Home Builders are Sick Sick Puppies

Here's a little something I wrote today. I hope some of you enjoy it.

Return of the Dreaded Builder's Bug

He knew that he had it. He just knew it. He was sure he had caught
it somehow. And sure enough it started happening. Something bad had
gotten into his brain. And then as he went about his daily routine
the symptoms started showing up. He was daydreaming at work. He had
trouble hearing his wife when she was talking to him on the phone.
All of a sudden he was having trouble with simple math. He was sure
he had way more money than he really did. Then he got lost on the way
home. He must of blacked out there for a second, because when he
came to, he found himself standing in the cheap Chinese import tool
store and he wasn't real clear on how he got there. And he was slow
to come out of there. Real slow. His reflexes must have been under
attack. Normally, he would have quickly swept the isles with his
eagle eyes and quickly dismissed the whole joint as un-American junk
and humphed out the door. But this time was different. This time the
Cheap Chinese water torture was working on him.

Drip Drip Drip
"Six ball-peen hammers for five bucks," a voice in his head said.
"Huh? Only five bucks? That can't be right," he protested.
Drip Drip Drip
"Jewelers tools for $2.99" somebody said in a murmured voice.
"Something's wrong here, it can't be that cheap!" he sputtered out
loud.
Drip Drip Drip
"A cool little magnet and grasping tool, only 1.99!" a hushed voice
said.
And on like this the nightmare continued.

In fact it was a good thing he went in there alone because bad things
started happening in there to his checking account as he ventured
further and further into the recesses of this Chinese tool trap. He
started fixating on a bunch of cheap work table tools that he wouldn't
have looked at twice only a year ago. "Look at the price of that 8
inch grinder! Thirty some bucks!," he mouthed to himself. "Yeah, a
wire wheel on one side…" and just then inanimate objects started
coming to life before his very eyes. A drill-mill machine jumped out
of the shadows at him as he gaped and then drooled on himself. Then
he had an out-of-body vision. He saw the machine humming along in his
garage as he machined an aluminum housing for an air cleaner. That's
when he realized he was sick. He was a sick, sick man. He only had a
few items in his hand a minute ago, a wire brush for fifty cents that
could be used on most anything around the house, and some cheap metal
files but now, suddenly his arms were full of all kinds of neat stuff.
The next thing he knew, he was pushing a cart and looking at cheap
unreliable wire welders. But it got worse. Way worse. Because
that's when the delusions started setting in. That's when he really
started talking to himself.

"I could do it," he stated to no one at all. " I could build a great
worktable out of wood and build a little airplane in the garage!"

And then the really wicked dreams started up. Horrible nightmares
about cutting rolls and rolls of fiberglass... "Wow, peaking-shears
for ten dollars!" "Throw-away cheap little brushes for epoxy...
little brushes... little brushes... !" , as the store clerk gave him
the look, shaking his head at the man who talks to tools.

****! They spotted him! They knew he had the bug and they had spotted
him. They were closing in now. They weren't even Chinese and yet
they were in on it somehow... He knew he had to get out of there...
before they locked him in the back storage room full of Styrofoam
peanuts.

When he got home, he kicked his wife's car out of the garage and
turned into the Roy character from "Close Encounters of the Third
Kind." He kept saying to himself: "It's just not quite right yet...
it's just not quite right" as he struggled with the cheap bubble level
that he got from Harbor Freight. He quibbled with his neighbors who
couldn't hold a board steady if their lives depended on it. So they
huddled together across the street and talked about him: "That crazy
sonofabitch's building a flying machine in his garage."
And that's when they started getting the bug too. They started coming
over all the time to check on his progress. He caught them flipping
through his aviation rags and fondling the plans to his airplane.
That's when it reached a fever pitch. He kept dropping tools in his
garage and running outside every time an airplane flew by. He kept
staring at lumpy clouds in the sky like a fool, picturing himself
scaling them. He kept checking Google on his computer to see if there
was any way to get into the sky faster...
And then it happened. The aliens of RAH made contact with him! A
bright light beamed down out of the sky and hit him in the face. He
smiled a goofy grin as he held up the divorce papers in the night sky
and shouted: "It's right, It's finally right! I don't want to be
cured! I want to go with you RAHians, right down the financial
drain!"

pacplyer

(And you guys thought I couldn't write non-fiction!)