In Which It Rains

Yesterday, my fireman, his brother, and hubby's his firemen friends were working on the roof. They tore off the remaining shingles and worked on taking the remaining staples and nails out.

Sun hits me hard. I did pretty good on Monday, but had a little remaining headache from the sun and probably some dehydration. I drank as much water as I could to replenish myself. When it came time to go home, I'll admit, I was not anxious to get on the roof and help pull staples/nails. I kinda dreaded going home. It wasn't fair of me, they'd been on all day and I needed to help, but I didn't wanna!

So, I took some ibuprofen and I prayed for a better attitude. Then I called my sister. I was able to vent a little and by the time I got home, I was ready to pull off my work clothes and put on my other work clothes. :)

I rubbed some more sunscreen on and slapped my ballcap on my head and headed up those stairs!

By then, we were down to my hubby, his bro and another fireman, who had to get going, so I took his gloves and tool and got started. The oldest boy just came home from work as well, and I got him on the roof to work, too.

Man, I really covered some ground.

Then, it started getting dark. We still had some staples left and were working as fast as we could.

I asked hubby if he should start on the felting while we finished up with the staples on this side. He was getting worried and thought he should make a flying trip to Menards and get some tarps. There was no way we were going to get the whole thing finished before dark set in fully.

So, he left and the rest of us kept at it. We worked like mad men/women.

Then, the thunder started.

Then, the rain started. I sent the oldest boy in so that he wouldn't slip on the slick roof decking.

We got it swept and cleaned and kept our eyes peeled for my fireman as the heavens sprinkled on us.

I saw his headlights come around the corner and hollared up to his bro and we grabbed the two nail guns and tarps and started unrolling.

It's hard to unfold those tarps in the rain and wind! We manhandled them around and tried to lay them down to cover as much ground roof as we could. Working to nail them as we did.

I was so glad I had my hat on. It wasn't dripping in my eyes. We had to slide on our hips or walk on our knees because of the rain. It was crazy.

Then one of the staple guns wouldn't work and we were down to one and we kept running out of staples. And it kept jamming up. Hubby had a box in his overalls and refilled them as they ran out.

Then we worked on the other side of the roof and we had to lean over to hold down the tarp. The wind would come up and spray the water that was accumulating on the tarp all over us. We would have to then wrestle the tarp back down. We wanted to give up. We couldn't give up. We had no choice, man! We had to keep the rain out!

The remaining tarps were made out of visqueen. This is poly plastic that is seriously slick. It's like those slip 'n slides, but on a roof. We were all frustrated and wet and I looked over at hubby and said, "You sure know how to show a girl a good time." He and his bro looked over at me, then burst into laughter. Then, it was all just fun. We had this job to do, we could be mad and frustrated and feel like giving up. Or. We had a choice. We could play in the rain. We could have fun with it. So we did.

Then it was all, "When you hear stories about dancing in the rain, I don't think this is what they mean." Or "If you really wanted to stop and shower, there are easier ways to do that." We just had fun with it. I really had a hard time not cracking up. It was just so obscene. It was storming and raining and windy. And we.

We were on the roof.

Normal people aren't scooting around on their roof in the middle of a rain storm.

At least, I don't think they do. I may be wrong. I've never looked.

So, we got the rest of the visqueen down the center of the roof and I had to cut it because it was too long. And it's too slick to sit on. Remember the Slip 'n Slide? So, I had a stack of the extra visqueen on my lap and cut the end as I stapled it to the roof, working backwords and pulling out the visqueen as I went.

At one point, I stopped and looked up. The rain had let up and clouds parted a bit. The sunset, although almost completely gone by now, was just barely visible between the dark clouds. There were just a hint of colors behind the dark. It was beautiful.

We never would have seen it had we not been battling the rain.

Then, we took the cut edge and ran the last strip of it down the remaining exposed piece of the roof. Just as we ran out of staples entirely.

And the rain stopped.

We laughed.

Then we took the tools and went down the ladder.

My feet squished in their shoes. My jeans hung on me like a heavy tarp. I was getting chilly.

I had the girl grab my jammies and claimed the shower first. The youngest and middle boys were back at their mom's for the day and she made herself a sandwich with all the deli meat and chips that hubby had bought for the fireman. Fireman can eat!

I had to peel my jeans and socks off. The shower felt like heaven. I hurried and hopped out and sent the next in.

I crammed some meat and cheese on bread and don't think I tasted any of it.

What a night.

Hubby looked over at me and said, "Tomorrow I'm buying the best darn staple gun I can find."

Then, we went to bed.