Shedageddon – The Final Hammering

Only doors and windows were left. How simple could it be? I figured a half-morning out in the garden and then I’d be back in front the computer in next to no time, furiously mashing through the edit.

Except... There had been times, erecting the walls and roof, when it appeared that the component parts delivered to the door had been hand-tooled by tools in whatever dark and grimy factory the pieces had been tipped out of, up north.

It soon became horribly apparent that these few remaining pieces must have been walloped together by shitty-shoed shitters with shit on their shoes. The sort of mouth-breathing stumps who live with their parents and every morning are told to get their dicks out of their sister and go to work. Usually by their father, and only because it’s his turn to throw a shot in her.

As you may gather, I didn’t think highly of the level of “craftsmanship” involved. Good old British industry. No wonder we’re so far in the crapper when it comes to making... stuff. What few instructions there were, printed on the double-sided sheet of A4 had run out by now, apart from some vague mention of where to put the door.

It failed to mention that the hole for the lock, drilled to the same size as the hole for the door handle, was so large that when the keyhole cover was placed in position there was nothing for the screws to drill in to. A quick look at the shed at the bottom of the neighbour’s garden showed that they had dealt with the same problem by simply leaving the hole exposed. We instead improvised. Which took time.

During which time the unrelenting sun happily baked my arms, legs and neck the colour of Ribena-flavoured HP sauce. So I was squirted with sun screen, factor: Ground Zero, Nagasaki, and went back out to fit the windows. For these there were no instructions whatsoever and brackets that required screws being drilled through in three different directions. Marvellous.

With the amount of hammering that had gone on, I suggested we name the finished shed Dun Nailin and get one of those nasty back oval plaque with the name in white lettering and flowers painted either side. I first thought of Dun Screwin but figured I still had a few more years with a breeze in the old windsock. And with the two-tone flesh I could try the old pick up line of “Hey girlie, wanna see the white bits?” on the off chance that one day it might eventually work.

We admired our handiwork, cleared up, and ordered in. It was almost midnight before I even got sight of The Times' Samurai Su Doku. After Friday night's after dark cacophony of police helicopters, arseholes over-revving their cars and youngsters acting like fucknuts, a brass band could have been marching up and down the street while people stuck fireworks up guinea pigs and lit the blue touchpaper last night for all I knew. I was out like a light.