A chip off the old block

A chip off the old block

So, I had this moment yesterday. I was standing perched atop a ladder with a staple gun in one hand and a length of phone line purchased from Lowe’s in the other. The clouds in the sky were dark and angry and I could feel a few rain drops hitting my face.

Minutes earlier, I had carefully stripped the insulation from each of the tiny wires on one end of the phone line with the wire cutters from the tri-fold tool kit with injection molded indentations for each individual tool. Each of the wires was tediously connected to the leads in the telephone junction box on the side of the house. You see, we live in a rental, and the phone wiring in the house is far too old to handle a DSL internet signal. This ghetto rigging is my attempt to “upgrade” the wiring in order to bring us into the 21st century.

Now I stand 10 feet above that box, teetering on the ladder, poised to secure the first staple under the eve of the roof. Pow! The tiny shard of metal is driven into the old wood. As I move the staple gun away I see that the staple does not straddle the wire as was intended but is offset enough to puncture it straight through. “D*** it!”, I mutter under my breath.

I have turned into my father.

But, hey. We have internet now, even though it comes through a line stapled to the house and strung through the window.

3 thoughts on “A chip off the old block

  1. Wow, that really is like dad…but he would have injured himself too and drilled a hole through the wall.

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