Why am I sore?
We’re getting a new deck put on our "American dream" house. That meant tearing the old deck off. I could either pay the builder $500 to do the demolition or do it myself and save the money for a new grill. (I love grilled fish, and cooking it outside prevents stinky fish smell in the house.) Since I was a little boy, I always seemed good at destroying things, so I took a wrecking bar and my mighty splitting maul to the task yesterday. But first I had to get up on a stepladder and pull some pesky nails and screws that were holding everything together. It was one of those old, wobbly aluminum ladders rated, inexplicably, to support 150 lbs. max. I’ve gingerly used this deathtrap for years without mishap, but yesterday, one of the legs sunk into the soft earth under the deck, twisted and collapsed under my 200 lb. mass. Down I went, hard! It was on my side, since my legs were kicked out with the ladder. I’ve trained for years to fall properly in martial arts classes, so that probably is the only thing that saved me from a broken bone. Still, I fell on top of the ladder, leaving some pretty nasty scrapes and bruises from the six-foot drop. So off I limped to the Home Depot to get a new, 375 lb rated fiberglass ladder. $160 bucks later, I had the new ladder, two hours later, the deck was down. Not the savings I’d originally hoped for, but a least I’ll have better ladder for the next task. And, I’m lucky the fall was not worse.
April 21, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Ugh. Dude, that sounds like it really hurt!
Your old ladder must have been REALLY old because I have never seen one that held anything less than 250 pounds! Gosh, I hope your body makes a very speedy recovery from those scrapes, bruises and minor contusions! And on the bright side, you still came out with a profit of $340! 