1. The Assignment
It was a simple task. The kind of task they’d heard me talk about: Just give me a hole to dig. Or tree branches to cut.
“We’re going to town,” they said.
They selected a task: lubricate the attic stairs. They gave me a blue rubber glove, that I might not get sticky stuff on these keyboard fingers of mine. And they entrusted the tube of silicone caulk to my safe keeping.
2. The Execution
It doesn’t get much simpler that this. Squeeze the caulk. Spread it out. Clean the glops. Spread them out.
And indeed, the attic stairs pulled down and pushed back much easier when the deed was done. That task complete, I tossed the blue glove in the trash and moved outside to the gutters, where there were many pine needles to extract (an obvious consequence of having a cottage in a pine forest).
3. The Post Mortem
They returned from town later. I heard them whispering in the living room.
I saw her pointing. “What is this?” was the question. Evidently a misplaced glop of caulk.
And then to my shame, he pointed to a streak of white caulk on the attic door surface, as if to wonder silently, “What on earth was he doing that he smeared it way over here!?”
A conclusion: There is no task too simple for this man not to get something wrong in the execution of it.
A corollary: Don’t trust this man to drain your pipes for the winter — which they did not do.