Why do I bother

[Duck]

I used to have to tarp Lumber that wasnt pressure treated, I spent 30- 45 minutes tarping that stuff, and when it got to the customer, they unloaded it and sat it out in the mud in the rain.

When I was 20 or so I worked at a fence company for a while. I'd toss the wood on a jig & run a nailgun down it, then stack them on the floor. Regular stockade fence was stacked alternating between 2x4's down & 2x4's up. I'd take the first one & pull it a couple feet off the edge of the jig, then push down on it & flip it up then grab & carry it by the edge while it was leaning against the side of my head, then tip it forwards & let it fall flat on the ground. The next one would be 2x4's up. So I'd flip it up & carry it the same way, but to stack it I'd turn my back to the stack of fence sections & launch it over my head & duck out of the way. Shadow-box fence was the hardest. That's spaced out pickets but the pickets are on both sides & they're staggered from the other side. Those could only be picked up & carried at arm's length grabbing two pickets in the middle. It was hell on the shoulder muscles.

The lumber always came with cheap tarps stapled over them and they'd always arrive in dry vans we'd have to unload by pulling them to the tail with a pallet jack so the boss could grab 'em with the forklift.

The tarps were crap & were always torn off. The lumberyard was entirely outdoors so every time it rained we had to work with wet saturated wood that was twice as heavy.

I got pretty ripped doing that. One time we were camping & I was drunk & horsing around with my friend Keith & I charged at him, ducked down & nailed him right at the belt line with my right shoulder & upper arm extended out straight but bent forward at the elbow like a hook. I grabbed him around the waist & stood up really quick while pushing upwards on his hips with both hands & he ended up flipping around 270 degrees in midair & landed on his back behind me. My other friends said his shoulders & the back of his neck hit the ground first. He thought he was paralyzed & was crying like a little girl for about an hour, afraid to move or get up. Then we convinced him to drink some more beer & then he was fine but he was acting like a tired old man for about a week.

8 years later he developed a benign tumor on his brain stem that was squeezing the nerves & making half his body go numb. He got really fat & had to have surgery. After about a year he was skinny again but then he started acting strange & talking about suicide. I had to steal his gun & give it to his dad for safekeeping. Then he got into heroin & turned into a junkie. I still wonder if that was because I flipped him over my shoulder that day.

 

[8978]

Wow. Went from tarps to building fences to getting ripped to camping to fighting to brain tumors to overweight fat people to skinny to suicidal to guns to heroin. I know a woman like that. Never met her but heard stories.

 

[Duck]

Wow. Went from tarps to building fences to getting ripped to camping to fighting to brain tumors to overweight fat people to skinny to suicidal to guns to heroin. I know a woman like that. Never met her but heard stories.

Gimme a break I just woke up & slammed about 40 ounces of coffee all at once. Now I gotta go chop a trailer out of the ice with my handheld jackhammer.

I know you're going to take that "handheld jackhammer" thing out of context so let me just preemptively note that I'm talking about an air hammer with a chisel bit.

 

[Rigjockey]

I know you're going to take that "handheld jackhammer" thing out of context so let me just preemptively note that I'm talking about an air hammer with a chisel bit.

I didn't see a joke in a handheld jackhammer . Now I do.

 

[8978]

I know you're going to take that "handheld jackhammer" thing out of context so let me just preemptively note that I'm talking about an air hammer with a chisel bit.

Damn you!

 

[8978]

Wait wait wait, can't help. Wasn't that your nickname in High School?

 

[Injun]

Wait wait wait, can't help. Wasn't that your nickname in High School?

When I worked at the cabinet shop, there was a guy there we called Spanky.

Won't say why. It'd get me sent to the corner.

 

[Duck]

Wait wait wait, can't help. Wasn't that your nickname in High School?

No. They called me "Beave" for some reason.

 

[Rigjockey]

No. They called me "Beave" for some reason.

They called me looney for some reason.

 

[Duck]

They called me looney for some reason.

There was a guy in our neighborhood we called Looney. He had something wrong with him. He lived in the only double-wide in the neighborhood. The house on that site burned down in 1984 or something and the lot was vacant until Looney bought it & had a double-wide put there.

He used to get drunk & sit on his front porch holding a shovel. He always had that shovel.

One time we were walking past late at night & he was in his driveway holding his Boston terrier & they were both howling at the full moon. So we called him Looney Tunes for a while, then we shortened it to just Looney.

 

[Injun]

A guy sittin' there with a shovel is fine. It's the guy sittin' there with a shovel and a bag of lime you have to watch out for.

 

[Rigjockey]

There was a guy in our neighborhood we called Looney. He had something wrong with him. He lived in the only double-wide in the neighborhood. The house on that site burned down in 1984 or something and the lot was vacant until Looney bought it & had a double-wide put there.

He used to get drunk & sit on his front porch holding a shovel. He always had that shovel.

One time we were walking past late at night & he was in his driveway holding his Boston terrier & they were both howling at the full moon. So we called him Looney Tunes for a while, then we shortened it to just Looney.

Yea that sounds bout right! I got the name from making people Laugh and doing crazy shit. I never meant to hurt anyone. The name went to a rep of Not to be messed with. I never intentionally hurt anyone. Fun loving criminal. is all.

 

[Fageol]

They called me looney for some reason.

Cause you had a buck (CDN) or because you wanted to. Kind of reminds me of that poetry competition in Australia.

 

[Injun]

Cause you had a buck (CDN) or because you wanted to. Kind of reminds me of that poetry competition in Australia.

Poetry competition?

The night was dark
The moon was blue....












....nevermind.

 

[Fageol]

Poetry competition?

The night was dark
The moon was blue....
....nevermind.

As you might expect, there are lots of variations. Here's what I first heard:

The Australian Impromptu Poetry Competition came down to two finalists, an English Lit grad student and an old aboriginal.

They were given the word ''Timbuktu'' and had 2 minutes to come up with a poem including this word. The grad student was first to the microphone with:

Slowly across the desert sand,
Trekked a lonely caravan,
Men on camels two-by-two,
Destination: Timbuktu.

The judges were very impressed with the imagery. The audience thought the old aboriginal had no chance. But the old aboriginal offered:

Me and Tim a huntin' went,
Met three *****s in a pop-up tent,
They were three; we were two,
So I bucked one and Timbuktu.

You can figure out the winner.

Forgive me Mike or whoever runs this lashup, if I have sinned.

 

[Ike]

When I was 20 or so I worked at a fence company for a while. I'd toss the wood on a jig & run a nailgun down it, then stack them on the floor. Regular stockade fence was stacked alternating between 2x4's down & 2x4's up. I'd take the first one & pull it a couple feet off the edge of the jig, then push down on it & flip it up then grab & carry it by the edge while it was leaning against the side of my head, then tip it forwards & let it fall flat on the ground. The next one would be 2x4's up. So I'd flip it up & carry it the same way, but to stack it I'd turn my back to the stack of fence sections & launch it over my head & duck out of the way. Shadow-box fence was the hardest. That's spaced out pickets but the pickets are on both sides & they're staggered from the other side. Those could only be picked up & carried at arm's length grabbing two pickets in the middle. It was hell on the shoulder muscles.

The lumber always came with cheap tarps stapled over them and they'd always arrive in dry vans we'd have to unload by pulling them to the tail with a pallet jack so the boss could grab 'em with the forklift.

The tarps were crap & were always torn off. The lumberyard was entirely outdoors so every time it rained we had to work with wet saturated wood that was twice as heavy.

I got pretty ripped doing that. One time we were camping & I was drunk & horsing around with my friend Keith & I charged at him, ducked down & nailed him right at the belt line with my right shoulder & upper arm extended out straight but bent forward at the elbow like a hook. I grabbed him around the waist & stood up really quick while pushing upwards on his hips with both hands & he ended up flipping around 270 degrees in midair & landed on his back behind me. My other friends said his shoulders & the back of his neck hit the ground first. He thought he was paralyzed & was crying like a little girl for about an hour, afraid to move or get up. Then we convinced him to drink some more beer & then he was fine but he was acting like a tired old man for about a week.

8 years later he developed a benign tumor on his brain stem that was squeezing the nerves & making half his body go numb. He got really fat & had to have surgery. After about a year he was skinny again but then he started acting strange & talking about suicide. I had to steal his gun & give it to his dad for safekeeping. Then he got into heroin & turned into a junkie. I still wonder if that was because I flipped him over my shoulder that day.

Guess I shouldn't complain about Tarping

 

[Duck]

Guess I shouldn't complain about Tarping

Yep. Long story short, if you don't tarp a load of lumber, young lads might get drunk & injure each other.

Actually if it's pressure-treated or something like cedar that's weather resistant, the best reason for tarping it is probably just so you don't get an overweight fine. Well, pressure-treated is already pretty much as heavy as it's gonna get but cedar is like a sponge that soaks up water.

Either that or it's just to keep the sun off the cedar. It turns gray in the sunlight.

 

[Ike]

Yep. Long story short, if you don't tarp a load of lumber, young lads might get drunk & injure each other.

Actually if it's pressure-treated or something like cedar that's weather resistant, the best reason for tarping it is probably just so you don't get an overweight fine. Well, pressure-treated is already pretty much as heavy as it's gonna get but cedar is like a sponge that soaks up water.

Either that or it's just to keep the sun off the cedar. It turns gray in the sunlight.

Funny, They didnt make us Tarp Pressure treated or cedar shingles. I was only over weight once and I went around the only scale I was going past that day.

 

[Moonpie]

Poetry competition?

The night was dark
The moon was blue....
I heard you bark....












....nevermind.

 

[Southern Fried]

This can be dangerous........ telling tarping stories around an old trucker and poetry. You should know better.... but.... since you asked......

Tarping Story #1. Now stop me if you've heard this one (Yeah, good luck with that).

One day I was loading sheetrock down by the tunnel in Montreal. Loading and tarping inside the building. In the bay beside me was a "vertically challenged" young French Canadian with a set of "B" trains. Of course we had to wear the "fall protection" harness setup hooked to a cable. The cable has the feature of spooling out gradually but locks up with a sudden movement like falling off the trailer. Anyhow, the youngster spread the tarp on the front trailer with no problem. But, when it was the rear trailer turn he decided not to climb down and climb back up.... it wasn't "that" far to the second trailer..... he jumped the distance...... which locked the cable..... and fetched him up halfway.

Since he was shortlegged he couldn't reach either trailer and was swinging back and forth... and neither up or down. After everyone had a laughing fit.... and a couple of girls from the office took pictures.... they wound up lifting him with a pallet and a fork lift. Boy, I learned a whole bunch of new French Canadian cusswords that day.

Poem is next.....

The night was dark
The moon was blue.
I heard you bark
I threw a shoe.

I heard you yelp
T'was most unkind.
A shameful thing most foul I did
Weighing heavy on my mind.

I must explain my deed
And my reaction.
I hope my friend
To your satisfaction.

T'was TARPING did it
In the wind and snow.
Deranged my mind and
Left my spirit low.

Was not your fault my friend
That caused that low down pitch.
One can't help barking
When one's a beatch.