Fitting plywood sheeting in your volvo stationwagon
Drove up to Home Depot today with the windows all down, it's a hot summer's day and the air conditioning stopped working as soon as summer got going.
A highway ride up to Home Depot is not a bad thing. Hope springs eternal, you have funny conversations about nothing in particular, and the station wagon seems particularly large today. You've been cheating on the station wagon and driving the sedan for its air conditioning. So the current car seems big, booming along the highway.
You arrive at the Despot, park in some shade, sashay in with your man and a really noisy, rattley, bright orange cart made out of the same type of softly bent metal bars you used to brachiate along on the playground. Only today, they make you feel more like a grownup than ever.
You find yourselves in the plywood aisle, vast blocky stacks piled up to the fluourescent lights, so far up that sparrows flit around the ductwork. Since neither of you made a drawing of the floor surface you have to repair, you get one 4x8 foot sheet each of 3/8 inch, 1/2 inch, and 1/4 inch plywood. Actually, the 1/4 inch is made of lauan, which you have just discovered the true spelling of, since each of you has been spelling it differently and feeling both confident and confused.
You shop around, spending some time in the tiling aisle, wondering at the alchemies of sand-containing and non-sandy grout. You eventually check out, and wheel that bright orange screecher uphill with the 3 sheets of plywood, all the way to the station wagon in the shade. The back deck gets opened. You realize there might be a problem.
The first sheet of plywood goes in, and keeps on going in, with a foot and a half passing over the headrests of the driver's and passenger's seats. The other two sheets of plywood go on top of the first sheet, but encounter resistance. You know there's 8 feet of space in the car. You both decide to lower the backrests of the driver's and passenger's seats, so the plywood has more headroom, though you have less. The back deck finally clicks closed, but not really closed, so you know you have to take the back roads home.
Now comes the fun part. In order to drive with the plywood above your head in your laid-way-back seat, you have to hunch up to the steering wheel with your head compressed under the plywood, arms tucked in at the elbows, peering over the steering wheel. You're suddenly a blue haired old woman, married for 50 years, driving a volvo that's never fast enough for the person behind you!
A highway ride up to Home Depot is not a bad thing. Hope springs eternal, you have funny conversations about nothing in particular, and the station wagon seems particularly large today. You've been cheating on the station wagon and driving the sedan for its air conditioning. So the current car seems big, booming along the highway.
You arrive at the Despot, park in some shade, sashay in with your man and a really noisy, rattley, bright orange cart made out of the same type of softly bent metal bars you used to brachiate along on the playground. Only today, they make you feel more like a grownup than ever.
You find yourselves in the plywood aisle, vast blocky stacks piled up to the fluourescent lights, so far up that sparrows flit around the ductwork. Since neither of you made a drawing of the floor surface you have to repair, you get one 4x8 foot sheet each of 3/8 inch, 1/2 inch, and 1/4 inch plywood. Actually, the 1/4 inch is made of lauan, which you have just discovered the true spelling of, since each of you has been spelling it differently and feeling both confident and confused.
You shop around, spending some time in the tiling aisle, wondering at the alchemies of sand-containing and non-sandy grout. You eventually check out, and wheel that bright orange screecher uphill with the 3 sheets of plywood, all the way to the station wagon in the shade. The back deck gets opened. You realize there might be a problem.
The first sheet of plywood goes in, and keeps on going in, with a foot and a half passing over the headrests of the driver's and passenger's seats. The other two sheets of plywood go on top of the first sheet, but encounter resistance. You know there's 8 feet of space in the car. You both decide to lower the backrests of the driver's and passenger's seats, so the plywood has more headroom, though you have less. The back deck finally clicks closed, but not really closed, so you know you have to take the back roads home.
Now comes the fun part. In order to drive with the plywood above your head in your laid-way-back seat, you have to hunch up to the steering wheel with your head compressed under the plywood, arms tucked in at the elbows, peering over the steering wheel. You're suddenly a blue haired old woman, married for 50 years, driving a volvo that's never fast enough for the person behind you!
posted by Meghan Moore at 1:21 AM
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