On Saturday I went out to my dad’s house to repay the favor.
My dad has an old cable line in his backyard between two trees that he put up for a dog run. This was useful thirty years ago when we had a giant mangy mutt running around the yard with me and my brothers but since that mutt has passed on and my parents currently have a dachshund that wouldn’t run away if the house was on fire, my dad now uses it as a clothesline.
A few months ago during a storm, a branch fell on the cable and it snapped. My dad has been bugging me to fix it for a long time but I have been putting it off because he had a hip replacement in March and he really isn’t supposed to be out there hanging laundry all the time.
But this Saturday I finally went out to repair it. My dad came outside to supervise. He asked why I had a drill and when I told him that I was going to drill a pilot hole to sink the hook into the tree he scoffed at me. My dad is old-fashioned.
“Just hammer a ten-penny nail two inches into the tree and then pull it out.”
I rolled my eyes and drilled the hole. After I put the hook in, I abandoned the project to visit my grandmother and on the way back to my dad's house I stopped at Home Depot to buy a shiny new turnbuckle to tighten the cable. When my dad saw this he first pointed out that it wasn’t necessary and then he said, “How did you get that on a Sunday?”
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