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Construction Hazards

May 21, 2008

Builder Scott has been on Sciatica Leave for a little over a week. My plan was to call him today and find out when he's coming back to work. However, when I looked outside, there he was, drilling and sawing and doing what he does. That made me quite happy.

A couple of hours later, he rang the doorbell. Somehow, he'd dropped his phone down a hole and he couldn't get it out. He'd been trying for quite some time, and was out of ideas. So, I accompanied him outside to investigate.

A little backtracking. I was the one who insisted that Scott get a cell phone in the first place. I signed him up for his plan and gave him an old phone I had. He's lost it a few times, left it in places, and changed the phone number without telling me, but basically, it's worked out pretty well. Now that he has it, he uses it all the time, but is mad that he can't get along without it.

He does have one of those little cases that clips on to his belt. It's not a good one, though, and the phone falls out of it sometimes when he's bending over or crawling around. That's what happened today, and that phone was five or six feet down in a little hole in the foundation.

He'd tried getting it with his crowbar, a bungie cord, a long wooden stick, and other devices he'd cooked up, to no avail. I suggested we try the Coat Hanger Method, and he agreed. While I was walking up on the little piece of wood we use as a gangplank, it fell off, sending me tumbling unceremoniously a few feet down into the mud. Stupidly, I was wearing sandals, and my toe is now killing me. The Coat Hanger Method was a bust. I suggested that we contact the phone people and have them Fed Ex a new phone. But Scott was in no mood to wait.

Finally, he used brute force. He used the crowbar and his big mallet to cut a hole in the concrete block. We could see the phone through the hole. Scott's hand was too big to fit in, so I climbed down, reached in, and was able to grab it.

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