I
am the only person on my block not having a new roof put on in the
wake of the July 4 hail storm. This neighborhood is without question
the insurance fraud capital of the USA this summer. So far the
annoyances have been minor, but today – I happened to be home,
taking a sick day – things took a screeching bootlegger turn for
the surreal.
7:15 am A
crew of roofers arrives at the house across the street at #95 – the
residence of my nemesis, the lawnorexic, NRA For Life teabagger, who
had a new roof put on not seven years ago but is having a wonderful
time burning through her mother's life insurance money this summer.
They park 2 pickups and a beater on the opposite side of the street,
where the Lawn Nazi's SUV is also parked.
7:30 am Dumpster
is delivered to the driveway of #95 w/o incident. Lawn Nazi leaves
for the day. The roofing crew – six close relatives of Cletus the
Slack-jawed Yokel – get down to something passing for work. Radio
on the roof is tuned to dinosaur rock station, volume at 9.
9:00 am All
of the Cleti are singing along lustily to The Who's “Behind Blue
Eyes”, which I find ridiculously charming. Their apprentice peon is
wandering around on the roof aimlessly.
9:45 am An
argument over the number of sodas in the cooler has broken out. Peon
is made to walk to the store for provisions.
12 noon Radio
volume goes to 16. Luckily, I'm in the mood for vintage U2 and Tom
Petty.
1:00 pm The
non-Cletus crew who played an awful 80s-90s radio station while they
put a new roof on #96 next door in one day returns to clean up the
yard. They park a pickup in the driveway, and a box truck and another
pickup on this side of the street.
2:00 pm The
real fun begins. A big flatbed with 2 pallets of shingles arrives and
parks on the street behind the non-Cletus pickup, blocking my
driveway. Between the flatbed and the Cletus pickup on the opposite
side, there is barely one car width for a car to squeeze diagonally.
6 – 8 cars back up on the street trying to get through.
2:05 pm Flatbed
realizes he's on the wrong side of the street.
2:06 om The
most slack-jawed of the Cleti gets in the Cletus pickup to move it
backwards up the street. He spends two full minutes searching for the
parking brake release. He finds it, hits the gas. He has the truck in
drive instead of reverse, jams on the brakes and stops about a foot
short of flattening another Cletus. He backs up, parks in front of
#93 – the mystery house where an unknown number of people live and
are constantly moving four vehicles in and out of the driveway and on
and off of the street like one of those sliding tile puzzles where
you try to get the map of the USA all in place, at all hours of the
day and night.
2:08 pm Flatbed
backs up and cuts his wheels, and knocks over the last 3 feet of my
retaining wall. He parks on the opposite side, blocking the driveway
of #93. Now cars can still only squeeze through diagonally but in the
other direction. 6 – 8 cars are backed up.
2:10 pm Flatbed
driver stands in the street scratching his head, then his butt, then
his head and his butt at the same time. The garbage truck comes up
the street, blocking everything.
2:15 pm UPS
truck squeaks through between the flatbed and my redbud tree. Every
single dog on the block – 9 total – is barking.
2:17 pm Flatbed
driver puts cones around his truck, blocking ¾ of the street. Now
cars have to drive up on the grass of my yard and #92 next door. The
non-Cletus crew at #96 have finished cleaning up, and are now sitting
and watching the Cleti.
2:20 pm Flatbed
driver unfolds the spiffy crane on the truck. It's RC, operated by a
neat little box slung over his shoulder, but this seems to be the
first time he's ever operated it. The robot arm swings back in jerky
fits and starts, picks up the first pallet, jerks around
perpendicular to the front bumper. In the amount of time that has
elapsed since he started up the crane arm, the non-Cletus crew had
off-loaded two pallets of shingles from the back of a pickup truck by
hand. All 9 dogs are still barking/baying/yipping/howling.
2:25 pm Flatbed
guy is still jerking the crane arm around, despite the fact that the
pallet is a foot in front of him, two feet off the ground, and six
idle Cleti are sitting on the roof watching. Also, every few minutes
for some reason the truck's horn gets set off for 8 – 10 honks.
More dog cacophony, joined by the parrot at #93.
2:35 pm While
flatbed guy continues to wiggle the robot arm back and forth for no
apparent reason, all four vehicles belonging to the approximately 19
people living at #93 arrive, as well as a FedEx truck and the
50-year-old virgin next door to me. One of the knocked-over stones
from my driveway wall topples further into the street. 13 vehicles
are now blocked, about half of which are driving up into our yards to
get through. 50-year-old-virgin – who can barely back out of her
driveway on a good day – appears catatonic behind the wheel, not
moving. Horns are honking.
2:40 pm The
stack of shingles on the pallet dangling from the robot arm is now
spinning – just like somewhere Ellen Ripley is spinning in her
space grave. All of the dogs have gotten tired of barking. The parrot
is still squawking.
2:42 pm Deciding
that getting 65-80% of the shingles onto the property is good enough,
not-Ripley at last drops the stack, with one corner sticking about a
foot and a half out into the street.
2:43 pm And
then – dear gods – he swivels the arm back around to pick up the
second stack, and it starts all over again, with less parrot, a few
dogs, more horns, the flatbed truck horn, and the screeching of the
branches of my redbud against the 50-year-old virgin's Buick. The
second pallet eventually also lands with the corner sticking out into
the street.
2:50 pm When
flatbed guy finally gets his super cool but truly unnecessary machine
all tucked back away, he gets in the cab (forgetting all about the
cones), starts it up, and drives right into the protruding corners of
the stacks of shingles. He doesn't stop, just skids down the hill to
the stop sign and drives away.
3:30 pm The
Cleti call it a day. My wall is still knocked over. The vehicles of
#93 are parked willy-nilly all over their yard. The 50-year-old
virgin is trying to scrape grass back into the tire tracks in her
yard, and Colleen Clark is up in a tree trying to get down a
SpongeBob SquarePants beach ball with a hockey stick.
Okay,
maybe not that last one.
8:40 pm As
the sun sinks behind the spruce trees, I take my dog Desmond out for
his postprandial walk. He's on the long leash. We get to the end of
my sidewalk and he trots across the street, and pees on the shingles.
He's
getting bacon tonight.
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