Month: October 2016

Me Tarzan. Me stuck.

There I was, 35 feet above the ground, the grip on both hands weakening, and my arms quivering.

So this is how it ends, I thought.

No, not my life. I had a harness on and was securely latched to a cable a foot above my head. This is how my son’s social life at school ended, crashing and burning in a pile of ashes as he forever became known as The Kid Whose Dad Had To Be Rescued During The Ropes Course Field Trip.

Parker and me before our climb. The Tarzan ropes are over his left shoulder.

I had agreed to chaperone this field trip because I want to be there for my kids. But also because, hey, ropes course. I have twice agreed to chaperone kayaking field trips. Because, you know, to be there.

When we got to the park, I started eyeing some of the 72 different obstacles. There were three levels of difficulty. Once we were outfitted with harnesses, helmets and directions, I noticed many of the kids in the class, my son included, migrated to the most difficult levels as quickly as they could. I eventually made my way up toward them as well.

I navigated an obstacle here and an obstacle there. I am not afraid of heights, and I am fairly agile and coordinated, so I was feeling pretty confident as I made my way from one elevated platform to the next. Then I arrived at the Tarzan obstacle. While many of the obstacles have wooden slats or metal cables to walk on, Tarzan does not. It is just a series of vertically hanging ropes, each with a few knots in them. You can either go across grabbing each rope by hand a la the eponymous jungle swinger. Or you can put your feet on top of the bottom knot of each rope as you go from rope to rope.

I know my limitations. I was not going to be able to do the prior, at least not the whole way. So I opted to hop from knot to knot. First knot, no problem. Second knot. Good deal. Only 43,000 ropes to go. (Perhaps fewer than that. My memory is fuzzy.) Each rope I went to, I had to hoist myself up and swing my feet over, capturing the next rope with my feet and sliding them down to the knot. I then had to shift my right hand to the next rope, followed by my left hand. And that takes more energy than I realized.

About two-thirds of the way across, my body stopped cooperating. I moved my feet over to a rope. I tried to lift myself up high enough to swing my body over to the next rope. My arms laughed at this notion. They were no longer interested in this obstacle, they informed me.

I still had my feet securely braced on the knots. I’ll just hang here for a second, I thought, until my arms are better.

At that point, my legs informed me that if my arms didn’t have to work, then they didn’t either, and also informed me that they were about to play a fun little game called Jelly Legs.

If I let go, I was pretty sure I would be in trouble, and probably not making it back to the platform without some help of the crew. It is really not promising for your social standing for your entire class to have to see your dad get hauled to safety from the ropes courses they were navigating like squirrels.

I had to make one final stand. I looked over my shoulder. A crew member was on the platform behind me. “Just put your feet on the platform and you’re good,” he said. If only he knew about the limb revolt.

With every bit I had left in my body, I grabbed as tight as I could with my hands and pulled up as much as I could, and then launched my feet toward the platform. My heels landed solidly on the wooden stand. I was now in a sitting position. I gave the rope a little swing back and then forth, and then pulled as hard I could, digging my heels onto the platform for leverage. I let go with my right hand and grabbed the last rope. I repeated with my left. One. More. Pull. After a few seconds, I was standing upright on the platform.

While I did not complete the Tarzan obstacle in the purest of fashions, I consider it a win on my part. I went from one platform to the other and did not require rescue. That’s a win in my book. For me and my son.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, he now lives in Mt. Pleasant. You can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike.

Uncategorized

Laundry list

There are a lot of places I don’t go in life. Some of those are because I have good sense and know to avoid them. Others, however, are because I just don’t really have occasion to go there. For example, jewelry stores. (I know, my lucky wife.)

I identified another locale I am vastly unfamiliar with recently. For only the second time in 25 years I visited a laundromat. They are fine places that offer a valuable service, and I’m glad they are here for anyone and everyone. It’s just that, much like jewelry stores, I’ve not been to many.

The last time was about 10 years ago. We were fortunate enough to have a horrid flea infestation, and in order to eradicate them we had to wash every bit of clothing and bedding we had. (I would have burned everything in a large bonfire in the yard, but local ordinances wouldn’t allow that.)

The time prior to that was when I was in college and I had to go to a nearby laundromat and explain to them that (a) I had not been to the laundromat and that (b) that check that just got returned had handwriting surprisingly similar to my roommate’s.

Unfortunately, our dryer was damaged recently, and its repair would not be complete for a few days. I took a quick poll of the house. “Can everyone make it through the next few days without washing clothes?” No, was the general consensus. For what it’s worth, I found that amazing, as if you saw their closets and dressers, you would feel pretty confident they would have enough clothes until roughly 2034.

So I told everyone to gather up the bare basics of what they would need to get them through a few days. And I gave very strict rules: It must be dirty or stinky, and it must be worn next week. I don’t care if you have to put a pair of shorts over those newly cleaned jeans. If I wash it, it’s getting worn.

So a few observations from the laundromat:

I came in with about $3 in quarters in my pocket. I am a fool. A wash load costs $8.75, which, by my estimate, is more than $3. Also, that is for a 20-minute wash. Thus, washing machines make $26.25/hour, which translates to around $54K a year in salary. Feel free to compare yourself accordingly to a washing machine.
I had no idea what I was doing. As I fumbled around trying to figure out how to start the washer, it occurred to me that I was not totally certain I was at a washer. I turned around and noticed several folks staring at me. I looked toward an older woman and said sheepishly, “This is the washer, right?” She smiled and nodded, with a bit of a “you poor thing” look.
Once I confirmed that is was the washer and loaded my clothes, I went to close the washer door. It bounced back at me. Slammed it again. Bounce. “Turn the handle,” the older woman said. Good call. Sure enough, there was a handle on the door that, when turned, very much prevented it from bouncing back.
You cannot use just the dryers there. You wanna use the dryers? Oh, you are going to use that $8.75/load washer first.
I believe a federal law should immediately be implemented in which every laundromat should have wifi available. Or require there to be a Pizza Hut with free wifi next door, as this one has. Thanks, Pizza Hut!
I do not know laundromat etiquette, so I just sat there quietly. Case in point — a woman was removing things from a dryer and an article of clothing fell on the floor. My first thought was to say, “Ma’am…” But then I stopped. What if it was some unwritten code of the laundromat, in particular for a man letting a woman know a pair of her underwear was on the floor. I figured silence and a focus on my computer screen was the best option. The woman next to me did say, “Ma’am,” caught her attention and pointed at the floor. But I still don’t know if it was OK for me to do so.
I do, however, know personal space etiquette. And you know who violated it? The little girl who was watching YouTube videos on her phone and repeatedly drifted over about three inches from me, leaning very much into my personal space, craning her neck at my screen.
You know how at a restaurant, if a baby starts crying, there will inevitably be a few people rather annoyed at that? Yeah, not at the laundromat. A baby started crying and the laundromat turned into maternal central. There were moms and grandmothers converging on the child, cooing and tickling and offering colorful magazines and singing and what not. It was actually quite sweet. Almost made me regret loudly stating, “Would someone please quiet that baby down. I’m trying to launder.”

So I successfully navigated the waters of the laundromat. I am glad that, should I need to visit one again soon, I will be well prepared for it. But I’m still not ready for the jewelry store.

Family Home improvement

Weathering the storm

When Gov. Nikki Haley issued the evacuation order last Tuesday for Charleston, she was about on the third syllable of the word “evacuation” when my wife was on the road.

OK, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. But my wife made it clear to me a while back that, should a hurricane even consider coming to visit, she would not be there to welcome it. Perhaps this is because of her folks living on the Florida coast and having endured several major hurricanes over the years. Perhaps this is because she is no dummy.

Mostly, though, it’s because when the remnants of Tropical Storm Julia came over our house, we sat in our den, rain pouring and winds swirling, and she said, “Nope. Not doing this if it’s bigger than a tropical storm.”

I was very much in favor of this plan. She and our son headed on out ahead of much of the traffic, while I stayed back with my daughter to secure the house.

This was a good call for a few reasons. First, our son is not a fan of storms. I blame this on me, as when he was a toddler I decided to make a mad dash to our car during a thunderstorm. Hey, here’s a fun fact: you know what a transformer getting hit by lightning sound like when it’s about 20 feet from you? It sounds like you are about to die. Yay, fun!

So when storms do come a calling, it’s not exactly his thing. Plus, as with many tasks in life, streamlining your work force makes for a more efficient process. You can only bring one patio chair in at a time, so no need for a traffic jam at the sliding glass door.

Also, this was one time I was going to use teenager apathy in my favor. Our daughter is 16, and (mostly) a quite lovely human. That said, she is also a teenage girl, and often lets her mood drift into the category best described as “whatever.”

But I decided to use this to my benefit. With earbuds firmly entrenched and the soundtrack to Hamilton blaring, the approaching storm did not even enter her mind. She just very efficiently and robotically brought chairs and bird feeders and such inside, occasionally stopping to belt out a line from the show.

It only took a few hours to make sure everything was as secure as we could make it. Lots of folks asked me if I planned on boarding up or taping the windows. Nope. I brought stuff inside, locked up the house, hit the road and hoped for the best.

When we got home, we were pleased to see that our house had been spared of much of the damage. We had a lot of debris in our yard, but nothing that couldn’t be raked up and hauled to the curb.

The process of moving all of the stuff outside was done mainly by me, as I was in the car with my daughter, and my wife and son were about an hour behind us. My daughter wanted to go see a friend, and I saw this as an opportunity to have the absolute most streamlined work force possible. It probably took me 30 minutes, tops, to get my outdoor stuff out of the indoors.

When my wife and son arrived, he was eager to get on his bike and pedal off some pent up energy, which we gladly encouraged. My wife and I actually enjoyed the couple of hours of yard work required to clean up from the storm, as it was a chance for us to enjoy a beautiful day and spend some time outdoors together.

I’m glad that Hurricane Matthew was not as bad as it could have been for us. But I’m also glad we had a good test run of evacuating our house.

When the next storm approaches, I’m confident we know what to do and how to do it. We’ll send half the family on early and tell my daughter to crank Hamilton, because we’ve got things to do.

Home improvement

Color me clueless

After nearly two decades of marriage, I think my wife has accepted the fact that I have the interior decorating skills of a shoebox.

We are looking to get new flooring in our downstairs. We currently have a mix of carpet, tile and hardwood, which all roughly looks the same to me.

We have tile in our kitchen, hardwood in the hallway, and carpet in the rest of the house. I probably would not know this if she had not pointed it out to me, as the only way I process floors is through my current shoe selection, and quite frankly, when I roll down for my morning coffee, all I’m feeling is the sweet, sweet comfort of my 10-year-old slippers that my wife begs me to let her replace every Christmas. (Answer: No. They’re national treasures.)

But I am a good soldier, and as we move on to this phase of home improvement, I have dutifully gone to the flooring places with my wife to “help” pick out the floor we will have.

At one point, my wife had a couple of samples and asked me what I thought. I pointed at one sample. “Do you think that’s darker than our kitchen floor?”

“Our kitchen floor is white. So yes,” she said with a sigh.

“No, our kitchen floor…”

“Is white,” she interrupted. Later observations confirmed our floor is, in fact, white, and so pretty much anything she picked out other than a white sample would, in fact, be darker.

For what it’s worth, I have never been very good with noticing nuances such as color or texture or whether things actually exist in my house. We bought our first house nearly 20 years ago. At one point during our tenure there (and I can’t even begin to fathom what started this conversation), I referenced that our house was gray. My wife looked at me as if I had said that our house was a giant mushroom. Our house, it turns out, was tan. Fine. But that really never registered with me, because those are details that clearly are more complex than what I can comprehend.

We (she) eventually settled on a couple of samples she liked. We brought them home with us and she began strategically placing them at different points in the house. We had conversations such as this, when she placed them next to kitchen cabinets:

ME: Looks great!

HER: Looks terrible. We’ll have to paint the kitchen cabinets.

ME: Well, yeah, except that.

We are now in the estimate stage, which I am actually very helpful at, because when someone comes in to measure our house, I can absolutely be there to let the person in and can also identify where the downstairs is.

We are also planning on painting some rooms, and my wife has pretty much taken that on by herself, and not just because I have the color sense of a coffee table. I have told her that, much like the floors, I will be happy to be at the house and open the door for painters giving estimates, and also feel quite confident I can point out which walls we plan to paint (assuming my wife reminds me a few times).

In my defense, my wife knows that this is a limited skill of mine, and also not one that really ranks high on the caring scale in my world. I really don’t have much of an opinion on what colors our walls are or what kind of flooring we have. It REALLY matters to my wife, and I yield those decisions to her. She knew what she was getting into when she married me. For example, when we picked out our china prior to our wedding, she asked me for input. I told her that I really didn’t care, as plates were simply a functional device to hold my food. Ultimately, she offered this deal: She would narrow down the choices to three patterns, and I would cast my vote. As we stood in the store, the three plates before me, you might as well have put three different size Chinet disposable plates in front of me. Because all of them seemed plenty capable of hosting a turkey sandwich. I pointed at one, hesitantly. She gave a slight turn of the head and squinted her eyes. I moved my finger to another one. A quick nod down. “I like this one!” I said. “Hey, me, too!” she said. And those plates still do a bang-up job of holding our dinner.

I’m glad we’re doing some of the renovations in the house, and I know it will look stellar when we are done. I am most pleased that my wife is happy about getting to put her expert interior design skills to work. And that I am getting to put my expert skills of opening a door and pointing out where our downstairs is.