Darwin Tried: Chicken Fried Donk

Ahh, summer time, the season of heat, outdoors, home improvement projects, and donks trying to blow themselves up. Huh? Allow me…

We need a new patio door. Ours is pretty old and due to some wood repairs, there’s no screen door. We started talking to friends of my wife and found that Ed runs his own contracting business, specializing in windows and roofing. Ed quoted us a very good price for installing a new door, and in talking further with him, we discussed a new layer of shingles on the roof as well.

As any homeowner knows, there’s no such thing as a simple project. Home projects seem to start a horrible money sucking domino-like effect that can very quickly spiral completely out of control. This one, apparently, is no exception. What started out as a patio door installation quickly tripled in price as we added the new roof layer, a window casing, and quite a bit of miscellaneous caulk work.

Ed started on the roof last week, and the dominoes kept falling. Apparently the siding on the upper half of the house was coming apart, and in order to properly flash the roofing project, something needed to be done. Double the previously already tripled cost, add in 3 days to pick the “right” color siding (you married guys know why), and we’re ready to get new siding. Fast forward to 5 minutes into removing the existing siding, and add $300 because the moron who built the house never put insulation under the previous siding.

I knew Ed and “his roofing guy” were going to be doing the work, but what I didn’t know is that Ed has two of the biggest fucking morons to have ever walked the planet working for him. As I would come to find later, these donks decided that whatever tools they had weren’t good enough to remove siding with, and instead they somehow borrowed a pitch fork from one of my neighbors down the block. I wish I would have taken pictures so I have some way to show what a donk on a ladder removing siding with a pitch fork looks like, but since I didn’t, you’ll have to use your imagination.

So here is where we are. The wife and kids are gone, and I’m sitting here with one working arm and feeling sorry for myself because I’m out of pain killers. I have the laptop in my lap, am playing in a cash game online and chatting with friends. TV is playing something useless and generally things are nice and calm, with the exception of banging and ripping sounds of donks removing siding.

Until…BANG…lights flicker a bunch…BANG… lights flicker and all power goes off, and I hear what sounds like machine gun fire from the back of the house. I immediately unplug the laptop, put it down, and rush to the door where I’m greeted by donk #1 who is knocking on the door and furiously trying to dial 911 by first entering the area code. Donk #2, who bears a striking resemblance to Joe Dirt, is also there with a look on his face that means he’s either trying long division in his head, or he just shit his pants.

The house is on fire, they tell me. I run around, see smoke everywhere, and see sparks and flames shooting out of the pipe coming up from the power meter. Donk #1 and donk #2 are running around like, well, donks, and I’m trying to see through the smoke and sparks to see if the house is on fire. Only a few seconds later the sparks stop completely, and I see the only thing still burning is a small pile of board on the ground. Both donks fall all over each other putting out the fire while I go inside to grab my cell phone and the card for the power company. I call the power company while making sure that the fires are out, and then try to figure out just how in the hell these morons did this.

So in talking to them over the course of the next few hours, here’s what we were able to figure out. The (old) pipe came out of the meter, goes straight up to just over a window on the 2nd floor, then takes a turn left to the top corner of the house where it connects with the power service. Instead of loosening up one section of pipe at a time from the house then removing the siding and putting the pipe back, these specimens of supreme human intelligence had another idea. They completely removed all of the brackets holding the pipe to the house. I wish I was there to see what happened next. From their descriptions and what I could piece together translating moron to English, they were both on the same ladder, donk #1 removing siding while donk #2 rested the pipe on his back, also removing siding. It is unknown whether or not the pitch fork played part in this act. Donk #1 claims that the pipe touched his arm and electrocuted him, but apparently that didn’t stop them from continuing down their path of Darwin induced donktivites.

Sure enough, that new phenomenon called gravity kicked in, and the 20 foot long pipe fell and bent in half. At the bending point, the electrical wires crimped, started on fire, and melted themselves and most of the pipe that surrounded them. The fire continued down the pipe towards the meter, melting wire and pipe along the way. Our only saving grace was that by this time the two donks fell/jumped off the ladder, let go of the pipe, and the power disconnected from the house, leaving live wires on the ground. Amazingly, no one was hurt.

Within 30 minutes the power company arrived. They had service connected shortly after. We had to call an electrician, and for anyone who is wondering, the cost to reconnect electrical service at 5:30pm on a Friday is $600. No way in hell we’re paying for it though. You bet the cost is coming out of the rest of the work that they are doing. I also know that the last work these idiots will do is clean up the mess they made, and comb the yard for nails and razor blades that were thrown about with no regard to anyone else around them.

So there it is…donks and electricity. Always an interesting combination. Also, somehow, none of our household electronics were harmed. The moral of this story? Stupid people are funny.

Yours Donkily,

Morphy