Assumptions

I have a habit of making assumptions that are based on little more than what I devise in my mind. Friday was a painful example of that. I took Friday off to tackle sodding Nicki’s area. I estimated that 2 skids of grass would fit the bill (estimation based on no facts) and I pictured me easily dropping the 2 skids into the back of my pickup truck and happily carting them home and installing them at my leisure. What a delusion that was.

I popped out of bed nice and early, excited to get the project underway. The grass place was all the way in town, a 45 minute drive. I find the place abd go in and pay for the 2 skids. When I got a look at the skids as I went in the office, I thought to myself, “Hmmm they are pretty big, maybe I’ll only be able to take one at a time” No big deal. The woman that took the money, to my surprise, was also the one to run the forklift. She came out and took one look at my truck and immediately proclaimed that she didn’t think there was anyway it would fit. I said that I’d like to try anyway, feeling that she underestimated the payload ability of my mighty toyota. She inches the skid up to the bed of the truck. It fits inside the walls of the bed but not inside the wheel well. No problem, I told her to try moving back and setting it down behind the wheel well, I coould just leave the tailgate down. Her face told me that it was a joke to even try, but she obliged. As she lowered the weight of the skid onto the bed, the truck fenders immediately sunk to the tires, it was practically doing a wheelie. “Get it off!!!”, I tell her and she raises the grass to relieve the crushing weight off my poor truck. “These weigh 2500 pounds each” she tells me. “You need at least a 1 ton truck to haul one” And I thought I could throw 2 in. This is something that could have been discovered if I dug a little bit beforehand but oh well, like so many other times, I learn the hard way. She puts the grass back down and I tell her I will have to go get another truck.

As easily as I said that I was unusre of exactly how I would find another truck. I didn’t know anyone that had one that heavy duty and even if I did, it was Friday, how would I get it? Well a stroke of genius came to me. Rent the Home Depot truck! Luckily it was close by. As I drove up I saw it was on the lot and it said it had a weight capacity of 3000 pounds, perfect! I go in to the rental desk and anxiously tell the guy that I want to rent the truck. “What for?” he asked. I told him I needed to haul 2 skids of grass. He asked if they were from Home Depot, and I said no. He points to a sign that says something about the truck only being rented to HD customers as a convenience to transport stuff they buy there. I panicked for a sec, this was my only feasible option, albeit a pricey one. I told the guy that I was also going to be buying top soil to mix in to the dirt. I think he could see the stress I was under and agreed to rent me the truck. Whew. The truck is typically rented for quick trips. I did some quick calculations, 2 trips all the way out to my house, unloading 2 skids of grass myself, oh boy, this is going to be costly. However the bug up my ass has to be satisfied and it was going to get done, today.

I hopped in the truck and chugged back to the grass place. The woman was much more pleased with my transportation this time. She placed the skid on the truck with little effort. However, as soon as she pulled the forks away, I heard an ear piercing noise from the truck. What the hell?? I start looking around, as I open the door, the noise is even louder. The old mexican man that was cleaning up some extra sod came over and looked as well. Then I see the sign on the dash. “This vehicle is equipped with an overweight alarm, to disable alarm lighten payload.” I was freaking. I had the 4 50 pound bags of cow manure in the back so I grabbed them and threw them in the cab, as I threw the one in it snagged on the seat belt, ripping the bag and spilling some manure in the cab. I was too flustered to care. The siren keep screaming. I pop the hood to see if I could simply pull a wire to silence the madness. I didn’t see anything obvious and I certainly didn’t want to disconnect something crucial. I was angry cause the truck should support the weight no problem and it appeared to hardly flinch when the skid was put on it, yet an overly aggressive alarm was incessantly requesting that I lighten the load. Well again the bug was driving me, “F it, I will just have to drive with this f’in thing wailing the entire time, I don’t care.” I fire up the truck and put it in drive, silence… Ah I’ve been blessed, the alarm cuts off once you put the truck in drive…

The ride home was slow as the grass had a bit of lean that the old mexican pointed out to me. I took the turns real slow to prevent an inadvertent dumping of my precious sod on the roadway. All the time I am plodding along I am thinking how much this truck is costing me to rent. I got to our house, and backed up to Nicki’s area. As soon as I turned the truck off, the alarm is going off again. The noise added to the stress as try to hurriedly unload and place the turf. At first I was taking it off piece by piece and placing it. Soon I realized this would take forever so I hopped into the back of the truck and tossed the grass off, piece by piece, trying to throw it into some semblance of piles on the ground. Once it was down on the ground I had to handle each piece a second time to place it. It was hot and humid on Friday and I was rushing trying to get this done. I was running out of gas fast.

The one skid of grass was enough to do the area that I estimated would take two. So skid number two would be used to sod the area in front of the shed that also was bare dirt currently. By the time I got the first skid unloaded I had taken almost all the time I had given to the HD guy as my estimated time of rental. So I had to call him back and explain it would be another few hours yet. He was ok with it and I went back for load two. I picked it up with the alarm once again piercing my ears. This time at home I simple threw the grass off in piles off the back so I could hurry up and get the truck back to keep the rental charge as minimal as possible. By the time I got the truck back I had rung up another 110 bucks in charges. Ugh, oh well at least the grass is at my house.

After I dropped off the truck I went back into the store. I wanted to find an Easter plant for my mom. As I went in I noticed some cool palms that were on sale. It was a great deal, I found a triple pygmy palm that I thought would look great in the middle of Nicki’s area. So I bought that too. The HD guy loaded the heavy tree into the back of my Toyota. It sunk under the weight, but nothing close to the what a skid of grass did to it. I leaned it back and wedged it into place. So I returned home with my latest prize, with a huge pile of sod still waiting to be laid down. I get home and start ripping into phase two of the grass project. It had clouded up, making it feel a bit more bearable. I was tired but didn’t have to work at a fast pace since the truck rental was no longer over my head. I got the grass down in about an hour. Then it was time for the tree. Ali had dug a sizeable hole already. I backed the truck into the area. We tried various methods to get the tree off the truck gracefully but wound up doing a semi-controlled crash off the tailgate instead. It was at least 300 pounds. Once on the ground we rolled, tugged and pushed it’s way into the hole. We got it straight and filled it in. It looked awesome. The grass looks great as well. It was an exhausting, ass busting day but I am pleased with the outcome. Pictures will be coming.

On Saturday we cleaned up in prep for having our new neighbors over for dinner. They have lived next to us since December but we couldn’t work out having them over till now. Ali made a great dinner and desert and we had a nice time with them.

For Easter we went to mom’s for ham and fixings. While I was there she had a list of stuff for me to work on while I was there, the biggest of which was installing vertical blinds by her back sliding door. The food was great and it was nice to see mom. I talked to my bro and grandma while I was at mom’s as well.

I had a lot of WoW time as well throughout the weekend. Up till 1am on Friday night. No matter how late I go to bed and even though I walk Nicki right b4 bed, she insists on waking me up at the crack of dawn regardless. So I stumble outside in a zombie-like state as she wastes time just sniffing every blade of grass. It gets to be a bit annoying.