Sal and I don’t usually work together.  She does her thing.  I do mine.  It’s better that way.  I love her and all.  And I am pretty sure that she at least likes me (“I’m here, aren’t I?“ she says whenever I seem insecure).  But we don’t work well together.  Our thinking is different.  Our pace is different.  Our view of things is different.  And worse, we both think we are the boss.

And, it would seem, I am wrong about that.

It makes no difference what the job is, one of us always knows better.  The problem is that we each think it is ourselves.  That person also thinks the other is there to help, assist, ‘hold things in place’, fetch things and make tea.

We never seem to agree on who gets that job.

Today we were putting on steel cross braces for the funicular.  The apparatus I designed, bought stuff for, and did all the work-to-date on.  One might assume that this chore would be mine to supervise.  You know…..given that Sal hadn’t even looked closely at it……?

Don’t assume.  It seems Sal knows a great deal more about steel structure than one would suspect. Or so she claims.    

Oh, I am only kidding.  Mostly.  The truth is we don’t work well together but, of course, we have to now and then and, when we do, we do just fine.  Well, fine enough to get the job done, anyway.  The real issue is that neither of us knows much of anything and the enveloping pall of fear and ignorance when we start causes doubts and confusion.  People don’t work well together when they are confused and insecure.

Well, Sal doesn’t, anyway.

I am, of course, blessed with the male ego.  The male ego abhors a vacuum.  So, it fills it in with bluster.  I live in the house that bluster built.

Today we did fine, though.  But wouldn’t you know….?

I have a 1/2″ heavy-duty Milwaukee drill and it burned out!  One minute I am drilling through steel, the next I am smelling the smoke coming from the suddenly noisy innards of the drill.  A bearing started rattling and screeching.  And something had gone wonky inside and the drill was of no use despite my immediate but ineffective tampering with a hammer and copious amounts of WD40.

So I used drill #2 to finish the job.  Actually, it was drill #3 but drill #1 had packed it in last year thus leaving me with only two.  Now?  Now I am down to one drill (not counting the two battery jobs and the rock drill).  Like winches, a man can’t have enough drills.  I will be shopping again.

We managed to get two cross-braces on despite the circumstances.  Which is good.  But we have five or six more to do and a few other pieces to attach as well.  We’ll be drilling through 3/8″ steel at least a couple of dozen times for a few more days.  And then countersinking the bolt holes after the holes are drilled.

I sure hope Sal knows what she is doing.  The way things are going I’ll be fetching and making tea!