It’s hot here in Idaho. But as they say, it’s a dry heat. If you think this is bullplop, you’re from a dry environment. Because let me tell you, when the relative humidity creeps upward of 70% outside, and it’s over 90 degrees? Forget about it. Let the thunder boomers roll. It’s time to pour some iced tea and split the watermelon.
Anywho, here in Idaho there’s no such front-porch reprieve. So the other day (during the heat of the day…on Memorial Day) I was installing a mini-split (A/C and combined heat pump) for some friends who desperately need something better than crappy ceiling heat and a portable cooler/evaporator sucking air in through the front window and adding moisture to it. As far as being an all-around handyman, I got some skills. But I don’t like being responsible for my friend’s dying in a fiery inferno when their new mini-split malfunctions due to faulty wiring, so…I called in a certified electrician to take the handoff and terminate the wire hook ups directly to the breaker box. When dealing with 230 volts, I like to defer to people with insurance.
It turns out the electrician was all booked up with the exception of Memorial Day. Because, you know, who books wiring jobs on Memorial Day? Unless of course someone calls with a straightforward, single-day job that can be done over Memorial Day. No red-blooded tradesman can turn down money, so the both of us find ourselves working through the heat of the day on the same project while everyone else is slamming hot dogs and sipping margaritas. (Or is it sipping hotdogs and slamming margaritas?)
We start to chatting, you know, to keep from going insane. I quickly find myself outmatched. The electrician is also a mechanic who is currently putting the final touches on the rig he rode to work in—a truck he bought as a shell for $300 bucks at the junkyard. In past lives he has also been a welder and a marine. This guy is out rednecking me at every turn.
I did grow up on a ranch, so I have that going for me. But eventually the electrician asks me what I do these days when not helping out friends with my subpar handyman skills. I say, “Mostly, I’m a writer.”
“Ah,” the electrician says, “that explains why you’re so neat.”
At first, I think I’ve just been insulted. I’m neat? I look down at the clothes I’m wearing. I reflect on the unkempt nature of my beard and my long hair. I’m wearing a freaking Idaho Steelheads mesh cap for goodness sake. My shirt has paint on it. I think to myself, “I’ve just been punked by this electrician…this ex-marine, electrician.”
He quickly continues, “In this line of work you rarely run into straight lines or attention to detail. I could tell by the quality of your work that you had something else going on.”
“Ah,” I laugh and nod. “Yeah, it can be a curse sometimes. I can get a little obsessive.”
“Yeah,” the electrician says, “typically the grind beats it outta people, unless they got the mental discipline.” He pauses to wire a terminal. “You know, the ability to just space out and do the job.”
“I totally get it,” I say. “Growing up on a ranch, I sometimes had the same job for ten hours a day everyday for weeks. Running fence or painting pipe.”
“Mmm, painting. I don’t do painting,” the electrician says.
The conversation meanders from there through a litany of laborious tasks and which ones we find more or less appealing. To an extent, it’s surely a matter of preference. But the electrician had made his point. Being a good tradesman requires two main qualities. One is the willingness to work hard. The second is the ability to “space out” while doing it. If the laborer’s mindset is constantly one of suffering or impatience or counting down the seconds until the job is finished, the result will be poor quality work full of cut corners no matter how “prideful” the tradesman is about his or her craft. Eventually the constant and unyielding work load will grind you down, unless you’re literally tuned out.
And so the moral of the story is that while I may be a bit too neat to strike some as an authentic redneck, I still have the critical ability to space out that allows me to swim in those blue-collar waters with respect. (I’d still prefer to be writing at my air-conditioned desk.)
At the Desk This Week
Planning for the final episode of Season Three of the Green Ones is just about complete. I’ll be able to start writing it the next time I snatch a moment. I did a bit of research on a couple of new locals for this episode. It’s looking like I might send my characters to a small fishing village on the northern shore of Norway. Good times. I’m not sure I’ll ever get to visit in real life, but it looks like a hardy sort of place.
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