![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Aug. 22nd, 2007
We didn't want to. Oh, how we didn't want to. But we were determined and we'd picked this day to do it and nothing would stop us. Dave, muscles achy and back stiff from either a few nights' bad sleep or the beginning of the flu, sneezed a bit and gave up on trying to pop his neck. I felt all manner of bleh from this record-breaking heat, and wanted nothing more to stick my head in a bucket full of water and ice chips. We complained mightily, but kept on going.
We got the rollers, the brushes, the trays, the trio of five-gallon buckets of paint. We got tarps and spackle (quoth Dave, "this is all you") and the big plastic poles you screw the roller handles into so you can paint up along the wall. Plastic, not wood, because the wood felt unfinished and splintery. I asked for a bucket, for the aforementioned ice, but was denied with a laugh and besides, the house is still air conditioned. The guy who rang all of that up was wearing cologne so nasty and strong I nearly fell over. Dave claimed not to notice it, but I think he did, because the roller poles mysteriously hit the ground when he got into sniffing range.
After that we ran by another store for other supplies, because Dave's house is totally empty, so we got lots of water (spring, not drinking, because Zephyrhills spring is sublime and Zephyrhills drinking came from a toilet, and everyone in Tampa knows this) and soap and paper plates and plastic cups and toilet paper and paper towels and most excitingly a tiny bottle of Tylenol which we tore into as soon as we were in the car. We got food too, and then I wondered why we hadn't thought to grab lawn chairs or something as well, and again I brought up the bucket idea. It would have been nice.
During all of this shopping we felt ickier by the minute, and my decision to "not do anything once we get there but turn the AC down and lay on the nice cold tile like dogs" was hailed as genius. This kind of heat weakens you. All these trips into and out of the car in fifty gazillion frillion fucking degree air do their damage -- right now, down at the water-surrounded end of this peninsula at seven in the evening, right now the heat index is a hundred and one and believe me, three hours ago, fifteen miles north where the peninsula gives way to the more broad bit of mainland and the exhaust makes the air dance and shimmer over the asphalt -- believe me, it was worse up there.
So we got all this shit together, and we managed to get it all into the house in one trip (except Dave had to go back for the third can of paint) and once we got indoors the dying smoke alarm made me wonder, aloud, why I'd forgotten a screwdriver (which, how were we going to open those paint cans anyway? with keys?) and Dave interrupted that with, why is it hot and the lights won't turn on?
No power. No eckeltricity. No nothing. Not for days, as near as I could tell, because the inside of the freezer was warm to the touch. The funny thing was, last time we went up there the water was off but the air was on, and this time (I checked, for purposes of humor) there was water but no air. We tried the circuit breakers -- this being the first time Dave had had reason to pull the huge Everything Off switch -- but that didn't reset anything. There was no easy way to get ahold of the electric company, and even if we'd been able to they probably wouldn't come out at five-thirty on a Tuesday, and even then neither of us wanted to sit around in a hot house and wait three hours for it to cool down because by then we'd probably be comatose.
So we gave up and Dave brought me home, and now I am taking a delightfully cold shower and a nap, in that order. In five minutes. When I feel like moving.
We got the rollers, the brushes, the trays, the trio of five-gallon buckets of paint. We got tarps and spackle (quoth Dave, "this is all you") and the big plastic poles you screw the roller handles into so you can paint up along the wall. Plastic, not wood, because the wood felt unfinished and splintery. I asked for a bucket, for the aforementioned ice, but was denied with a laugh and besides, the house is still air conditioned. The guy who rang all of that up was wearing cologne so nasty and strong I nearly fell over. Dave claimed not to notice it, but I think he did, because the roller poles mysteriously hit the ground when he got into sniffing range.
After that we ran by another store for other supplies, because Dave's house is totally empty, so we got lots of water (spring, not drinking, because Zephyrhills spring is sublime and Zephyrhills drinking came from a toilet, and everyone in Tampa knows this) and soap and paper plates and plastic cups and toilet paper and paper towels and most excitingly a tiny bottle of Tylenol which we tore into as soon as we were in the car. We got food too, and then I wondered why we hadn't thought to grab lawn chairs or something as well, and again I brought up the bucket idea. It would have been nice.
During all of this shopping we felt ickier by the minute, and my decision to "not do anything once we get there but turn the AC down and lay on the nice cold tile like dogs" was hailed as genius. This kind of heat weakens you. All these trips into and out of the car in fifty gazillion frillion fucking degree air do their damage -- right now, down at the water-surrounded end of this peninsula at seven in the evening, right now the heat index is a hundred and one and believe me, three hours ago, fifteen miles north where the peninsula gives way to the more broad bit of mainland and the exhaust makes the air dance and shimmer over the asphalt -- believe me, it was worse up there.
So we got all this shit together, and we managed to get it all into the house in one trip (except Dave had to go back for the third can of paint) and once we got indoors the dying smoke alarm made me wonder, aloud, why I'd forgotten a screwdriver (which, how were we going to open those paint cans anyway? with keys?) and Dave interrupted that with, why is it hot and the lights won't turn on?
No power. No eckeltricity. No nothing. Not for days, as near as I could tell, because the inside of the freezer was warm to the touch. The funny thing was, last time we went up there the water was off but the air was on, and this time (I checked, for purposes of humor) there was water but no air. We tried the circuit breakers -- this being the first time Dave had had reason to pull the huge Everything Off switch -- but that didn't reset anything. There was no easy way to get ahold of the electric company, and even if we'd been able to they probably wouldn't come out at five-thirty on a Tuesday, and even then neither of us wanted to sit around in a hot house and wait three hours for it to cool down because by then we'd probably be comatose.
So we gave up and Dave brought me home, and now I am taking a delightfully cold shower and a nap, in that order. In five minutes. When I feel like moving.
