CAVANMAN'S DIARY: The day the wreckers came in to Virginia
In this week's Cavanman's Diary, Paul Fitzpatrick takes on the role of demolition man on a mission.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking for our nailbars. I knew mine was there somewhere, underneath the rubble of bricks and plastic, bits of timber and wall tiles.
It was Saturday afternoon and I was standing in the ruins of my kitchen, my right-hand man standing on a ladder, tearing down the ceiling.
High on the sweet satisfaction of hard physical work, I had slipped into a day dream. Before I tell you about it, though, I must provide the context.
Regular readers of this column will be aware of my plight and I know from experience that many of you share my unfortunate burden. I am a clob, not mechanically-minded, unable to complete manual tasks. Going through life like this is no laughing matter.
I am that klutz who once sat on a bench he had just painted, who still bears a scar from a chisel from a first-year woodwork project in St Pat’s – and hasn’t held one since. Someone who cannot change a light bulb nor trim a hedge without genuine risk of life-altering injury.
I am the type of person who fell from the clumsy tree, striking each branch on the way down before landing in fresh concrete.
At my wedding, my carpenter brother, in his best man’s speech, commented, to riotous laughter, that I thought Manual Labour referred to a Spanish footballer. Through narrowed eyes, I stole a glance at those revellers down on the floor, friends and family rolling around uproariously and pointing in my direction.
But, here’s the thing. Against all that, in common with every other man, I secretly see myself as something of an expert in most pursuits. Yes, I am up front and open about my double left-handedness but somewhere, in the deepest recesses of my brain, there is a part of me that believes that I can pick this stuff up fairly quickly.
So when the builders arrived a couple of weeks ago to start renovating our house, I immediately rolled up my sleeves. Not for me the laissez-faire approach; I would be a hands-on renovator. What could I do to help? What could I not do!
The kitchen was to be gutted out and that job was given to me. Literally, given that all of the existing stuff was bound for the dump, I could not mess this up. I was gearing up for it for days.
It reminded me of a literary quote I once read but cannot, unfortunately, unearth on Google – “the men worked so hard, they didn’t know the colour of the sky”. That would be me. The county would never have seen a day’s work like it. In decades to come, men would tell their grandchildren that they were there, they saw it, the day the wreckers came in to Virginia.
The county would never have seen a day’s work like it. In decades to come, men would tell their grandchildren that they were there, they saw it, the day the wreckers came in to Virginia.
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An early start, then, was crucial. So, we met at Daybreak (the shop, not the time of day) and ordered the customary builders’ breakfast roll.
After we had fuelled up, we tooled up, making sure we had a kango, a jackhammer and a liberal supply of ignorance.
By 10.30ish, give or take, we were ready to rock. And rock we did. We prised out presses and coaxed down cupboards, wrecked worktops and trashed tiles. We trod carefully around the trickier areas but, when in doubt, we tore it out.
By lunchtime, the back was broken, on the job and on me. The room was now a blank canvas.
And as it does whenever I spill sweat in pursuit of such manly goals (mowing the lawn, for example), my confidence surged. I felt like I had achieved something. Not some lily-livered old column, either. I was talking real work. Men’s work.
Within hours, I found myself talking knowledgeably about stud walls and skirting boards and self-levelling compound. When a downpipe from the upstairs bathroom was discovered to be in the way of a new window, I confidently solved the problem.
“Sure we can just cut it,” I announced grandly. All present were in agreement.
My new-found self-belief in matters building-related would culminate in the surreal moment when I found myself contradicting the plumber. Luckily, he didn’t hear - but that didn’t stop me.
Now that I was, more or less, a qualified tradesman, and with building booming and newspapers busting, I could change jobs full-time, I mused.
Marketing would be crucial. We would call ourselves Fitz Destruction and one of my first tasks would be to print out business cards bearing my new company logo, which would incorporate a kango and a laptop – because this organisation would not forget its origins.
The cards would bear our company mottos, too. Across the top, “rip it and skip it”. Next to that, “check it then wreck it”. Along the side, our pledge to “raise the roof, literally”. Yes, it would need to be a big card but all of this was important.
I would throw in something about sustainability and solutions as well in order to ensure our customer base knew we were task-orientated and dynamic. If you wanted synergies, we would provide them. Or take them out with a sledge if that was what you preferred.
We would need a mission statement, too. I toyed with “construction without the ructions” and “our mission is your demolition” before settling on the cleaner “we will gut out your house for money”.
We would cater for all sorts of business. For Fitz Destruction, no small job would be too big, no big job too cheap.
In time, we could pivot into consultancy also. You may recall this column lobbying for public funding for a support group called SCRAP (the Society for Clobs, Rooters and Awkward People). Unfortunately, that campaign achieved little in the way of political momentum, with representatives focussed on the upcoming election and so-called “more important issues”.
But the gap in the market remained. I would look to create a new revenue stream by recruiting from the cursed ranks of the unhandy, helping them upskill, showing them the correct way to hold a hammer while posing for a selfie and the best way to wheel a barrow.
It would be like white collar boxing. We’d provide the gear and the expertise and train our novices up over the course of an intense six-week steel-toe boot camp. High vis vests would, naturally, be provided.
Alas, just as I was counting my money, my day dream was rudely interrupted by a howl from my co-worker/underling from the ladder above.
“Hi, gimme up that thing you and wake up!” he snapped. In truth, it wasn’t as polite as that.
Through a cloud of dust, I glanced upwards at his scowling features and handed him a hammer as he muttered more profanities.
You don’t get that in the press box, I pondered as a part of the ceiling sailed past my ear. Maybe this wasn’t for me after all...