The Musings of an Alpha Alpha Male

So a friend of mine bought a hot tub from the son of a friend of mine. It was agreed that the son would deliver the hot tub on trailer to dad’s house so he could deliver it to the friend’s house, move it into place and wire it. All is good. I was asked to help move the beast, along with another friend. There is a good chance none of us will be friends by the end of this. So, Monday night is the night of the big move and I call to ask when the tub will arrive. Turns out son didn’t deliver it, dad had to go borrow a trailer drive to son’s house and pick up the tub, so not gonna happen next Monday.

Tonight is moving night, dad picks up friend, drives to London to purchasing friend’s house and all is good. I arrive about 6:30 with a 1,000 Lb moving dolly and we are ready to rock. But what is this? All three friends are frantically taking a homemade dolly off the side of the tub because when they tried to stand it up, everything buckled and things went sideways…literally. No tools to speak of just three guys cursing, laughing and calling each other vile things…a regular guy day.

So dolly off…my dolly ready to go…lets lift this puppy. Now I should mention that a brand new hot tub of this size weighs a lot…a used hot tub that has picked up a bit of water in the foam insulation weighs about 1,687,462.5 Lbs or like 600 Kilos if you are into metric. So we give a mighty heave and lift the beast onto my furniture dolly. Great!

So maybe I should pause here and set the scene…the tub (yes all 1,687,462.5 Lbs of it) needs to be moved off the driveway over a six inch drop, rolled down about 30ft of sidewalk – careful not to go on the lawn which drops off at about 45 degrees, turn a 90 degree corner (guess we will be using the neighbor’s lawn after all) up 4 steps, through a gate, across a wooden patio and into place on a concrete pad. Piece of cake!

So the beast is now standing on edge on the furniture dolly, four smiling village idiots trying to hold it upright and head it towards the 6″ precipice. All heave toward the drop while trying to keep the towering beast upright and…NOTHING! Seems that one of the wheels marched to a different drummer and was pointing at a 90 degree angle to the direction the rest of us were rowing. Simple…get down on your hands and knees and straighten the wheel, while your friends hold up 1,687,462.5 Lbs so it doesn’t drop on you when the wheel spins. Except…the wheel isn’t spinning, the wheel isn’t rolling, the wheel isn’t doing anything that anyone expects wheels to do. So, lay the behemoth down. Re-assess. Remember the wheels that were coming off when I arrived? Well they need to go back on.

So, 7:45PM run home grab tools, grab gloves (give me a break it is cold out) and head back. Now the plan is to put a 4X4 under one side (it was my plan…HEY! am I a friggin engineer?) so that when we stand the tub up, the taller wheels will be off the ground and the tub, which was already like 12 feet tall will now stand 13 foot 7 inches. That will be easy to control (that was sarcasm).

That night I had a couple of jobs to do…lift the behemoth, get tools, get gloves etc, The 4X4 had one job…sit still and act as a pivot point. But oh no! Instead as we lift… it feels the need to roll. No one asked it to roll. No one wanted it to roll, but roll it did. So put the behemoth back down Did I mention that the age of the liftees was from 50 to 60, not 20 to 30 so the tub now seemed to weigh 2, 687,462.25 Lbs.

So, new plan. Move the pivot point of the 4X4 back, add some cross members to the makeshift dolly, wrap a safety strap around it and stand it up once again. Looking good! Things are coming together…heave…and the damn tire turns and try’s to roll the tub off into the neighbor’s yard. WHAT IS IT WITH THESE DAMN TIRES? They don’t turn when you want them to…they turn when you want them to stay straight. So, put the behemoth down yet again. It is now 9:30…we have been at this for 3 hours, and the tub is 3 feet from where it was when I arrived. Going home…having a drink or two, and jumping into my Hot tub. TO BE CONTINUED.

So a few weeks back, our washing machine began to make a funny noise going into the spin cycle, sort of like KRAKOOMFCLANG or some such Germanic sound. Imagine Sputnik III landing on your roof without all shoots deployed. Then last Thursday, when it went into the spin cycle…it didn’t. It wouldn’t spin, drain the water or open the door. So, I turned it off and headed to the trailer for the weekend, assuming it would feel better by Monday. Apparently not.
So on Monday, I decided that being a bit of a handyman (read cheap), I could fix it myself. So I grabbed the handyman’s favourite tool…Google and began to analyze the problem. Hmmm, Ohhhh, ahhh, I see. Alright, got it, and with a mitt full of tools, head off to do battle with the washing machine.
I am quite sure that if a washing machine could laugh…this one would have pissed itself. As a matter of fact, when I undid that one hose…it did. And unfortunately, it made it look like I pissed myself.
My particular washing machine has two shock absorbers that, according to Google, prevent it from going KRAKOOMFCLANG when it goes into spin mode. Now, I am no engineer, but I am pretty sure that in order for them to absorb any shock…they need to be connected at both ends. Mine weren’t.
Ok, so this is bigger than I thought, but according to Google, the little thingy at the front was the pump, and in all likelihood, something had got stuck in it. So, let’s take it apart first. Some grunting, a bit of swearing, and some more grunting, and it was out. Once again, I am not really a washing machine repairman, but I am pretty sure that the 6-inch piece of wire sticking out of the spinny part that pumps water…isn’t good.
Now, my particular washing machine has a soft rubber basket that is supposed to catch stuff and prevent it from getting into the spinny thing. In the case of a savings account, $6.72 isn’t a lot; It’s more than I have, but it isn’t a lot. But in a washing machine…it is a hell of a lot! $6.72 in change, two guitar picks (it might have wanted to serenade the dryer), six nails and 3 screws (don’t even go there), a piece of plastic and the six-inch wire. HOLY CRAP!!! No wonder it stopped working. Clean that out and time to Google…changing shock absorbers.
Now Google has this lovely little video where a very nice man takes a screwdriver and the tiniest little hammer and, in about 60 seconds, has both shock absorbers out. Another sixty seconds, and the new ones are in. Simple! He said cute little things like, “The air hose may be in the way…just gently move it aside.” THE AIR HOSE MAY BE IN THE WAY!? HOW ABOUT THE ENTIRE FRIGGIN WASHING DRUM MAY BE IN THE FRIGGIN WAY!!! HEY…HOW ABOUT THAT! But I digress. So, after struggling with the left side and sort of winning I started to take on the right. But what is this? Back to Google. “Oh, great Google…bearer of all knowledge…what makes a washing machine bleed?” Apparently, as I read through the blood-stained screen…washing machines don’t bleed. Well then, where the hell is all that…Oh crap…that looks deep. Wipe up the blood, get a band-aid, beat the crap out of the other shock absorber, and we are good for the night,
Today, I got the new shock absorber “Kit”. Now, “Kit” to me, implies a promise of all things needed to fix the errant shock absorbers. How wrong you are, oh great one. “Kit” in this scenario means MOST of the parts you will need to fix the problem. Grumble, grumble. Hammer, hammer. Re-use old parts. No leaks…spins like a damn, need a drink. Peace out!

One of the great things about Hawaii is that it doesn’t have near as many things that want to bite, poison or eat you as say…oh…Australia. Sure, in the water they are on par, but on land you have much better odds of surviving your visit. There are no snakes to speak of (well there is one. It was imported and everyone is given permission to kill them on site. Apparently there is no eco-friendliness when it comes to foreign snakes in Hawaii. Aloha). The only spider is the cane spider, which is big and ugly, but not venomous. Seems that they have figured out that there only defense against humans is that they are big and ugly, so as a bluff they are aggressive as hell and attack on site. Betting, I believe, that you don’t know that they aren’t poisonous. They appear to have learned that the best defense is a good offence. Then there are the centipedes. These are 6 inch long, armor plated uglys with a bite, which, while not deadly, will leave you wishing you were dead. As one of the local guide books put it “If bit by a centipede, the best you can do is stay drunk for the next three days; by then it should have passed.”

So…guess which one I met?

At happy hour on the first night of our stay, Jenn was discussing with one of the resort owners (Jan) what she had read about centipedes. Jan mentioned that they used to be a problem, but were now extremely rare and we would most surely never see one. I wasn’t listening as a) I am a male and have been married for 38 years and b) Michael and I were talking drums.

In any case, I had to run back to our Hale (house) for something. As I climb the steps, there at the top, staring at me with his beady little antennae, or whatever they use for beady little stares, was a monster of a centipede. Though only about 6 inches long he seemed more like a 3 foot dragon to me. Where were the Knights of the Coffee Table when I needed them? Oh yeah…back in southwestern Ontario freezing their butts off.

Anyway, I came up the steps a bit disconcerted by his brashness and beady stare. I feigned right, skirted left and dashed for the door. He didn’t blink, or wiggle his antennae, or, as I hoped, run screaming from the porch.

As I was leaving, I decided to give him a good scare and show him who was boss. I stomped my rather heavy foot mere inches from his head. Nothing. He didn’t even spill his coffee.

I went back and told the group what I had seen. Michael was on his feet immediately!

ALRIGHT, I thought; a Quest is afoot!!!! There was a short Knighting Ceremony, armor was donned (Sandals) and the Knights of the Coffee Table were ready to ride into battle once again. This time, not to move or save a beast. This time, to actually slay a Dragon!

As a side note: Apparently there are sleeper cells of Knights of the Coffee Table all over the world, just waiting for a quest so they too can join the Order. But I digress.

Michael and I were now in full gallop to meet our foe. The Dragon had taken up a somewhat less defensible position, but one that clearly stated that my Hale, and all the riches within, were now his. (He clearly had not thought this all the way through. If he had first looked at “all my riches” he likely would have left a care package and sauntered off.) Anyway…from his position firmly in the center of the welcome mat, he stared at us, antennae twitching, clearly in a heightened mental state and ready to do battle.

Michael rushed the beast. His sandal clad foot landing a crushing blow! There was a horrible sound of cleaving armor. Surely such a blow would end the battle as soon as it started. But no…apparently all we had done was piss him off. Michael’s sandal clad foot continued to rain down blow after blow to a very disconcerting crunching sound. In a last ditch effort the heavily wounded beast made for the top of the stairs, where I was standing guard.

Now I have no recollection of this but, as Michael tells the story, there was an utterance from my direction such as is generally only heard from terrified young girls.

As I recall, when the battered and bloodied (or whatever that goop was) beast made for me, I raised my mighty size twelve sandals and delivered a death blow such as the world has never seen. This was, again, accompanied by a very unnerving crunch, not unlike the noise crab legs make as you crack them open at Red Lobster. I will confess that at that moment I did think “Ewwwwww”, but I swear I never said it out loud. But no…the beast dragged his broken body towards me in one last valiant attack. Holy crap! Won’t this thing ever die? In any case; stomp, stomp, stomp with a final stomp from Michael thrown in for good measure…and the beast was dead. Peace and safety were once again restored to the Island Kingdom.

As we returned to our women folk, weary from battle, a hearty round of drinks were ordered. You know…the ones with those lovely little fruit garnishes and umbrellas on the side.

The Knights of the Round Table (International Edition) had prevailed again.

I am an Alpha Alpha Male. Lest any of you think that I have an ego the size of Pluto; you need to understand what an Alpha Alpha Male is. The name came to me because I am a bit of a geek (bit, may be a bit of an understatement). In the world of spreadsheets you start column headings at A, B, C, D etc and once you get all the way to the end of the Alphabet; you start again at AA or Alpha Alpha.

An Alpha Alpha Male may be very knowledgeable in their field.  They may be industry experts. They may run companies. But they are not killers. They lack the killer instinct to make them THE Alpha Male. The absolute leader of the pack. The one that will kill anything and everything to survive.

On the other hand, they are just delusional enough about their status, to think of themselves as an Alpha Male, but in their hearts they know. And so…the Alpha Alpha Male was born.  So far from the front of the pack they think they are first.

These are the musings of an Alpha Alpha Male.