A Roofer Listens to His Heart

Look out from on high,
Shingles seared by summer heat,
A roof incomplete

The above haiku captures the story of last week, when my brother Phil and my father and I attempted to re-roof the house without the aid of professional roofers or trained medical experts. We did manage to remove the existing roof, which as you know, is made of roof parts, which when removed, tend to break into sections roughly the size of toenail clippings.

Once the roof parts are piled up in mountains of dust, 3o percent of which are made up of live wasps, you have to move handfulls at a time to the edge of the roof and heave them into the back of a truck, into which you secretly want to jump to avoid having to continue laboring in the heat.

After working periodically on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, the old roof was successfully removed, and the optimists among us saw a complete roof within a coupe of days. I, however, expected that we would be working on the new roof for several months or perhaps years, forcing me to give up my placement in Japan and switch careers.

We hit our stride on the re-shingling on Tuesday morning, with Phil operating a nail gun which was designed so that it would break down every 40 seconds, requiring a complicated surgery involving several screwdrivers and possibly a spare kidney. My job was to line up the row of shingles to be nailed into place.

By late Tuesday, with Phil's roof vacation winding down and Dad's trip to Florida on the horizon, a real, professional roofer was called in to finish the job. As we approached the last two rows of shingles on the first section, his shiny white truck turned into the driveway and I knew we were free. He effortlessly climbed the ladder to survey the damage. It turns out we had been nailing the shingles in a less-than-perfect position. Small mistake, easy enough to repair.

Phil and I climbed down the ladder, having been laid off from a job for the first time. We took one more look at our work, a full section almost done, but two rows shy. Our goal not reached, victory not achieved. But it was approaching 100 degrees. On Friday, a crew of professional roofers came and casually finished the job by 6 p.m. Even the wasps were impressed.

I leave you with a long quote from "Clerks," offered by Jahozafat.com:

Blue Collar Man: "Excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt, but, uh, what are you talking about?"
Randal: "The ending of Return of the Jedi."
Dante: "My friend here is trying to convince me that any independent contractors who were working on the Death Star were innocent victims when they were destroyed by the rebels."
Blue Collar Man: "Well, I'm a contractor myself. I'm a roofer. 'Done and Ready Home Improvements'. And speaking as a roofer, I can tell you a roofer's personal politics comes into play heavily when choosing jobs."
Randal: "Like when?"
Blue Collar Man: "Three weeks ago, I was offered a job up in the hills, beautiful house, ton's of property, a simple re-shingling job. They told me if I could finish it in one day, I would double my price. Then I realized whose house it was."
Dante: "Whose house was it?"
Blue Collar Man: "Dominic Bambino's."
Randal: "Baby Face Bambino, teh gangster?"
Blue Collar Man: "The same! The money was right, but the risk was too high. I know who he was, and based on that, I turned the job over to a friend of mine."
Dante: "Bosed on personal politics."
Blue Collar Man: "Right! And the next week, the Foresie family put a hit on Baby Face's house. My friend was shot and killed. Didn't even finish re-shingling."
Randal: "No way."
Blue Collar Man: "I'm alive because I knew the risk involved in that particular client. My friend wasn't so lucky. Any contractor working on that Death Star knew the risk involved. If they got killed, it's their own fault. A roofer listen's to this [pointing to heart], not his wallet."