Man DIY Rides Again....Again.

A few days ago, we had a day-long storm hit us. It wasn’t a particularly bad or violent storm, but it did rain heavily for over 15 hours. It was during this time I noticed a leak in our roof just outside our bedroom.

So today, I got Sunny to give Frank a call, and we set out to repair the roof.

Before I get started I want to make it clear that I’m not afraid of heights. No way. Not in the slightest. Heights don’t bother me a bit. I can look up at them all day and not get even the slightest twinge of fear!

When I’m climbing a rickety, unstable ladder to stand on a roof I’m not 100% sure will take my weight that has no hand rails or anything to stop my clumsy ass falling off said roof…I find it a fun, exhilarating experience…and not brown-trousers terrifying at all. .

It was so much fun! Especially when I was halfway up the ladder when the damn thing started to shimmy from side to side. I laughed and laughed when Frank nonchalantly pointed out that the ladder had a crack in it near the top.

“Gah, look at that.” He said. “This thing could just fold up at any second.”

I let loose with my Shaolin Warrior-Monk Cry of Manly Happiness, to let the world know I was enjoying every minute and wasn’t even slightly scared.

Yes, it’s true… the Shaolin Warrior-Monk Cry of Manly Happiness is very similar to the sound a five year old girl makes when someone throws a big spider on her…but it definitely was a Shaolin Warrior-Monk Cry of Manly Happiness… no matter what that lying bastard Frank says.

I made it onto the roof and started to unscrew the siding we’d need to remove. I did this mostly because it was a job I could do sitting down. You see, when you’re absolutely not terrified and completely comfortable, it’s just showing off to do the jobs that require you to stand up or walk near the edge.

In fact, the most brave and manly thing you can do when up on a roof is to lie down, spread your weight over as wide an area as possible, and softly weep while holding on so hard you’re leaving permanent fingerprints in the shingles. You see, most people aren’t nearly as at home in high places as I am, so acting like you’re terrified is a way to make them feel better.

We did the job. Well, I say ‘we’ did the job, I didn’t do much myself, mostly because of Frank.

You see, I could tell Frank was terrified by the way he walked around with the ease and comfort of a man in his own living room. So to make him feel better I just did as much as I could from the very center of the roof… flat on my stomach with my arms and legs splayed out… with my eyes tightly closed… thinking as hard as I could about my happy place.

Frank laughed once or twice, which just shows how me pretending to be scared helped him through his own terror. Yeah, he’s a total wuss, but he’s family, so what can you do?

Getting down the ladder was almost as fun as getting up it, because this time it involved dangling my legs out over the gaping, hungry, sucking void of empty space between me and the ground. Awesome!

I contemplated how totally not scared I was, thinking about how I wasn’t the least bit concerned about how one slip would see me plummeting towards the earth with enough time to write my Last Will and Testament and compose a witty, self-deprecating speech to be read out at my funeral (where the casket would be a weird shape because the doctors would be unable to remove the two-by-four I landed on from my anal cavity).

I got on the ladder and it started to shake uncontrollably again. Some lying bastards (mostly called Frank) would say this was down to me shaking with terror…but Frank’s always been a great big dirty fat liar anyway. If I was shaking, it was only because my muscles were unable to contain the sheer power contained within them.

I got to the ground, crying my Shaolin Warrior-Monk Cry of Manly Happiness a couple more times for good measure…which is absolutely nothing like the cry of a toddler who’s just dropped his ice-cream or lost his helium balloon…and I want to state for the record that I slipped and fell when I reached the ground, and certainly did not hug and kiss the ground and beg it never to leave me again.

So, long story short…I’m ultra brave and manly and fixed the roof. Frank is a big fat liar, who’s pants are on fire, so don’t listen to a damn word he says.