Disease of the Common Father

Dennis is on his way. So my dear father decides, and rightly so, that we need to protect some of the windows of our house. Fine. So we begin by covering the windows to my room with sheets of zinc (they were too high for us to lift ply up there).

Father dear sends me up on a platform ladder, while he holds one end of the zinc. Things you should know- our house is on the side of a hill, and except for a pavement directly in front of the building, the rest of our property is inclined. Additionally, the windows we were securing are at the side of the house, hence the ladder was also on this incline. I expressed reservations about going up on this ladder. My father responds, "Don't worry man, I'm holding it." Wow, don't I feel confident now! So as he's holding this very heavy ladder with his right hand (he's left handed, by the way) he's holding the zinc with his left hand, and trying to push it higher.

Now here's where the problem lies. If you've tried anything like this macho man feat before, you know that the second you start concentrating on something in one particular hand, you start to neglect what's in the other hand. In this case, he was trying to lift the zinc with his left hand, and in his right hand was my life... Needless to say, I was not very pleased. All I saw as I looked down was 5 feet of air, then hard concrete, and then to add insult to injury, also on this concrete was another piece of sharp zinc. My heart sunk to my scrotum as I felt his loosened grip, as the ladder started to tilt towards the home of gravity. I promptly told him that the windows can go to hell, and I slowly came off the ladder. Soon after, we got a third person to help, and the job went on without any life-threatening hitches.

From moment number one, I knew that going on that ladder was not the smartest thing, but dear old father wouldn't listen. Love him to death, but what a man stubborn!!! I find this to be a general issue with fathers- strong, know-it-all, but most of all, renaissance macho-men. It's as if men are made that way from youth, and that mentality is a chronic disease.

I won't say that I don't become one of those things at different times, whether it be macho, or a know-it-all. I just pray that as I become older I don't continue to develop the traits to such levels as I've seen with many fathers. If I do, hopefully the memory of the platform ladder will bring me back down to earth; figuratively, of course!