It’s always been a fine shed, capable of holding immense quantities of bolts I’ll never use, bags of solidified concrete that I figure scientists of the future will bring back to life and every piece of odd-shaped wood the world has ever known.
My shed is a modern art do-it-yourself kit waiting for assembly.
But the last year or so, the old girl has developed some problems, namely that the plywood floor in the back started rotting, collapsing, and swallowing anything in those farthest, deepest, darkest regions of the enclosure.
A no-man’s land of sharp wood scraps and rusted metal (not to mention hazardous chemicals that set the shed aglow at night), that end of the shed is a place I do not venture without armed escorts. To top it off, there’s a vine as thick as a telephone pole that has risen up through the walls like a giant squid’s tentacle. It twists and pulls at the shed, trying to tug the whole structure down through the hole in the floor to the pits of Hell! It should now be obvious why I don’t go back there.
The collapsing floor never bothered me much since it was confined to those regions I had ceded. But recently the evil sinking has begun creeping forward into MY part of the shed, enveloping the good floor and threatening to take it all. It creaks and crumbles beneath my feet, the plywood buckling and bowing under my weight. Suddenly I’m faced with the reality of the situation: I have to do something about my shed.
Egad!
So I’m looking at a total overhaul: Pulling up the floor and laying down a new reinforced one. I want to shore up the roof and re-do the door. I want peg boards, industrial shelving and a spot to polish my tools. (It’ll never happen, but I like the IDEA of it.)
I want to get rid of the big work-bench that runs down the length of one wall. No work has ever been done on it because it has developed the properties of a crap magnet, capable of attracting piles of scraps, extension cords, paint, broken tools and other assorted knickknacks that should go elsewhere, but instead call the bench home. You can’t even get near it thanks to all the groupie tools piled up on the floor, waiting for their chance to make it into this exclusive club floor for tools. “Club Crap Magnet” is advertised in neon, and neighbors’ tools have found their way here.
But I’m weeding out, venturing into the depths of the shed where I haven’t been in months. I’m sizing up the floor and dismantling the work-bench. I find myself studying other people’s workspaces and asking probing questions like, “So, do think feng shui is critical in a workshop?” or “What was your motivation behind these wood shelves?”
I’m picturing it all – the layout, the ease of getting to tools, the thought of a trip inside that doesn’t end in an emergency room visit or a frenzied call to my wife that goes something like this, “Honey, can you help un-impale this pitchfork from my tender regions?”
It’ll be nice.
I’m going to not only take back my shed, but re-invent it. Make it a modern shed with all niceties that most civilized folk have like maybe a beer fridge.
I’ll get in there, battle the sinkhole demons, slay the giant vine squid and reestablish myself as the supreme ruler of the tool shack. Or, I’ll be swallowed up and dragged down to center of the earth where I’ll be doomed for eternity to untangling extension cords and sorting bolts. With a little luck, it will all go well.