Hard Knocks

Jr. is a bum. It breaks my heart to say it, but the truth needs to be dealt with. The boy comes in, eats all the junk food he can find while watching cartoons and only tries to make it look like he was studying or doing any household chores. Then he wants to collect an allowance.

Now I am a firm believer in the God given right to fuck off. I work for the state of Oklahoma, after all. But this kid is claiming he is doing work, collecting money and buying more crap to keep him from doing what needs to be done. AND school just started!! I do not want to spend the next 9-10 months on his ass. Thus I determined that I, his loving father, would teach him a lesson in hard work. I would be with him all this long holiday weekend, getting the job done right.

My day of setting an example to the boy started early Saturday morning when Jr. woke me up around 9:00 am saying he had been trying to get the Weedeater started for the past hour. He was nearly in tears at the admission of his failure. So I poured me a cup of coffee, and went out to the shaded porch to try to start the machine. I was proud of not deriding the poor kid for not understanding how to work a choke at the age of 13. I simple patted the top of his head and told him I loved him even if he was kind of slow.

Then the damn Weedeater wouldn't start for me either. Fucker. So I told Jr to take it to the shed and we would pull the spark plug and clean it. I went inside and got my shoes on and carried my untouched coffee out to the shed where we spent the next two hours cleaning up all the mess that had been dumped in front of the door and on the work bench. I told the boy over and over NEVER dump things in the way of where we need to work, so yesterday I spent a good half day of showing him how to stow away gear.

Then we had to fine the spark plug wrench. That took another hour, but we pulled the plug and while it looked clean, we brushed it up and put it back in and cleaned the air filter. I tried to explain to Jr. that these are common little bits if maintenance all men have to do in the course of working with tools. And the fucker still wouldn't start.

The Mower had developed a problem that needed a better mechanic than the boy, so we needed to make a trip to town to get our trailer that a friend keeps borrowing. Since we were going to town we decided to fill all our old mower gas cans, service the chain saw and take it to clean up some trees growing in the foundation of our rent house. So we looked for another hour for the round file, then decided we would buy a damn freakin round file when we buy that fucking spark plug for the feakin damn Weedeater. Did I mention it was getting REAL hot?

The third store we went to had Weedeater spark plugs and a round file. This was, of course, Wal-Mart. One hour later we got gas and drove over to my buddy's house to get the trailer and sharpen the saw. Man it was hot. So then we go to the rent house and cut out several tall trees that grew up along the foundation and then I cut back a real pretty crepe myrtle that was planted too close to the roof line. We loaded this on the trailer and pick-up bed, visited with the neighbor lady (96 years old and still does her own cooking) then came home, unloaded the brush and loaded the trailer.

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD IT WAS HOT!! Sweat was pouring off of me. My knees were buckling and I thought I might throw up. We went out to the shed to replace the old plug with the new one and looking for the DAMN FREAKIN spark plug wrench for another half hour! AND THE FUCKER STILL WOULDN'T START!

So we load the mower, we put the Weedeater in the trailer and we go back into town and just leave everything in the yard of the repair guy. We get home and I can barely raise my arms. My stomach is cramping and I feel I might pass out at any moment. Jr. looked at me like he was afraid I might die and even said he would put away the gas cans so I could go inside.

.........?!! Then as I staggered into the house and flopped on the sofa to consume large jugs of liquids it occurred to me, "MY PLAN WORKED!" He saw the value of hard work by my unwavering example.

Too bad the gas cans were left in the middle of the doorway of the shed.