"DON'T GO IN THE SHED!"

The other porch is mostly taken apart now. Actually, the part you walk on is completely gone, leaving a treacherous path to the front door as the would-be visitor gingerly balances on the wooden joists that make up the substructure. Seeing the obvious danger of leaving it like that, my helper and I loaded up the truck with some big sheets of four by eight sheathing, putting them into place as a temporary floor while I gather the other materials to make a more permanent job of it. I plan to use the pressure-treated wood that is so popular with deck-building these days. I am not crazy about the material, but it is less costly and requires less maintenance than some of the other choices.

I picked up enough wood to finish up the floor for the shed. As soon as the wood is fastened down, I’ll go to the bottom of the yard to fuel up the riding mower and drive it into its new shelter. It’s been outside long enough now that it’s starting to rust; giving it a place indoors is not going to help it much at this point.

This evening I worked into the late day, racing against the fading light as I tried to make the new floor fit properly inside the flimsy shed. The wind has been howling these past two days, with lots of branches and debris being thrown around. Surprisingly, the shed held fast. The wind was so strong during the night that it threw my porch swing—perched on a ledge and not attached to anything—onto the driveway. I got out my new drill set and cordless screwdriver from Sears, set to the task of fastening some of the wood to the shed’s specially-designed sub-floor. This sub-floor came as a complimentary extra for my having taken advantage of the exceptionally good price that the shed was offered for. Really it is just a series of bright metal pieces, fitted together and tied into the bottom of the shed. The wood that I just bought screws into these pieces, keeping the floor from coming into direct contact with the ground. I suppose there is some benefit in that.

As I knelt on the new wood, screwing the pieces into place, I received a call. I was alone on this cold and windy afternoon, the shed door open wide to allow the day’s last light to brighten my work. I took out my foam earplug and took the call—a friend wanting to know if I needed any help with the shed. We talked for some time, spoke of various things, and presently I felt a light weight on my left shoulder. My cat—the one with unusual markings that I call “The Grizzler”—had jumped up onto my back and was now perched next to my head, like a furry vulture. She stayed on my shoulder while I talked, looking over the work I’d done and unconcerned with whether or not she was causing an inconvenience. She is actually very light, and it was easy to forget she was up there. I should add that—if I’d ever WANTED her to perform such a feat, she would have balked at the idea of sitting—even for a split second—on my shoulder. I concluded the call and encouraged her to jump off--something that she didn’t want to do. I convinced her that it was time to leave when I got up to fetch some materials in the house.

The shed’s door is already broken. The comically-cheap little plastic gizmo that gingerly holds the door against its grooved slot, naturally chipped off. Since there are two doors, the other one is okay for the moment. They slide together, meeting each other in the middle. As the outside air grew colder and more winter-like by the minute, I took the little piece off the door and tried to make a quick repair. It will hold for a little while, until the broken piece lets the door slip off its track again. This shed is just a point of departure, I’ve decided; it was never meant to be a viable structure by the fiendish designers who came up with the most understated and anemic examples of sheds. They anticipated that Americans, in their endless quest to tinker with things and make them better, would just use their own ingenuity to bolster the little tin can, to get some spare parts out, some hardier materials, and have at it. The ones who don’t know this—who just accept that this is how a shed is meant to be, don’t question the rattling sheet metal, the doors that drop away before the thing is even finished, who point proudly to the already-rusting sides and proclaim the dreary little thing a success, a veritable coup of design and utility—are doomed. They plug away at it, fixing it endlessly, putting it back the way it was, which was never right to begin with. And, because they know the shed like no one else, because they tore themselves and gnashed their teeth trying to get the horrible thing to fit properly—only THEY CAN USE IT. Heaven forbid if the wife or kids should want to get the lawnmower or some trash bags out of the thing. I can hear it now, the hapless father looking up from his yard project, seeing his son going towards the flimsy little hut—his purpose unmistakable. He intends to enter it for some reason.
“DON’T GO IN THE SHED!” He screams frantically, trying to ward off the inevitable disaster, the thing he’d just fixed for the ninth time. But it’s too late; his son—wanting to fetch a can of gasoline for his mini-bike—has his hand already on the door handle. With one nonchalant motion, the casual sweep of his arm as he pulls the door aside, he has wrenched it from its mooring, splintered the little plastic piece yet again. The door hangs, its thin metal making a sound like baking sheets hitting the ground. The boy stands baffled, amazed at his own strength—not sure whether to put the door down or not. This was entirely unexpected. His father, with a watering can and some garden gloves, holds his head in anguish.

I’m already planning the first improvement: Sturdy rollers that will slide easily in the door tracks. These will replace the plastic pieces—about the size of the end of your thumb—that the metal doors hang on. It’s likely that I’ll never get around to putting this improvement in place, will probably live with a shed whose doors are perpetually open; not only open, but propped at odd angles because they now don’t fit right on account of the broken plastic pieces. But I can dream, can’t I?