Labor

Someone with a civil engineering degree could tell me how much a cement floor one and a half inches thick by four feet by sixteen weights. Bucket by bucket I carried broken bites of concrete, tile and wire mesh down a flight of stairs through a kitchen and out to a trailer sitting in a garage. Dump and lug. I lost track after I shoveled nine buckets of debris. Dump and lug. And trudge back upstairs, which I interpreted as my break.

It poured all day and never got much about sixty outside, but in that upstairs bathroom I was sweating.

First business of the day was to lay ground clothes throughout the path from bathroom to garage. That was easy.

Then I went to work on the unscrewing a couple of fixtures from the wall. That too was easy. Next the boss asked me to crawl under the sink and shut off the water. Hum? As hard as I turned the water still flowed. Down in the basement I shut the water off to the house before returning to my place under the sink. I unhooked the plumbing. Not too bad.

Next I tackled the toilet. I had removed one from my own bathroom in one of my rental units. So that wasn’t too bad until I got to that last floor bolt. It did nothing but spin. My boss, swung a hammer, cracked the footing and I helped him cart it down stairs along with the vanity. Okay.

I took the sledge hammer to the vanity and destroyed the box placing the pieces in a nice flat configuration in the bottom of the trailer, going to the dump. Back upstairs it was time to remove the four by four walk-in shower insert. My instructions were to take the reciprocating saw and cut out the three walls and floor. My boss had to run to Home Depot.

My only experience with the saw involved a baseboard in my kitchen remodel. The baseboard was one of those old fashion solid pieces of wood about twelve inches wide. I never used the saw before nor had Iever seen anyone use one. It's the tool of the devil. It scared the living crap out of me. I ended up hand sawing through the wood. Took all day.

So I was a little apprehensive about this task. I was on my own. Nothing like a good prayer to get you through a task with all fingers, toes, and eyes. But I should have had hearing protection and a mask. I had the shower cut into pieces, screws removed and my mess swept up by the time he returned with coffee. I needed a drink.

Kind of proud of myself, I took the crowbar to the trim and it popped off like I was trimming my fingernails.

But then we moved to the floor. I could only manage to chew little pieces off with my crow bar and sledge hammer. With an eighteen pound bar, the boss dug into the floor and I assumed the responsibilities for lugging and dumping.

By 2:30, six hours after the start we were done with the demolishing. I folded up with drop clothes, put away the tools and dumped by body behind the steering wheel of my Jeep. Actually, I didn’t feel too bad. That was because I couldn’t feel my arms any longer.

Was this how Studs Terkel felt after his research escapades? Still waiting for the Saratogain to call me about a writing job. Mom always said college gave us options.