Sheet metal

Me: "Can you get me some sheet metal for that frame?"

Him: "How about corrugated sheet metal?"

Me, frowning: "Oh, we do have that"

Him: "How about pounded flat corrugated sheet metal? How about smashed flat with the loader bucket corrugated sheet metal? How about driven flat with a truck corrugated sheet metal?

I might have looked like I was considering which of those clever options would work best, but I was too busy rolling my eyes.


{maybe he didn't appreciate this helpful subliminal message}

Him: "How about smashed flat, held down with a 2500 pound tractor and pulled out from beneath the loader bucket with the truck corrugated sheet metal?"

Me: "Can't you just get a piece at that place... at the mall?"

It's like buying a shiny poster-board, maybe with sharper edges though if I really think about it. Like buying fabric. You hand over the measurements, they cut the stuff out, and deliver the goods right back.

Him, suspicious: "What place at the mall?"

Me: "No. Not the mall. That place, the... hardware store. Where you can get sheets of glass cut."

He taps away at the keyboard, his best excuse for ignoring me because that's the way it always goes down when he's reading and I'm talking. Unless I say the word sex. That always gets his attention. Every time. Except, obviously, I don't mean it in these types of circumstances, dear. I just want to see if some primal part of you is still involved in this conversation. He can't read and listen at the same time. At least that's what I've been lead to believe.

Me, suddenly brilliant: "What about the duct-work that's frozen to the ground all over the yard?"

People, we do white trash pretty well around here, if I do say so myself.

Him, unimpresed: "It's frozen to the ground"

Me: "Oh. There probably isn't a piece big enough anyway"

Him: "There might be, but it will have a crease that needs to be hammered out... or flattened with something."

Me: "Hey! Wait a minute! Isn't there a dishwasher laying upside down right beside our back step! What about the door to that thing?"

His typing stopped. This, people, this could be it. The moment beams of sunshine strike the earth and angels sing in perfect harmony.

I eyeballed the empty space in my kitchen where the dishwasher used to be. Then I grabbed the frame (kicking strategically-placed Scrabble tiles left and right) and held it in front of that gaping hole, trying to size it up.

It was going to be close.