I am the world’s worst homeowner. I never seem to get around to doing the routine maintenance that owning a home entails. Some of this I can get away with because I will pay someone else to do it, and some of it is covered by my awesome wife–for instance, all my neighbours think I am “not a man” because my wife does all the lawn maintance.
Partly this is base laziness, and partly this is just that I have better things to do with the time that isn’t taken up by my (increasingly round-the-clock) job, or being a dad.
One of the chores that gets left embarrassingly long is cleaning the gutters on the roof. Because I live in the woods, and my house is surrounded by pines, these fill up relatively quickly with pine needles, and all the normal gutter protecting technology wouldn’t help because each individual needle is so small. So by the end of the first year the gutters are full, and they stop working effectively. By the next season, you can see masses of needles protruding from them. The only solution is to get out the Big Ladder, and get up there
We reached the embarrassing state again a while ago, and for some reason I decided that Sunday would be a good day to get them cleaned out
So I moved my car out of the garage, got the little ladder down from the garage wall (this is a six-step step ladder, not quite two metres high), set it up, climbed up it to reach the Big Ladder (an extensible can-easily-reach-the-third-floor type ladder), got that down, and then went about the business of cleaning the gutters
When this was done, and a large pile (about enough to fill a standard wheelbarrow to what my mother would call “heaping”) of partially decomposed pine needles was collected on the driveway, I reversed the procedure, putting the Big Ladder back up on the high hooks, replacing the small ladder, and putting my car back in the garage. I then started moving the needle pile down to the place where needles go to die. I was feeling quite righteous while I did this, since I had done some Grownup Stuff™ before lunch on a weekend day.
While I was in the midst of this, I heard a loud clattering, and then a very loud bang from the garage.
I came back to discover that the little ladder must not have been replaced quite right, as it had fallen, and landed on my car. Actually, it landed corner-first on my windshield, resulting in a shattered windshield, but no other damage to the car.
My immediate thought: this is what I get for being responsible. If I’d just put off the gutters again, this wouldn’t have happened. (Note how I take no responsibility for hanging the ladder back up insecurely.)
I was actually pretty upset for a couple of reasons: I’d never needed to have a windshield replaced before, so I had no idea how much it would cost (I assumed a lot), how long it would take (I assumed a long time), or how painful the process would be (I assume quite annoying), and it was a Sunday, so I couldn’t even start to deal with it until the following day.
As most of you probably know, I was worried for nothing: replacing a windshield (assuming you have comprehensive auto insurance) costs you whatever your deductible is, can be arranged the same day (I called this morning at 11, and got an appointment at 1:30, and picked up the car a couple of hours later with the new glass in place), and involves no paperwork or annoyance. It ended up costing me $100, which while about $100 more than I wanted to spend for essentially being an idiot, was a lot less than I thought I would have to spend.
So, I think the moral of the story is clear: next time the gutters need cleaning I should pay someone else to do it–surely I can find someone to do it for less than $100.
Oh, and the best part of the whole thing, was this exchange:
Woman At Glass Place: How may I help you?
Me: Well, I dropped a ladder on my windshield, so I need a new one.
WAGP: Had the car done something wrong?
Me: It’s a Ford Focus
WAGP: Oh. That explains it then.
