Everthing But The Kitchen Sink (part one)

For those that don’t know, I am 1 of 9 siblings. There are eight boys (Idiots) and one girl. The 9 of us are separated by only 10 years. We are all very close. Occasionally we do silly things. This is one of those occasions.


I alluded to this in yesterday’s column. (I know it is a blog, but my brother Kevin refers to it as my column. This makes me feel important, so I am sticking with column.) One of the Idiots put out an all points bulletin for help on the weekend of the 24th. The job was mom and dads kitchen floor. This APB was a request for all hands on deck. It was made clear that Dan was going to be Project Leader. Dan is a good choice. Dan is a handy dude. Dan knows his stuff, and he does all of his projects well. Dan is also a bit of a perfectionist.

Jim was the one that sent out the APB. Jim is the baby of the family, and lives right around the corner from the parents. So somewhere along the line Idiot Jim gets to talking to Idiot Dan about re-doing the floor. Idiot Dan gets to liking the idea and joins in. Once Jim has Dan on board, he knows all of us other Idiots will be in, cause we know, that Dan knows what he’s doing. Jim is not the Project Leader, but he is the Project Organizer. So he gets the people on board. He gets his buddies truck. He gets all of the material. His function is basically to make sure that Dan has what he needs, and is happy while working. So we have the P.L. in Dan, and The P.O. in Jim. Jim and Dan are the ones running the gig.

When I got the call from Jim it is put to me that it would be pretty simple. I explained to Jim that when it comes to power tools, I am not very good. Power tools and I do not have a good working relationship. I don’t know how to work them, and they don’t work when I use them. He lets me know that I am just going there to be a grunt. I am just one of Dan’s Bitches. “LW, you are going to hammer some nails, and screw some screws. That’s it.” This sounds good to me, cause after all, who doesn’t like to get hammered and screw. Then he says, “You can be a runner. If Dan needs something, you go get it. When he needs a beer, you get him a beer.” This also sounds easy. This also means that every time Dan needs a beer, I can get myself a beer. So I get to drink beer, get hammered and screw. “I’m in Dimmy.” I say. So I enter the weekend as DB 1. Dan’s Bitch 1.

Kevin should have been DB 2. Somewhere along the line he changed his function. He was one of Dan’s Bitches, but he was one with an idea. Yeah, he got promoted, mid project. Idiot Kevin was the one that turned this into 13-hour days. He thought we should move some things…. like support beams. So he got moved from DB 2, and promoted to Manager in Charge of Special Projects. He was now the S.P. Kevin took this title seriously; cause every time I turned around he was off doing a special project.

Idiot Dennis was there. Idiot Mike was there. Idiot Pat was there. Naturally these guys were DB’s 3 through 5. Idiot Bill was there in spirit. He was DB 6. It is actually hard to refer to Bill as an idiot in this case, cause he is the only one smart enough to be 1500 miles away. So the crew is set. We are ready to roll. The project kicks off. Operation Kitchen Floor started on Friday night, the 23rd.