Kohler, WI - Part Deuce

Posted by John

After the best shower of my life this morning I met the rest of the group in the lobby where we were shuttled off to the Kohler Design Center to begin our tour. The tour guides are all retired factory workers who couldn’t possibly be happier about spending their retirement days giving tours of the facility that has provided them the community, family, and living that they absolutely love. Our guide was Carl, who looked, acted, and talked like your grandfather if your grandfather was born and raised in Wisconsin and started every statement with, “There again…” Carl worked for 28 years in the cast iron foundry as an enameler, which really didn’t mean much to me until we saw the actual enameling process. The enamel is the coating that gets baked onto the bathtubs to give them their color, durability and shine. It goes on as a powder then gets baked in a 1700 degree furnace for several minutes. Most of the enameling process is automated these days except for some of the high-end custom products that are still done by hand. Holy shit, after seeing how a cast iron bath tub gets enameled by hand gave me a new found respect for Carl. Basically a red hot cast iron tub comes out of the furnace where a guy in a fire-proof space suit shakes a bunch of enamel powder like you would powder the top of a funnel cake or some shit then shoves it back into a boiling hot furnace to bake that stuff on. We were standing 50’ away from the furnace and I was sweating my ass off and Carl did that shit for 28 years. For Christ’s sake, I can barely do a desk job without wanting to kill someone. If the phone rings I feel like stabbing someone in the face with a colored pencil, yet there was Carl in a space suit shaking powder onto molten hot cast iron for 28 years and loving every second of it.

Most of the processes in the plant are all automated now as you’d expect, a fact that Carl didn’t hide his disdain for. Every time we passed by a process he’d say something like, “There again you have a robot to grind down the edges of the tub. There again I guess a robot doesn’t need to take any time off but there again you won’t find a robot that will buy toilet now will you?” and then we’d move on.

One of the cool things was seeing the way Carl interacted with all the guys still working on the plant floor. They all had respect and adoration for him because they knew he had already put his time in. One guy who was polishing a bunch of brass fittings yelled out to Carl as we walked by, “Hey Carl! I want your job when I retire!” Carl smiled and waved but as we walked away he said under his breath, “That guy will never retire,” as if to really say, “That sonofabitch has the easiest job in this entire goddamn plant. Strap on the enameler suit and go stand in front of a furnace for a day and then tell me about retirement!”

We went through the portion of the factory where they make all the vitreous China (porcelain) toilets and sinks and whatnot, which was just like one big pottery factory. They literally mold all of the fixtures out of clay, set them up to dry, then send them through a furnace for 24 hours to harden. It’s pretty amazing that the technology to make a shitter hasn’t really changed since it began. The thing about that part of the factory was, they had to keep it at 80 degrees year round so the clay could dry properly. Understandably working in 80 degree temperatures could get a bit stuffy so that’s why most of the workers just didn’t wear a shirt. That was a little fact that Carl failed to fill us in on before we walked into the place, so you can imagine our surprise to find a bunch of fat, hairy, sweaty, shirtless union workers milling about playing with pottery. It was like wandering in on craft hour at a nudist colony or some shit.

All in all the tour was pretty awesome and if Carl hadn’t been such an honest, respectable guy I probably would have gone hog wild talking about upper deckers and number twos and whatnot but as it was I just enjoyed walking by his side and hearing what he had to say. Overall I gave the tour 3 turds and Carl earned one himself. Thanks for being such a good turd Carl!

We even got to see a brand new prototype that Kohler was actually hoping to keep under wraps. I'll respect them by not revealing what it was but I will say this just to pique your interest - inverted shits.

Perhaps my favorite part of the whole day had nothing to do with Kohler or the plant tour at all. One of the engineers, the one who was sucking down the most booze at dinner last night; the one who was most vocal and most obnoxious about his distaste for Kohler products; the one who had the class to get a to-go cup from the restaurant for his gin and tonic as we were leaving; that guy was so hung over this morning that he almost slept through the plant tour, barely completed the tour once it started, and had to excuse himself from lunch and the afternoon presentations to spend the rest of the day in the shitter puking his guts out. The Kohler rep actually had to retrieve him from the bathroom when it was time for us to finally leave. When he came out looking all pale and sweaty like he was auditioning for a role in the new Twilight film I wanted to ask, "So how did that Kohler toilet in there flush with your entire digestive track in it, douchbeag?"

I don't necessarily like to delight in other people's suffering but there again, in this case I did. 

So after two days in Kohler Wisconsin I have to give the overall experience 8 turds, which is pretty good. They missed a few opportunities here and there but there again, the plant tour really sealed the deal. No, I didn’t piss in a freshly made toilet; no, I didn’t press ham on every toilet seat that rolled off the assembly line; no, I just sat back and enjoyed myself pretty thoroughly.

Two things from the first day I forgot to mention:

-I’ve long known myself to be a conversational black hole. That is to say I am virtually incapable of starting a conversation, maintaining a conversation, and if you’re in the middle of a good conversation I will suck the life right out of it. This is largely owed to my own personal social awkwardness and the fact that I hate small talk. So, it was just my luck that I happened to sit down at the end of the table at dinner on Tuesday night with a Chinese dude, a Bolivian, a Peruvian, and a Cuban. I did my merry best to make small talk but when it was obvious it wasn’t going well those asshole just switched to Spanish and had they’re own little conversation for about 15 minutes around me. At one point, having no opportunity to participate in that conversation, I turned to the Chinese dude and asked him how his food was. “It’s shit!” is all he said and turned back to his steak. Well said, man. Well said. So I sat in silence.

Part way through dinner though the Peruvian and Bolivian started talking World soccer (in English) so I saw my opportunity to jump in and actually have a conversation. I started rattling off all these stats and facts I knew about all the teams and watched as the guys just sank into their seats thinking I was some sort of insane Yankee soccer fanatic. I asked them what team they were rooting for and one dude said Argentina and I was already a bit spiteful for the whole Spanish thing and I had a few glasses of wine so I just couldn’t help myself but to jump all over his shit. “Really? Argentina? You don’t think Maradona is just going to capsize that team with his ridiculous psychotic cocaine fueled behavior? I mean, the guy has promised to run through the streets of Buenos Aires naked if they win the Cup. Do you honestly want to see that?” Dude just cowered in his seat like a scared little child and was like, “I just really like Lionel Messi.”

And that’s why I’m a conversational black hole.

-My mom will likely cry herself to sleep tonight after reading this little nugget about how I completely wasted my youth, but after watching the toilet flushing demonstration with the little hand-made miso-paste turds I was reminded of my high school days. My senior year I had the second of three lunch periods with 4 of my best buddies. How this happened I have no idea but if the school had realized the administrative error that led to this they certainly would have corrected it immediately, splitting us up into different lunch periods or preventing us from taking lunch at all. In addition to running an underground Hostess Ho-Ho and Nutty Bar ring (which is another story for another day) every single day at the end of lunch we would take a chocolate brownie from one dude’s lunch, chocolate milk from another, combine them in a ziplock bag, squish it all together, and create a nice little brownie turd that we would then place somewhere in the school. I’m not making this up. 18 years-old. Seniors in high school. Brownie turd. Everyday. The only deviation from day to day was where we chose to leave it throughout the school. One day on the main staircase in the middle of the school; the next on the floor in the middle of French class; one day in the drinking fountain; the next in the mouth of the vending machine. It was like Where’s Waldo, if Waldo was a little man-made brownie turd.

If you’re doubting the hilarity of this in any way, go get a brownie, some chocolate milk, squish it together in a ziplock bag and tell me it doesn’t look exactly like a goddamn turd. Then, rather than let that little gem go to waste, set it on the keyboard in the cubicle next to you and try not to soil yourself while waiting for that dude to return to his desk.

There again I guarantee it’ll be worth every second of it, even the occasional detention for getting caught with a fake turd on your person.  

Kohler, WI - Part One

Posted by John

So here I am in Kohler, Wisconsin as we speak. Day one has been mostly travel and a bunch of presentations on all their new products. The big plant tour that I’ve been looking forward to like a dog in heat at the local canine park is tomorrow morning.

I appreciate everyone that provided me with more ideas on how to inject suggestive poop innuendo into my every word and action, many of which I was jealous for not thinking of myself. For instance, I’m going to ask the tour guide, “So can you guys manufacture a toilet with a larger flush hole? My wife is tired of me messing up all the broom handles at the house.”

Or if the factory has a second story I’m going to refer to it as the upper deck. “Earlier you mentioned that the flush valve is manufactured on the second floor. So that makes it an upper decker, correct?”

In fact, I’m going to refer to any level above me as the upper deck.

Stewardess: “Sir, will you be checking that luggage?”

Me: “Nope. It’ll go in the upper deck luggage compartment.”

Or

Hotel Clerk: “Here is the key to your room, which is number 201.”

Me: “Nice. I like sleeping in the upper deck.”

Or

Me, to the tour guide on my way out of the plant: “So just to let you know, I left an upper decker somewhere in this factory. It’s your job to find it.”

No doubt the plant will have a cafeteria of some sort where I can go around loudly and obnoxiously criticizing all the food choices:

“Cheese? You honestly have a cheese bar here??? Oh, I get it – this is Wisconsin and cheese is your thing, but seriously, what are trying to do to me? You’re a toilet manufacturer; do you not want me using your products??? Wait, is this seriously a cow that you are carving up right before my eyes? You are actually carving the meat off the cow’s hide as we speak? Honestly what is your goal here? I’m so confused. I mean, I’m typically as regular as a Republican congressional sex scandal; now you’re going to go feeding me a bunch of cheese and bovine meat. What do you expect? I’m going to be plugged up for a week!”

But like I said, all of that is for tomorrow. I figured my expectation for this trip was pretty high coming into it so I thought I should come up with some sort of metric to determine if it actually lives up to that expectation. Therefore I decided I will be keeping tabs on a scale of 1 to 10 turds, with 1 turd being pretty shitty and 10 turds being pretty awesome, to evaluate the overall trip. It’ll start out at 5 turds and it can either go up or down from there depending on how the trip progresses.

The day got off to a pretty bad start because the flight they booked for me was at 6 AM. When I got out of bed at 4 AM, which used to be a bedtime for me, not a time to wake up, I immediately thought, “I’m docking you guys 1 turd right off the bat, this is too goddamn early, even to go talk about poop for two days.”

Now, I consider myself a pretty efficient traveler and I don’t like to get to the airport any sooner than I have to but admittedly this morning I was cutting it really close. I didn’t even park my care until 45 minutes before the flight was scheduled to take off and I was actually a little worried I’d miss the flight. How the hell was I going to explain to someone who was paying for all my expenses that I fucked up my one responsibility – making it to the airport on time? Fortunately I made it to the gate with 2 minutes to spare where I was meeting the local Kohler rep, who was clearly not impressed with my travel efficiency as he said, “Nice of you to join us,” as if what he was really saying was, “Cutting it a bit close there, asshole. Maybe next time you can pay for your own travel.” I briefly thought about just growling at him in return, “Grrrr…” but opted instead to just respond smugly with, “Thanks,” as if I was really saying, “Nice of you to schedule this flight at the ass crack of dark, dickhole. I hope the goddamn pilot got more sleep than I did. I’m docking you one more turd for being a douche at 6 in the morning.”

After a flight, a layover, and another flight, we arrived in Milwaukee where about eight other guys had already arrived. We were met by a driver who led us out of the airport where a Chrysler 300 stretch limo was waiting. Everyone was like, “Ah, awesome! We’re going to ride in a limo! Shweet!” But instead of getting in the limo we got into a shitty-ass 15-passenger van parked behind the limo like we were a goddamn high school tennis team or something. One less turd.

An hour later we arrived in Kohler where we sat through 4 hours of new product demonstrations, which would have earned them another 2 turd deductions if not for the one presenter who went into WAY more detail about how they designed all their products and actually used the words, “drop zone,” “landing area,” “deposit,” “Urinator 5000,” “urine pudding,” and “the flop factor,” to describe their various design considerations. So I gave them back 1 turd for keeping my interest.

The highlight was unquestionably the demonstration of their new 1.28 gallon per flush commercial toilet, which has been tested to flush up to 1000 grams of “medium.” In case you’re not current on your metric-to-English unit conversions, 1000 grams is equal to 2.2 pounds. And just in case you’re not current on toilet flush testing techniques, the “medium” of choice is miso paste which they form into little sausage-like packets that resemble, ironically, little hand-made turds. Honeslty they could have flushed anything down the toilet that was equivalent to 1000 grams but I guess if you’re looking for the real thing, might as well go all the way. They passed around a bucket full of the miso-turds that equaled 2.2 pounds and I think all of us were thinking the same thing, “Dear god, if I ever shit 2.2 pounds worth of shit, it would be the worst day of my life.” But thankfully the fine people at Kohler test for that condition because if there would be anything worse than shitting 2.2 pounds worth of shit, it would be doing it on a toilet that couldn’t flush it. So when they dumped the 2.2 pounds of miso turds into the toilet, pushed the flush valve, and the toilet actually evacuated the entire bowl, it was nothing short of spiritual moment for me. I gave them back another turd for that.

They really made up a lot of ground in the turd ratings with the accommodations and meal. They’re putting us up at a local lodge that was just recently renovated and I’m not one to get too worked up about something like a hotel but let me tell you, this place is fucking awesome. King bed, wet bar, mini fridge, 42” flat screen tv with speakers in the headboard and shower, and don’t even get me started on the bathroom. Sweet baby Jesus, I already have an unnatural obsession with quality plumbing fixtures but this is the top of the line from Kohler’s luxury brand. Just look at this place:

The shower alone is worth the trip. It has two multi-directional shower heads and 3 multi-directional body sprayers, each with enough flow and pressure to strip the hide off a caribou. This is the best shower on the market, stopping just short of washing your ass for you.

I briefly considered skipping dinner just to spend the evening in the shower but I’m glad I didn’t because the meal was amazing. We ate at some super remote hunting lodge where the food was to die for and the alcohol was never ending. Now, I certainly appreciate an open bar whenever I find one but I’m a man of class and taste, which is more than I can say for some of my other engineering counterparts on this trip. A couple of those douche wads were sucking down the booze like a freshmen in college who just snuck into the local bar for the first time. Before dinner even started you could just hear the decibel level in the room rising as these ass-monkeys were getting drunker and drunker and try to out talk each other about this plumbing job they did in Philly or that horrible building official in Richmond and that blah, blah, blah. By the time dessert came out the guys were just letting it all hang out. One dude was just laying into the Kohler reps telling them exactly what he thought about their products in excruciating detail, “Your producsh are shhhhit! One time, free years ago, I took a monser shhhit! Like the biggesh shhhhit yuv ever seen. And yur stoopid toilet wouldn’t flush shhhhit! Not a goddamn thing! I had to reach in thur with my hand! My hand I tell you!”

Okay, maybe that was a little exaggerated but not by much and I’m still docking them one turd for inviting a bunch of amateurs that can’t hold heir liquor. Still, despite the classless drunk assholes it all evened out because I gave them back 1 turd for dinner, it was that good.

So after day one the overall trip stands at 4 turds. Tomorrow is the defining moment though. If I can successfully use the term “upper deck” in conversation without pissing my pants, it will all be worth it. 

Two Things

Posted by John

I can assure you that what I’m about to write is not an exaggeration in the least:

Speaking of travel as we were, next week I’m going on a two-day all-expenses-paid trip to Kohler, WI to tour the Kohler, Co. manufacturing facility - as in Kohler, the people that make bathroom fixtures – to see how they make toilets.

I am not making this up! In case you’re not picking up what I’m putting down, in one week’s time I am going to a factory where they actually manufacture toilets to see how it is that toilets are actually manufactured. How did this all come about, you must be asking? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I, along with my immature, sophomoric, poop-and-bathroom-based sense of humor, will be walking into the Mecca of bathrooms; the Nirvana of shitters; the Mt. Zion of thunder mugs. Does it get any more ironic than that? I mean, I talk about bathrooms and toilets and shit all the time and now I’m going to a toilet-making factory! This is like Justin Bieber going to a Hot Topic store; or like Cookie Monster meeting Betty Crocker at speed dating; or a Tea Partier actually looking at their tax return and realizing that Obama cut their taxes last year; or like a Southerner wandering into a barbeque joint that sells guns; or like Glen Beck going to a concentration camp; or Jesus finding a colony of lepers who just ran out of wine; or Tiger Woods signing with the Taliban for a lucrative endorsement deal then walking away from golf all together in favor of a suicide bombing mission then ending up in heaven and actually being rewarded with 72 virgins. It doesn’t get any more epic or ironic than this.

I honestly have no idea what to expect from this experience. I mean, Kohler is paying for all of my expenses and will inevitably wine and dine me in an effort to get me to design around all their products or something and I’m fine with that. But how on earth am I expected to go through two days toilet training without giggling incessantly until I soil myself? It’s not possible, that’s why I’m not going to even try. No, instead I’m going to come up with every way to possibly introduce poop innuendo into everything I do and say and see how long it takes for them to kick me out of the plant and send me home.  

Here’s a list of my ideas so far:

-I’m going to pretend like I have a speech impediment in which I unknowingly miss pronounce some very simple yet specific words. For instance:

Kohler Rep: “So when are flying out?”

Me: “I think my flight is at noon on Turdsday.”

Kohler: “I’m sorry, what day was that?”

Me: “I just said my flight is the day after tomorrow.”

Kohler: “Oh, ok. Well is it a direct flight?”

Me: “No, I’m actually flying through Shitcago.”

Kohler: “Wait, where is your layover?”

Me: “Ohare International Airport.”

Kohler: “Oh, I see. Well when are you getting back to Nashville?”

Me: “Right around Deuce-thirty.”

Kohler: “Huh? What time?”

Me: “Half past two…”

-During the plant tour I’m going to constantly ask completely ignorant questions that have no basis in fact:

Me: “Excuse me. Which toilet is best for swirlies?”

Kohler Rep: “I’m sorry, best for what?”

Me: “A swirly. You know; which of your toilets performs best while a scrawny, awkward 4^th grader’s head is being repeatedly and mercilessly jammed into the bowl?”

Or:

Me: “Where exactly is your poop analysis lab?”

Kohler: “Uhh… what are you talking about?”

Me: “Oh come on – how are you supposed to know what your toilets are flushing? I mean, someone has to be analyzing how each toilet performs with all the different kinds of poop. Is there someone whose job it is to come up with all different kinds of poop? Do you have some sort of chart somewhere? Like it ranges from something like say, peanut butter to rabbit pellets to Baby Ruth or something? I don’t know, I’m just making this up. I’m not a poop expert or anything. Then again, if you’re hiring…”

Or:

“Hypothetically speaking, if you’re at a bar and you’re drunk and someone is in the stall in the bathroom, is it better to puke in the sink or the urinal? Hypothetically speaking, whoever threw up in the urinal at the restaurant last night was not me.”

-I’m going to preface every statement with the phrase, “Two things,” just so I can follow that up by saying “Number one,” and “Number two,” as many times as possible:

“Two things: Number one, my name is John. Number two, when’s lunch?”

“Two things: Number one, my wife is a butt doctor. Number two, she knows more about poop than all of you put together.”

“Two things: Number one, the Kindle was the best thing to ever happen to dropping a deuce. Number two, because now your time spent on the shitter is no longer limited to the length of a single magazine.”

-I’m not the only one going on this trip so inevitably there will be a get-to-know-you session with the other participants. If we have to break out into small groups with another person I’m going to suggest we go through an icebreaker by role playing the scene from Austin Powers where he’s wrestling the henchman in the bathroom stall and repeatedly dunking his head in the toilet bowl while demanding, “Who does Number 2 work for!?!” I of course will play the part of Austin Powers.

-The morning of the plant tour I’m going to get up early and start drinking Gatorade by the gallon then hold my bladder until we get to the factory and belly up to the very first toilet that rolls off the assembly line then when everyone is looking at me in complete disgust I’ll just be like, “What!? What do you want from me??? There are toilets every goddamn where you look! How am I supposed to know which one’s are functional and which are not!?!”

If you have any suggestions I haven’t come up with yet, I would absolutely love to hear them.

True Ties

Posted by John

I’d like to think that things are returning to a relative level of normalcy here in Nashville after the flood, but of course that’s easy for me to say sitting where I am. I know there are still tons of people out there struggling to figure out how they’re going to put their home or business back together. No doubt the adrenaline of the first few days has completely worn off and given way to a harsh reality that between insurance and FEMA and shady contractors there won’t be enough money to rebuild soon enough or well enough, leaving an indelible gap not just in their pocket books but in the perception of what their house used to be or what they dreamed it could become; a gap that wouldn’t exist if not for 36 hours of heavy rain a few weeks ago.

While I don’t want to easily forget those that are still struggling, I also don’t want to dwell too long on what happened because certainly they are eager to move on as well, as best they can. Therefore I’ll be taking this opportunity to move back into the more comfortable territory of insensitively and profanely blowing my own trivial issues out of proportion in an effort to make them sound more significant than anyone with actual real issues to deal with in their lives.

All of the recent activity in Nashville has coincided with a lot of business and personal travel for me, which I haven’t minded all that much if for no other reason than to get somewhere where there isn’t a ban on non-essential water uses. But if there’s one thing that’s certain about travel, it’s always accompanied by awkward personal interactions.

The other week I had to take a road trip to Alabama with an older engineer whom I’ve never even spoken to before and who reminds me of Droopy, the cartoon dog. Looks and sounds just like him and once you have an image like that in your head it’s hard not to giggle to yourself every time he speaks. It’s always bad enough going through the forced getting-to-know-you conversations that come with being trapped in a small car with somebody for several hours, but it’s even worse when it’s painfully obvious you have nothing in common with the person. The only thing worse is if one of those things you don’t have in common is a severe case of overactive flatulence. Fortunately that wasn’t the case for either of us but I was subjected to some of the dude’s unavoidable character quirks, which made the whole experience almost unbearable.

For instance, he spent half the drive steering the vehicle with his knees while he fumbled through text messages on his phone. Now, I know that everyone texts while they drive, regardless of how dangerous it is, and I’m fine with that if you’re willing to risk your own goddamn life to do it. But do not for one second think that I’m going just happily sit there in the passenger seat while you’re careening all over the highway trying to find out what boy your daughter is taking to the high school dance. Holy shit, I was sweating bullets the entire time we were on the road. This guy didn’t look like he had the technical savvy to operate a cell phone while seated in a stable chair in a padded room, let alone whilst operating a motor vehicle at 70 miles per hour. I had to close my eyes to prevent my hand from instinctively grabbing for the goddamn steering wheel to prevent the car from launching off a cliff or something. At one point within a 30 second span the tires of the car hit the rumble strip on the left side of the highway followed shortly thereafter by the rumble strip on the right side. Dear God, I’m not a religious man but you better believe I was praying to sweet Baby Jesus to do me a solid and get me through the ordeal alive. The only saving grace for my nerves and loose bowels was the fact that this guy had the bladder of a 6-year-old girl. No shit, we stopped every 30 minutes on this trip. We hit every rest stop in the I-65 corridor from Tennessee to Alabama. At first it was just annoying as hell but then I started to anticipate the breaks and pray they’d come sooner if for no other reason than to clean out my underwear after another 30 miles of narrowly missed guardrails and ditches and semi trucks.

That trip was followed a few days later by another one with a crazy German dude who I’ve never traveled with before. He was actually a much safer driver and much more interesting company, right up until we took a lunch break at a Subway in bum-fuck Arkansas and I took the opportunity of being outside the water conservation zone of Nashville to immediately head to the john to wash my hands only to look up in the mirror to see the goddamn German standing inside the single-person bathroom with me. “Fucking-A, dude! What the hell are you doing in here? I don’t know how you do shit in socialist Germany but in socialist America we go into single-person bathrooms one single person at a time!” For Christ’s sake, I had to actually brush past him just to get the door open so I could get the hell out of there. I can tell you definitively that your relationship with another person changes dramatically after you’ve been in a small single-person bathroom with them.

Both of those trips were preceded by an overnighter to southern Georgia for a visit to a construction site with one of the top dogs in the department. Now, I’m no stranger to constructions sites so I know how things go and I know the most important thing on a construction site is not being a dumbass. Being a dumbass can come in many different forms out on site ranging from stepping in wet concrete to flipping on a switch and electrocuting the dude on the ladder installing the light to inadvisably stopping for lunch to eat fried chicken, green beans and cabbage at a dirty-ass, greasy meat and three only to find yourself 30 minutes later on some remote part of the site rocking the thunder mug in the most godawful port-o-pot ever conceived by man while praying to little Baby Jesus to spare your colon from any more trauma. Those would all be considered dumbass moves on a construction site.

One of the simplest dumbass moves is to show up on site sticking out like a sore thumb dressed like a douchebag so that every contractor on the job knows exactly who you are. They already hate their jobs and their lives so the absolute last thing you want to do is be identified as the one guy who they hate the most – the dumbass engineer who put the construction drawings together. So if you want to blend in you need to wear the proper job site uniform - jeans, work boots, a flannel or polo and leave all your accessories at home. No watches, name brand sunglasses, or deodorant. You need to fit in.

So like I said, I'm no stranger to being on a job site and unfortunately I'm no stranger to being a dumbass on site. Fortunately I've learned my lessons and those days are largely behind me so I was more than prepared for this particular trip. We were flying out on a Monday afternoon having put in a half day at the office so I had packed my bag ahead of time with everything I’d need. At least that’s what I thought right up until we were actually boarding the plane and the top dog turned to me and said, “It’ll be a good idea for us to wear ties on site tomorrow in case we run into anyone important.”

I looked at him and thought he couldn’t possible be serious. I mean, we were going to a goddamn construction site. Who in the hell important were we going to run into? Bob Vila and Ty Pennington?

Not only did I not have a tie in my bag, all I had was a pair of jeans, polo and work boots – standard attire for blending in on site. But it was clear from dude’s expression that he was not kidding so I said, “Well then, we’re going to need to stop at Wal-mart because I’m going to need a tie,” and in my head I was thinking, “and a shirt and a pair of pants because I am not wearing this same goddamn outfit on site tomorrow…”

“Oh, don’t worry,” he said, “I always travel with extra ties. What color shirt will you be wearing?”

Is this guy seriously bullshitting me? I have a goddamn polo shirt in my bag. That’s it! So I deliberately looked down at the button-down shirt I was wearing and said, “Well, I’ll be wearing blue.”

“Great! I have the perfect tie.”

All I could think in that moment was, “Holy shit, I’m going to be douching all over that site like a dumbass tomorrow.”

So the next morning I got up, put on the exact same clothes I’d worn the day before, and went down to meet the dude in the hotel lobby.

“Here you go,” he said, tossing a tie to me. I caught it, looked at the tie, looked back at him, looked back to the tie, then looked back to him and thought to myself, “He has got to be fucking kidding me!” Not only did his “perfect” black and red tie not even remotely come close to matching my blue shirt, it was so hideous an elementary school principal wouldn’t even wear it. Again, the only thought in my head was, “I am going to be the biggest douching dumbass on that job site today.”

So I tied the tie, tightened it up to my neck with more than just a little more than contempt and looked across to the dude when I realized what he was wearing. You sonofabitch! You’re wearing a white shirt with a goddamn blue tie! You could have worn this stupid ass piece of shit and at least given me the tie that would have matched my shirt? You saw this goddamn shirt yesterday!

So there I was, 15 minutes later, walking up to the muddy-ass construction site wearing dress shoes, slacks, a button-down blue shirt, and a black and red necktie that looked like one of the upholstery options for the 1992 Dodge Neon. I might as well have been wearing a siren for a top hot and been carrying a bullhorn to announce to the entire place, “Hey! Hey, look at me! I’m the dumbass engineering that made the construction drawings that have been the bane of your existence for the past 12 months! Please direct all of your animosity directly at me for the next 8 hours!!!”  

I know it sounds like I’m blowing this out of proportion; it’s only a necktie, right? But what you don’t understand is the fragile ecosystem that is a construction jobsite. Most of these people are just one bad day away from going postal and you never know what the last straw will be. So I spent the entire rest of the day feeling like the self-conscious douche I was as every single contractor on site paused, looked, did a double take, and clearly thought o himself, “Now who on earth does this douche think he is? Oh wait! You’re the goddamn engineer!...” I was so livid but all I could do was stare back at them threateningly with a look that said, “Don’t even think about crossing me! If you think you hate life now just wait until after lunch when I rock the thunder mug in the only port-o-pot on site with a fury and vengeance you’ve never seen before assholes!”

Unfortunately the quality of this photo doesn’t come close to doing the tie justice, as I was trying to covertly snap the shot with my phone while no one was looking. 

Relief, Rebuild, Regulate

Posted by John

More than a week removed from the rain and flood and we’re still trying to put it all in perspective. It seems with every day comes news that something else in town was destroyed or someone else lost everything to the water. But just like every day brings new bad news, it also brings amazingly good news. Stories of people that survived if only by boat; Condo’s that were completely untouched even though their neighbors a stone’s throw away were under 4’ of water; Wading waste deep to retrieve a wedding ring forgotten in a submerged house; The musician who lost everything on the first floor of his house, both his cars, and his garage-turned-music studio, but who was just thrilled that he saved his favorite guitar.

What’s truly amazing is to talk to the people who lost everything because we’ve yet to meet anyone who feels sorry for themselves. Quite the opposite in fact. People recognize the hardship but they’re quick to laugh about it, accept it for what it is, and move on. Even in the face of getting screwed over by mother nature, a contractor, their insurance company, or lack of insurance, these people are just ready to move forward. It’s not possible to count the number of times that instead of wallowing in misery someone says, “Well, I can’t wait to pick out tile for the kitchen now,” or “I absolutely hated that couch, I look forward to a new one,” or, “At least all the moles in my yard are dead now.” It’s amazing.

The week hasn’t been easy for anyone though, even those not directly affected by the floods. Power outages here, closed roads there, and a looming clean water shortage. One of the two water treatment plants was submerged by water and the second was only barely saved by more than 400 prisoners who volunteered to sandbag around the clock to keep the other treatment plant dry. The news came out almost immediately that we needed to start conserving water and use it only for essential purposes – cooking and drinking. Even then, I still saw some ass clown cleaning off his little red sports car at the car wash, or some douche lick power-washing his driveway to clean off the debris. It’s at times like that when I wish the world would appoint an individual to regulate stupidity and it’s at times like that when I wish that person was me. I would go around as some sort of hybrid between Dog the Bounty Hunter, Sylvester Stallone in the movie Cobra, Jason Bourne if instead of the CIA it was stupidity that turned him in to a cold, ruthless killing machine, or Bruce Willis in any role he’s ever played in any movie, looking for people driving Chevy Suburbans during fuel shortages, or watering their lawns during a water crisis, or eating McDonalds, and I would regulate stupidity like a seriously righteous badass motherfucker. “Excuse me sir, I couldn’t help but notice that you’re washing your expensive sports car whilst we are experiencing a county-wide water shortage. Are you aware that water is to be used only for drinking or cooking?... You are aware of that?... I see. Well then, why are you here wasting water to wash this vehicle that’s clearly compensating for your small penis?... Oh, it got a little dirty after all the rain this weekend?... Hmm, I see. Well…” BOOM! “Oh man, I really didn’t want to have to punch you in the goddamn throat like that but your stupidity gave me no choice. Wait, what’s that? Are you trying to speak?... Oh, are you trying to tell me to fuck off? Well then…” BOOM! “Again, I’m sorry I had to punch you in the throat a second time but your stupidity is just too overwhelming. When you eventually regain the ability to speak I’ll expect you to apologize for all your past transgressions because if you don’t I will come back to remove your gallbladder through your nostril with a rusty meat hook. Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to go introduce a woman to the concept of contraception or the heavy-handed fist of Stupidity Regulation.”

On Saturday we joined up with a massive volunteer crew to help clean up the neighborhood. It was awesome to see hundreds of people descend on our little area of town, some of them not even from around here, just willing to help out wherever they could. We would just bounce from house to house and help the homeowners out with whatever they needed. Throwing out saturated furniture; ripping out drywall or insulation; removing a 100 lb, 6”x6” railroad tie that somehow ended up on top of a carport. It was brilliant. And even people that couldn’t contribute with demo or heavy lifting were doing everything they could. A whole troop of girl scouts (what do you call a group of girl scouts? A troop? A gaggle perhaps? A pod? A murder of girl scouts?) came through with bottled water, cookies, fruit, sandwiches, whatever. I think I ate like 7 goddamn bananas because every time I turned around there was another kid offering me one and I absolutely couldn’t refuse. And all the while we were meeting amazing people. Volunteers, victims, whomever. It was that whole shared human experience thing again.

Here is a sampling of just a few of the craziest stories we’ve personally heard:

-A young couple in our neighborhood just went into contract to sell their house two weeks ago and were in a contingent contract to buy their dream home in Brentwood. Then the floods came, filled their house up, negated the contract for the sale of the home, and in turn voided the contract on their future home. What an absolute kick to the groin. Now they have two small boys in a house just a tad over 1,000 SF that they have to disembowel, rebuild, and somehow try to sell again. How do you sell a house that was just ruined in flood? I don’t care if the likelihood of it ever flooding again is 1 in 1,000, who is ever going to take on that risk?

-A woman in our neighborhood, who I met once randomly through work, was able to escape the floodwaters in her car but her single-story house was ruined like so many others. Having made it through the flood she was sitting in her car in the driveway this past Friday when a tree suddenly fell on her car! While she was in it! I’m not making that shit up. She survives a flood only to see her house ruined, then in the freakiest of freak accidents a goddamn tree falls on her car while she’s in it! I can’t fathom that kind of luck. Or bad luck. Which is it? Can you imagine that call to your insurance agent? “Yeah, hey Bill. I know we just talked the other day about how my house and all my possessions were completely ruined, but you will not believe what just happened… No, seriously, you will not believe this…”

-We joined a group of volunteers on Saturday at the house of an 82-year-old woman who was a hoarder. Now, I’ve seen the show on TV a few times but never really gave much thought to the fact that hoarders do in fact exist. Believe me now, they do. This woman had been in her house since the 60’s and had it filled to the brim with thousands and thousands and thousands of things. All kinds of things. Dolls, jewelry, crafts, buttons, letters, books, tea cups, photographs, statues, rocks, clothes, tools… it was so far beyond anything I could ever imagine. After the waters receded her family came in and spent the week removing everything from her house out into the yard. By the time I got there mid-morning on Saturday dozens of volunteers had already been meticulously going through and categorizing all of the possessions into piles that could be salvaged and piles that couldn’t. Then I spent the next four hours, along with 50 other people, removing items that had been ruined by the handful, armful, garbage bag full, and wheelbarrow full. In addition to the house she had a garage and three separate storage sheds, all full to the brim. Furniture, yearbooks from the 40’s, National Geographics from 1918, coins from the 1800’s, a collection of A-Team TV trays still in the plastic wrapping, photographs and photographs and photographs. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not entirely sympathetic to the idea of someone who hoards every item they’ve ever come across in their entire life. I just want to dismiss it as crazy, but that’s just it – calling it crazy is just dismissive and certainly doesn’t help someone get over the psychology of it; especially someone who has just lost absolutely everything. It was necessary for this woman to see everything thrown away but there were a few things that were devastating for anyone to part with – her deceased husband’s army uniform and bomber jacket, a letter he wrote to her on their 31^st anniversary, original copies of classic novels, photographs from decades long gone… but it all had to go. And the thing was, you will never find a sweeter woman. She made everyone sign her journal so she could be sure to get out thank you cards and she was already talking about moving back into her home when it is fixed up – the home that contained all of her possessions that are no longer, and the home in which she nearly died.

It was so fitting to summarize the overall experience of the past week that at the end of the day on Saturday we were walking away from the old woman’s house and saw a sign that someone had found among all the stuff and set out on her porch that said:

“Never, Never, Never Give Up.”  

Rain, Floods, Luck

Let me start by acknowledging all the calls, e-mails, and texts inquiring about our well being over the past few days; we absolutely appreciate it and I can assure you we are just fine as is all of our personal property, remarkably.

Let me also say that my intention in writing this is to attempt to put all of this into some sort of perspective; a perspective I definitely didn’t have as it was happening and one that I’m still trying to grasp now. I certainly don’t want to be grandiose in overstating the impact the rain and flooding had on the area here – this was not a hurricane, or a tornado, or a tsunami, or any number of other natural disasters; it was rain. A hell of a lot of rain, but it was rain. But I also don’t want to understate the magnitude of the events and certainly the tragedy that some people have gone through while trying to explain what this was – the single worst rainstorm and flooding in this area in recorded history.

From my perspective, the rain began in earnest Saturday morning. At the time I considered it nothing more than an inconvenience but as the day wore on and it refused to let up it started to get concerning. With each hour that passed I would think to myself, “this is the worst and longest torrential monsoon I’ve ever experienced.” But then it would go for another hour, and another, and each time I had to revise my metric. Still, by Saturday night as sick as I was of the rain I had no idea how bad it really was. In my cloistered world of interior home improvements I didn’t think to turn on the tv or check the internet to see how bad it was. In fact, it wasn’t until I got a text message from someone who was out of town about the flooding that I even realized the seriousness of the situation.

But even then I just assumed the flooding was occurring in the worst, most low-lying areas of the city and the rain would let up eventually. And eventually it did. But Sunday morning it started again, and again I had to revise the metric. It wasn’t even worth attempting to go outside because every effort resulted in every inch of exposed clothing getting completely soaked almost immediately. So I stayed inside trying to busy myself with the millions of things I’d left undone “until a rainy day.” Again, blissfully unaware of just how bad things had been and how bad they were going to get.

About mid-morning I looked out the window to see a constant stream of water running through the ditch in my front yard. That was immediately concerning because even in the worst rain we’ve had in the past I’ve never even seen standing water. The next hour was spent nearly constantly rounding from one window to the next trying to survey the level of the water – a shallow pond in the backyard; nothing to the south; standing water in the yard two houses to the north; water in the ditch out front getting higher. At that point I had to acknowledge the fact that we do in fact live in a floodplain and we are in fact required to maintain flood insurance – a fact that has been the subject of my ire on many, many occasions as I’ve even gone so far as to actively pursue having our neighborhood re-surveyed by FEMA in order to update their flood maps. Brown’s Creek happens to run through our backyard but up until Sunday I’d never so much as seen a drop of water in it.

It wasn’t until almost noon though that I even began to feel the full weight of what was happening. The rain let up enough for me to consider venturing outside, so I walked to the end of the driveway where I looked to the north and absolutely could not believe the sight – a river of flood water rushing through the whole of the neighborhood not more than three houses down from ours. As floored as I was, I was compelled to walk as close as I could and still couldn’t believe it – a torrent of milky brown floodwater coursing through the neighborhood. At some points it appeared to be almost two-feet deep, as high as the wheels of a truck and just below the floor level of the houses. But the frightening thing was, the further back the neighborhood went, the deeper the water got. I couldn’t see but I could only assume the river of water was running through some houses, maybe as deep as 4 feet. What I feared for my own house was a reality for several dozen other houses.

Still though, I didn’t fully embrace the situation.

I went back and put on knee-high rubber boots and hopped the fence behind my house where I could hear the rapids in Brown’s Creek. As soon as I landed on the other side of the fence I was shin deep in water. 

I walked another ten yards until the water was to the top of the boots and stood there looking out on a river of water, 30 yards wide, racing through our neighborhood.

I paused to take a picture of myself to try to capture the perspective of the depth of the water though ironically the unintentional look on my face says more about what was happening than anything.

If there’s any humor to be found in this, as I was wading through the water I was actually thinking to myself, “Ok, you’ve seen every episode of Man vs Wild; you know what Bear says about these situations: Test every step for a sink hole; keep your hands out for balance; proceed cautiously; floodwater can rise rapidly without warning; 6” is enough water to sweep an adult off their feet…” I can joke all I want about surviving shit and how awesome Bear is, but the reality is, in that situation I took a good bit of comfort out of thinking about what Bear would do.

Joking aside, the river of floodwater continued unabated for the better part of two hours. What I didn’t realize is it had been a river of floodwater for hours prior.

By mid-afternoon the rain had abated and by late afternoon most of the water had receded, leaving tons of debris and destruction behind. I set out through the neighborhood to survey the damage and just couldn’t believe it. I met a young couple who showed me through their house. They said they were doing everything they could to get all over their possessions into the attic but when the water eventually came it rushed in so suddenly they didn’t have a chance to respond. It blew open the French doors on the back of their house and was two feet deep before they could do anything. It took all their effort to get out of the house. My mind cannot comprehend how terrifying that would have been. There is no amount of preparation or planning that can possibly ready you for that situation. If I think about my own experience over the previous 24 hours – being concerned yet inconvenienced by the rain; watching the water level rise with some intrigue; deciding to move some stuff in the house to higher locations; packing a bag in case I had to leave… even with all of that I was so ignorant to what was really going on and so were all of these people in the neighborhood, right up until the water broke through their back door and everything in their life changed forever.

With the water fully receded it was mind-boggling how bad the whole situation was in their house. A line of wet debris and mud was caked two feet above the floor through the entire house. The chain link fence in their backyard was completely bowled over. The smell of gasoline from lawnmower cans in their garage was intoxicated. Everything that had been touched by the water was ruined. And that was just one house; there were dozens of others on this street alone, and dozens of houses that were worse off.  

Then there was our house, maybe two hundred yards away with just a few inches of water in the crawl space. Nothing more than that. I still can’t fathom the luck.

And still, when I went to bed Sunday night I had no idea how bad the whole thing truly was. It wasn’t until I woke up Monday morning and watched the news and saw acre after acre of land under standing water; entire neighborhoods swallowed up; 13,000 people without power; one of two water treatment plants out of commission…

What happened in our neighborhood was just a microcosm for what happened all over the city, and the crazy thing was, this neighborhood was fortunate – the water had actually receded; there are still entire sections of town under standing water, without power, and without drinking water.

And here we are in a goddamn floodplain and our house got a few drops of water in the crawl space. Unbelievable.

I went through the neighborhood Monday afternoon to see what could be done. It was amazing to see how people were coping. Hundreds of friends and family came out to help and even as people were throwing out all the furniture they owned, they were happy. They were happy they were ok. It was amazing.

I've heard the phrase "shared human experience" used before and each time I've hated it because it's usually written by some uber altruistic hippie about an experience that, given the choice, no human would ever want to share with another. But at this point I'm struggling to find a better way to describe this. Everyone here now has a story about the rain and the floods, whether they were directly affected by it or not. Everyone knows where they were and what they were going through and they'll remember that forever and they’ll tell that story forever. It's the same with any major event like this - it's the shared human experience. It's amazing to walk through the neighborhood and see someone whose house has been destroyed and see the look on their face – a look of exhaustion and disbelief but one that still says, "I've lost everything but at least I'm ok; it's just stuff." You can only think to yourself, "I can't possibly understand what you're going through but I want you to believe it'll be alright," and it will. That’s the shared experience. Or you share a smile with the neighbor whose house was unbelievably unaffected just like yours and the smile is not spiteful or cynical or selfish; it is simply an understanding that says, "We are so lucky; we are unbelievably lucky." That's what it is to have one of those uber altruistic hippie shared human experiences and the ridiculous thing is, despite the horribleness of it all, it's comforting.