Shop Class

Last Thursday turned out to be a doozy of a day at our house.

Thursdays are always a bit of a challenge anyway because it’s Bonny Annie’s long tutorial day, so I can never plan much for her school-wise since she’s gone from the house from about 9:00am until about 1:30.  But on this particular Thursday, our friend, Mr. Vern, was showing up to work on our dining room floor, and since the dining room is also our classroom, I thought serious schoolin’ for that day was going to be a wash.

But I was wrong.

We’ve known Mr. Vern for a number of years.  He goes to our church.  And he recognized Dirty Harry’s interest in the job right away, and he tapped into it.  He casually just started giving him little jobs, running him back and forth to his truck for odds and ends, even taking him on a quick run to Lowe’s.  The next thing I knew Dirty Harry was chest deep into our crawl space, thinking that this was even better than Legos, and my plans for attempting a math lesson on the living room floor were abandoned.

When we bought our house new a little over eight years ago, the builder installed a French door that had already been fitted and installed into another house into ours, since ours had sold and we had a fast-approaching move-in date, and the other one had not.  We had always noticed that the door had some minor problems since we always had to slam it to get it to shut properly, but we didn’t know, until just a couple of years ago, that the seal on the door was faulty and that the floor all around the door had some water damage.  Fortunately, the damage was not severe or widespread, but we had reached a point where the floor had to be fixed and the door replaced, or someone was going to fall through into the crawl space.  The only family member that possibility appealed to was Dirty Harry, and at under 65 pounds, he was not likely to make that happen.

Here you can see where the floor had gotten spongy all along the door jam…

So, Mr. Vern’s job, along with his trusty helper, Dirty Harry, was to cut a whole in the damaged floor and put in a temporary, but functional, patch of plywood flooring.  Eventually we’re going to lay Pergo flooring on the whole downstairs.  Maybe over the summer….  (Did you hear that Big D???  The summer???)

Dirty Harry’s favorite job was using the hammer and other various tools to whack away at the damaged flooring.

I love the above picture because, for some reason, Dirty Harry looks five instead of nine.  Not that there’s anything wrong with nine, but if you’re a mother reading this, then you probably understand.  There’s just something special about five….

I also love that while this project was going on I heard Mr. Vern having Dirty Harry work relevant math problems as it pertained to cutting the floor.  I also loved that at one point they were having a scientific conversation about the results of friction.  I also loved that Mr. Vern shared a gruesome story about an eye injury he once suffered in an attempt to scare Harrison into leaving on his work googles instead of wearing them on his head.  I also loved that Dirty Harry was working so hard at one point that he was sweaty.  I also really, really loved that Mr. Vern noticed in time that Dirty Harry was, at one point, pounding away at a non-damaged floor joist and stopped him.  And, of course, I love the fact that my floor is temporarily repaired…

…even if it is a bit unsightly at the moment.  I love that, even now, Big D is planning the door replacement and permanent flooring project.  (Pssst….Big D?  Still listening???)

So, the next time your school schedule gets turned upside-down by….whatever….don’t fret!  Embrace the situation as a school elective, and let your child learn something of a different nature.

Trust me….they won’t be worse for wear.