The Road to Sheetrock

Friday night Hubby comes home and tells me I have to hang sheetrock the next morning. Oh joy. Hubby is in the process of rehabbing his mom's old farmhouse...again. This time it's the living room and her bedroom.

She wanted new hardwood floors and once the old carpeting was ripped out she thought new windows would be nice. Oh, and a new hearth, and crown molding, and while you're at it.... Sigh.

The living room got demolished down to the studs. Hubby and his brothers finished the demo last weekend. During the week Hubby replaced the windows, repaired the exterior wood siding, replaced rotten studs, rewired electrical outlets, and insulated the exterior walls by himself.

The next step was to hang new sheetrock but he couldn't do that alone. All three of his big, strapping brothers suddenly and mysteriously had other plans for the weekend. That left me. Oh, my joy was immense.

I've been going to bed about 6:00 am and getting up around the crack of noon. Hubby told me I had to be in the truck ready to leave at 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning, and that was too late as far as he was concerned. We have an hour and a half drive to get to the farm and daylight was a-wastin'. The late hour was a concession to me.

I'm not a morning person, especially not after just two hours of sleep, and knowing I'm going to have to spend the day hanging sheetrock. I step out the door Saturday morning to find Cheezburger the Porch Cat has had a successful night hunting. He left us a dead baby mole and a skullless (sic?) mouse. The face is still there but the top of the head is missing. The little mouse brain is still in place and shining bright pink in the morning sun. Barf. How did Cheezburger manage that I wonder?

I stagger out to the truck and hunker down in a rather foul mood. The black cloud of seething resentment is visible over my head. My brain had not yet began to function. I need caffeine. Hubby knows not to speak to me or I'll rip him a new one. He brought Pepsi out of self preservation.

We drive in silence for about 15 minutes. We pass a church sign that reads, "Pray for the harvest, but continue to hoe." My brain couldn't quite comprehend what that was supposed to mean, either at face value or in a biblical sense. The Pepsi had not yet kicked in. After a few minutes it registered.

Then I smirked.

Pook! My little devil horns pop out. I break the long silence.

"I *so* want to steal me an "E".

Hubby smirks.

"You are so bad."

Bwahahahaha. He knew exactly what I was talking about. We have lived together waaaaay to long.

A few more miles down the road, there was a dead coon splattered on the center line. Five feet away was a mangled deer. I wondered if the deer was on his way to sniff the dead coon when he got hit, or the coon was en route to sniff the dead deer. It was odd. Of course I had to ponder on that a while.

There were so many dead critters on the road we started keeping count. Final tally: 5 deer, 3 coons, 2 possums, 1 skunk, 2 armadillos, 3 cats, 1 dog, 1 chicken, and a goat. Yep, a goat. Have no idea where he came from. Somebody is gonna be really mad when they figure out they've lost a goat.

A few more miles down the road was a little man walking along pulling a little utility cart thingy loaded with his belongings. Hubby said he had seen the guy walking through Our Town a few days earlier. Dude must be walking cross country. Sign on the back of the cart: "REVOLT - Fight for Jesus." Wasn't Jesus a pacifist??? Oh, the irony.