want to move any longer and
I was pissed.
It then dawned on me that this happened after section one ran, so I
inspected each sprinkler head again and saw that the one closest to the
street wasn't closing all the way. I stomped it down and noticed that
some water was still leaking so I shut off the system and took the
offending head out of the ground.
Using some spare parts I have squirrelled away, I changed a few things
and put that baby back in the ground since that was obviously the
problem. Then the system was turned on again.
Section one ran fine. Section two started off fine and then fucked up as
before. I told the woman, who was kind enough to help, that I gave up
and that the sprinkler system could go fuck itself.
Another two hours wasted this morning was what I found out when checking
the time. Again I can't sit around doing nothing and watching movies.
I mentioned that section two only had the problem after section one ran.
The woman said that we could widen the driveway so we wouldn't have to
worry about that section. Actually a fantastic idea, but I locked her
out of the house anyway because it would just be extra work for me.
Dumping concrete and paving and all that other shit. Yeah, right.
Basically my holiday weekend is ruined because of the sprinklers. Yes, I
have another day "off" tomorrow and should work on it then, but that's
not what's going to happen. No way, no how. I'm enjoying my extra day
"off", grass, flowers and vegetable garden be damned.
COMING NEXT: How did I amass my enormous wealth you ask? I tell!
