Confessions of a Woodworker

Confessions of a Woodworker

Well, summer has hit the shop and I won’t have much time for a while to post on the blog so wanted to relate a lesson learned this week.

I recently had a brand new baby grand daughter born, and get to see her every week. Really enjoying this being close to the grand kid.

My daughter and I have been putting reading books together, and as everyone that comes to the website know, I am getting pretty good at doing videos.

 

My thought was to have “Grandpa” read some favorite children books and put them in DVD form so mom could pop them into the DVD player and sort of have some fun.

Well it didn’t take long for our attention to turn to Dr. Seuss.

We have collected pretty much all the books, except for “The Cat in The Hat”. We had just talked about it this last Friday over a family dinner so it was fresh on my mind with a mental note to pick it up.

Fast forward to Monday.

I had occasion to have to re-order business checks and while in the Bank decided to just order them there and avoid the whole annoying telephone thing.

I parked myself in one of those little cushy chairs they always have in the section where the suits sit behind desks constantly pecking at their computers and decided to wait until one of them was free.

Being the type that always has to be doing something, your humble woodworker began to peruse the reading offerings neatly arranged in straight rows on the pre-fab poorly made coffee table. Sitting on top of the pile was…….wait for it.…..”The Cat In The Hat”.

Now it his been 25 years since I had seen one, let alone had the opportunity to actually read it.

I lunged.

Here is the meat of the story.

My wife keeps anything decent that I own to wear in her closet so I can’t get to it. More than once a source of argument and one which I have never one. According to her, this ensures that she knows I have something nice to wear if I have to go into public with her. My usual clothes, overalls and long sleeved thermal undershirt, are covered with a mixture of glue, sawdust, paint, and combinations the which that have no description. I may have been emanating lacquer fumes, there was that shelf order Monday, I can’t remember. And the boots. Oh the boots. I really need to put new boot laces on, but cant get to the bottom part as they have been glue-fused to the boot so I have tied other pieces to the broken ends half way up.

As I get older my concern for how I dress down in the shop seems to become less and less a priority. Getting orders out the door is.

I was looking particularly woodworky this day having just dealt with a lumber delivery that consisted of sap covered bark-on mushroom covered logs that I wanted to work down and put away for ten years or so to age.

Alright, back to the bank. As I read deeper into the book and began to re-realize the genius that is Dr. Seuss, I was sitting there looking like something that just crawled out from under a bridge and only able to read at that level.

Laughing as well for added impact.

Eventually someone came over to me to see what I wanted, the junior worker I must note having been sent by the elder. I was approached more to see if I was alright, rather than seeking banking services.

It didn’t dawn on me, the looks and such I was getting, until I was driving home.

Lesson: clean up prior to going out in public.