Roofing

My darling mother, a prolific and esteemed blogger in her own right, has encouraged me to blog about my work on the roof. I think I will. That's really all I'm doing right now, and I don't have spare brain cells for anything more creative, as most of them are on emergency duty to counteract an extreme attack of vitamin D.

Has anybody ever laid down shingles? Lots of fun, isn't it? Daddy gave us all a crash course in shingling four years ago... I think it was Memorial Day. We had over a family from church, supposedly to celebrate the holiday, but actually to work on the garage roof. By the time they left, the east side was ready to shingle. Time to start making some memories for future Memorial Days! Up went Daddy and his crew of willing, albeit naive, slaves - Ardith, Sharon, Jason, Kendra, Derek, Melinda, Carolyn. Daddy cut and fit the edge shingles, and we laid down the rows. Two kids laid the shingle, two kids hammered in four nails, on to the next. It only took us till 9:00 or 9:30 P.M., when we were finally allowed to eat supper, many with severe cases of hammer wrist but - between yawns - immense pride in our accomplishment.

Later that summer a work crew from church did the other side.

Well, four years and many gusts of Iowa wind later, some shingles haven't sealed down and several have blown up. So I've been patching. Patching shingles is great fun, as you have to take out nails two shingles up in order to get the problem out. Put that one in and re-hammer everything back in. Patching shingles is almost more satisfying than laying them down fresh, because nobody can see where you patched (as long as you did it right...).

Now, do you know how to TOP patching asphalt shingles on a sunny 90-degree day? Gluing them down with asphalt roof cement, of course. Big caulk-style tubes of extremely black sticky asphalt that only gets softer and stickier under the sun. In one day you can turn those plain-old pants into a uniquely black-smeared design. Forget washing this stuff off your skin. Your best bet is to let it dry a little and then scrape it off with your fingernails (which had better be long so you can cut them afterwards). Pray that you don't get asphalt smeared onto sunburnt skin. You can avoid some of the wash-and-scrape ritual if you wear rubber latex gloves that make your hands incredibly sweaty.

Figure out a way to increase the rate and distance these guns can project asphalt, and you needn't bother learning karate.

Disclaimer: I decided to go ahead and get burnt so I can relax the rest of the summer. Don't blame my parents. They warned me.