A Day in This Life.

January 21, 2008

What the hell? Yeah, that’s what I’ve been saying lately. It’s the official male utterance of the Colby clan when confronted by an event you’d rather not be confronted by. Historically, it’s been uttered when backing into light poles, running red lights, realizing you have no brakes during your downhill bicycle race, or being asked about the mountain of cookies that have somehow disappeared. It’s as if we think that by uttering a simple “what the hell” we will make it all go away. Or, better yet, make us disappear into some other world that is – at least temporarily – a refuge from the discomforts of this one.

And so it went recently when I was coming back from the woods with the horses. As I was gazing around I noticed an unpainted stripe running vertically down the side of the house.

What the hell?

My first stupid thought was that I didn’t remember not painting that section of the house. How could I have missed that for the three years that have passed since it was painted?

I looked closer. At the end of the unpainted line running down the house was my red-brick chimney. Well, what remained of my red-brick chimney. Because the top third of the 30-plus-foot chimney was gone. And the unpainted line was what used to be hidden behind the chimney.

Again: What the hell?

And, again, another stupid thought: Because I didn’t see any signs of the chimney, I thought for a second that someone had stolen my chimney. How the hell did they get it out of here so fast?

But the chimney had completely buried itself in the snow bank. Whew. Because I can’t imagine how terrible it would be to go on living here knowing that there are people around who steal chimneys. I mean, what’s next? The windows? Doors? Who knows?

The chimney, it turns out, snapped from the snow load that sheds from a ridiculously steep pitch directly into it. This probably didn’t matter in 1885 when the house was first built and metal roofing wasn’t all the rage. The old roofs – and shingled roofs today – would shed snow slowly, not in the crashing fashion that today’s seamless metal roofs do. Ka-boom. Off went the chimney.

When I first started making the calls to the insurance agent, stovepipe shop, the furnace technician and my handy-dandy neighbor friends, my chimney affair was a novelty. But after a few days, the other reports of falling chimneys started coming in until the man at the stovepipe shop told me that he had just heard of three others falling. Cool, I’m not alone.

And if you think this story is boring now, imagine if I walked you through the countless conversations I’ve been having with the insurance company, various chimney experts, masons, carpenters and the like about how to move forward. I grew tired of it and, instead, moved ahead with my own plan to call my friend Boots, buy some stovepipe, and cobble it back together until the masons can do their thing in the warmer weather. Done. Thanks, Boots.

What the hell, indeed.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog, essays & columns