Don't Call Me "Two Sheds"

A photo essay.

This is the Eye Wit's new shed.

Steel. 10 feet by twelve feet. That'll hold a LOT of bodies.

Anchored against hurricanes, and theoretically can stand up to 100 mph winds. I'd rather not test that feature.

Nice to have, yeah. The best part: I wasn't the one who assembled the darn thing. That part of the operation was a gift from my father-in-law, who is, by any account, a swell guy.

However, if there's a new one, that means there needs must be an old one. Oh, yeah.... let's take a look, shall we?


This, by any account, is a POS. If you don't know what that means, then you're a more genteel person than I.

Note the door off its rusted hinges, the quaint plywood nailed over a long-gone window, and the general presence of rotting wood and decay.

I think this picture may be art, because it well expresses how I feel in the morning before that precious fourth cup of coffee.


Here we have a bit of a better view of the side.

Note the shadows from the utility cables, which may be one of the few magical things still holding this piece of junk up.

The vertical white pieces, a stupid idea in the first place (hey, they were there when we bought the house, don't blame me), are particularly rotten.




This is a part of the back, where my neighbor's tree has provided extra dampness to help weaken the molecular structure of the wood.

The hole & warped plywood at the bottom has allowed several small animals to get in and set up housekeeping. I had to get rid of them, of course, but I admit that they were better interior decorators than I.

Did I mention the termite damage to the frame? No? It's merely a bonus that comes with the package.

Termites are, naturally, a great thing to have present when your pathetic excuse for a shed is within twenty feet of your house, which, although primarily concrete block, still has trivial things like the entire roofing structure made of wood.


This is the Eye Wit's fist, which punched this hole with disturbing ease through the side of the shed.

No, wearing the glove was not chickening out. First off, it's not "manly" to bash your fist through something bare-knuckled. Do I need the potential splinters? No, I'm a musician, I need my hands unscathed. Further, there are rusty nails involved, and I can't remember when I last had a tetanus shot.

What's the point to all this? What have we learned?

Not a hell of a lot.

Perhaps we should go with the obvious: That the Eye Wit must be a bit daft to have let his old shed get into that kind of condition before doing something about it.

I counter that I'm an artist, and I didn't have the freaking money.

Getting out of assembling a steel building when it's already 85 degrees outside? That's a sign of wisdom. At least, that's how I'm calling it, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't mess with my delusions.

Something plain and simple: Don't go around punching through things, even if you're pretty sure it's going to work. This is especially true of other people. They tend to hit back.

Well, having learned all these valuable lessons, the last thing to think about is, not surprisingly, the wager.

I bet my wife that I can make the entire thing collapse with exactly three smites with a sledgehammer. The problem with the wager is that I made it such an embarassingly long time ago, I don't remember what it is. Neither does my wife. Therein lays the advantage!

I can therefore "remind" her of the stakes, and arrange it so that I "win" no matter what happens.

Mama didn't raise no fool.