Don

After incessant prodding, the time has come to reveal the tales of Don.

A number of years ago my brother was in need of getting some siding work done on his house. After consulting with a close friend who is a carpenter, he was pointed in the direction of a guy named Don. Don was, as our carpenter friend put it, "kind of weird, but he's like Michelangelo with vinyl siding...and he's cheap". We were sold at "cheap". My brother called Don several times before getting a return call, but finally set up a time to meet. Apparently Don doesn't pay his phone bills often and has his line shut down frequently.

A few days later, a large white van pulled up in front of my brother's house. At first glance the van looks like any other work van. White, with a few strategically earned dents and rust holes, a faded out logo on the side the only remnant of the company that owned the van prior and on the roof several ladders and pipes. Something wasn't quite right though about van and it finally dawned on us. Protruding from the side and precariuosly cantilevered was an air conditioner unit. The kind that one would have in a window of their house. This should be the start of an interesting experience if nothing else.

Don is by definition a "good ole boy". He's in his late 40s, about 5'10" or so and has that common build of the burly laborer, massive pecs and arms paired with a well cultivated belly. He wears only soiled white t-shirts, has a couple of bad tattoos and has a wife named Donna and a son named Donny Jr. He has a daughter too, but we're unsure of her name.

Don has not been the savviest of businessmen during his career. He's been bankrupt, evicted, fired and sued. He occasionally has hair-brained ideas that end up costing him more money he doesn't have (see: "cat-houses" - like dog houses, but for cats). He does however tend to have creative and relatively sound solutions to common house problems and he is truly an artist with siding and plaster.

Besides getting domestic chores done at reasonable prices, Don also gives you hours of priceless "wisdom" and shares all of his personal stories. I often need help around my house and being the sucker for trainwrecks that I am, needless to say, Don and I have too crossed paths. Many of his tales (see: actual life experiences) are permenantly burned into my soul. I will share a few.

First off, and this could be fuled by his drinking or pot smoking, but he has no discretion filter. Nothing to make him stop and say "yeah, nope, probably shouldn't say that!" He's an open book, that Don. Take for example when you ask him how is his daughter. He responds "well, she's fucking n----rs again". Uh, ok.....uhhhh.

Don's not the most computer literate guy, but still wants to be connected to the magical place they call the interweb. I recall a time that he was complaining that he had tried to set up an online profile on a singles sight and that he was having problems drawing visits. When I asked, "but Don, aren't you married?". He replied "well, yeah, but when I set it up as being married, all I got was faggots checking me out. Figure if I checked single maybe it wouldn't do that."

I could write Don stories all day, but will save more for another day. Before I do that though, I'll close with one of my favorites.

Don once came to help with my gutters. Tempting fate I asked "how's things?" "Well" he started, "Donna's got 2 broken legs so she cant do shit to help". Oh my god, I thought and asked what happened. "Well, we've been married for a long time and things aint great and stuff. We was out driving to a job a few weeks back and she just sort of freaked out. We was driving along and she just looked at me, yelled 'FUCK YOU' and jumped out of the van. I guess she was tryin' to kill herself or somethin', but it didn't work, so now she's layin' at home with 2 broken legs and she's meaner'na beat up dog!"

I couldn't really think of what to say to that. I think I went with "that sucks". I figured that would be a Don appropriate comment. Really though, all I could picture is the look on Donna's face wrinkled up with a carefully balanced Marlboro in her grimacing lips, yelling "Fuck You" to Don, naturally with both hands confirming the message, as she jettisoned herself from the van with the determination of a WW2 paratrooper. Good thing she didn't hit her head on the a/c unit too!