Thoroughly inspired by the construction standards that led to the collapse at the View Talay site yesterday, I decide to construct a stand to contain my new SUP board. Extensive negotiations with the condo manager (Me: Please? Him: Yes!) have given me clearance to keep the board in a far flung corner of the basement car park, but it needs something to keep the board next to the wall without actually being scraped against it.
My previous major erection project utilised blue plastic plumbing pipe and plywood to create a barrier behind which the cats, when kittens, would be restrained when we didn’t want them loose in the condo, destroying the furniture and urinating on the carpets (destroying furniture and random urination is my job). It was, by any standard, a failure. The first offering was at such a height that I would have defied a Grand National horse to jump it. They jumped it. So I made it higher, then they just knocked it over. Then I nailed it to the wall so they couldn’t get past it, but then neither could we; so I had to dismantle it. Tattered furniture and smelly carpets ensued.
But I was convinced as to the efficacy of blue plastic pipe and headed off to Kanyong Home Store to purchase large quantities of same to complete my SUP stand design; a design that existed vaguely in my head but not at all on paper. Never mind, in my world, mediocrity is not just a word, it’s a lifestyle.
Kanyong is out of town, sparsely visited and reeks of excess stock and desperation. Eager salesmen wait outside the door and then pursue you inside, hungry to encourage the purchase of the first item you hesitate to glance at. Well, they were not getting me. I sauntered inside and then accelerated down the nearest aisle, with a ravenous salesman in close pursuit. I threw him a dummy at the potted plants by fingering a price tag; then just as he was stealing himself to expound the virtues of a patently plastic orchid in colours not yet discovered by nature, I hung a sharp left and lost myself in the maze of bedroom furniture. Lingering behind a chipboard wardrobe with a pirate motif, I became Daniel Craig as I heard his laboured breathing close by. Merging into the shadows like an elephant in a spotlight can’t, I evaded the character who had by now been elevated to Soviet agent status in my mind, and I slipped away to the plumbing department in search of half inch blue plastic pipe and fittings.
I wanted T-pieces and 45 degree pieces and enough pipe to build a SUP stand, with enough spare to cover the inevitable cock-ups due to my innate incompetence. They had half of what I wanted on the shelves, and the rest in the warehouse, which meant they had to fill out a form in triplicate for the warehouse order, take me to a separate desk where a languid clerk spent ten minutes working out I owed them 126 baht, and then pointed me in the general direction of the warehouse. On the way I had to go to the cashier and pay for the stuff from the shelves, and then be called back by a less-languid friend of the clerk who was concerned that the stuff I had just paid for at the cashier was the same as the stuff I was going to collect at the warehouse. Took a while to explain that, although I looked stupid, I wasn’t; and that although everything I was buying was blue, some bits were different from others. You get the idea, Kanyong is a mess.
Down to the warehouse to put into action an earlier request that the 4 metre long pipe lengths be cut in half so I could fit them in my car. A young man took some time out from squeezing his spots in his motorbike mirror to cut the pipe, using a broken fretsaw blade, no obvious enthusiasm, and obviously no skill. He sized up the first pipe and expertly cut it into two pieces, creating two jagged ends and an approximately 2/3 by 1/3 split. Much hilarity as to how crap he was and the second attempt was no better; nor the third. I put the disparate lengths of jagged pipe in the car and he hung around for a tip. I gave him one: “use a fucking tape measure next time.”
Back home with my construction materials and me and the cats established base camp on the balcony with the blue plastic, a saw, a tape measure (oh, the professionalism), and a hammer (oh, the obvious crude approach). Having ascertained that I was not intent on building another barrier, the cats wandered off and I was left to create my masterpiece. After an hour or so of screw-ups and more hammering than should be necessary, I finally muttered “it’s alive, it’s alive!”, and stood back to admire my handiwork.
Not entirely unexpectedly, the stand tried to convert itself to component form when I took it downstairs in the lift, such that I exited the lift in a shower of blue plastic bits, much to the consternation of another resident. More hammering in the basement and my SUP was finally laid to rest in its new home.
The tendency of the board to still scrape on the floor was solved by taking a towel from our collection and placing it under the stand. With the blue plastic pipe remaining, I intend building another barrier for me to hide behind when she who must be obeyed discovers I have plundered her prized towel collection. Could have been worse, I was tempted to use a handbag.
Comments 🔗
2008-09-06| Billy the Brush saysUnless that bloody great SUP thing is made out of a particularly light balsa wood, I fear you will have about as much success with your latest major errection as you did with your last; that is to say the cats will think it is a toy whilst she who must be obeyed will not be amused when it fails to perform under pressure.
But good luck at defying physics though :-)
2008-09-06| Spike saysYou don’t know about the hours of complex stress calculations that went into the design; and neither do I. See the two sticky-out bits (technical term) at the back of the device? They lean against the wall, and the whole board gently rests against that rear rail. All the weight is resting on the stolen towel. It’s a work of genius really. Thank you.
2008-09-06| Jock saysParagraph 4 must be one of your finest pieces of prose to date … captivating, almost James Bond stuff … I was enjoying it so much that I could hardly wait for the movie release …
but then you reverted to standard, but I am still looking forward to the movie release … only it will be Mr Bean In The Land Of Smiles rather than 007.
2008-09-07| Spike saysWhile I was on a roll in paragraph 4, I should have added some rough sex with a cute (female) assistant in the lamp and electrical fittings department. Sadly, I think I am more of a Mr. Bean than an 007.
2008-09-07| Billy saysWhen writing about yourself, you can be Bond or Bean, your choice, however, if you are going to get those Scouse viewing figures up then forget the man in the mini.
Well done on the new fuck in the body of the text by the way, and excellent context too, I noticed the Liverpool viewing figures immediately shot up to 5 in response. Keep it up.
2008-09-07| Spike saysI fucking will (6?)
2009-08-03| Toiletry porn | Pattaya Days says[…] a suitable platform. Regular readers who marvelled at the construction miracle that was my blue pipe SUP frame, will be saddened to know that it is no more. But wipe away those tears, for now it is born again […]