Construction Rapido – Año Tres

Two of our three boys are in Mexico right now over spring break. Son Number Two would be there with his brothers, but his high school Europe trip for seniors was scheduled over spring break this year instead of right after graduation.

It was actually a tough decision for him, because of how much he enjoyed Mexico the last two years. His brothers are back in Mexicali with a huge group of other high school and college kids from our church, so at this point, I’d like to formally apologize to the country of Mexico for anything my children may say or do while in your beautiful country. Deep down in their hearts they mean well, I think, but they are complete yahoos, especially when in close proximity to each other.

I would also like to formally apologize to Europe. We’d appreciate it if you’d excuse any questionable teenage behavior with Number Two and his friends, and let him come home on schedule.

The group in Mexicali is building houses and holding mini church camps for the local kids. Son Number One is on a construction team building a house for a family in need, and Number Three is on an “Impact” team, getting his butt kicked in soccer by niños y niñas half his age.

This is Number Three’s second year going on the trip, and Number One’s third year. The stories they bring back are amazing. I mean, building houses and serving poor communities is great, and the families are incredibly grateful, and it changed how my sons view the world and got them to understand how blessed they are to live in America with our abundance and prosperity and access to opportunities and all of that good stuff, but that’s not what is most amazing.

The thing that blows my mind about the trips is how fast you can build a house in a country with basically no laws.

If you ignore the whole child labor law hassle it really opens up the workforce. Granted, your average high school freshman isn’t necessarily a huge asset to a construction team, but you always need grunt labor alongside the skilled labor. Plus, you don’t have to spend a lot of time on human resources issues and paperwork with child labor, because they have no rights anyway.

The houses they build have full electrical, with ceiling lights and wall outlets and everything, but that goes incredibly fast when you can just install all the wires and then immediately cover them all up with drywall without waiting for a city building inspector to show up and check everything first.

The same goes for the framing, plumbing, insulation, windows, roof trusses, shingles, etc. Just build it and move on. Get at least one person on the project with construction knowledge and a plan, add the proper amount of high school monkeys, and you can build an entire house in three days.

Literally. Three days. They usually have another day and a half of exterior and interior trim work and painting, but the house is up, functional, and weather-tight in three days.

The trip leaders keep the Instagram feed stocked with daily photos, so we have proof that the boys are alive and well, the house is progressing, and everyone seems to still have all their fingers. That’s a win.

If my Grandpa was still alive, he’d tell you about the time when as a young married man, he bought an empty lot in town, dug a basement, bought an old house across town, moved it over on a large truck, and set it on top of his new basement. My mom grew up in that house, and we got to go see it a few years ago, still standing.

Things used to be simpler, and they still are in places like Mexico. If you bring some construction know-how to the party, you can get a lot done in a short period of time. And it can be accomplished very inexpensively when you rope a bunch of kids into helping.

But only if you’re able to take away their cell phones.

You see, that’s the other thing that makes this all possible. Along with the absence of building inspectors and over-regulation, the kids don’t have access to their phones for the whole week. They are amazingly able to concentrate on and complete tasks.

If they were allowed to have their phones, that three-day house build would turn into six weeks, with 57,000 “I’m building a house” TikTok dance videos and two million selfies posing with power tools.

I don’t think my grandpa would approve.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

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Construction Rapido

All three of our boys are in Mexico right now over spring break. They are in Mexicali with a huge group of other high school kids from our church, so at this point, I’d like to formally apologize to the country of Mexico for anything my children may say or do while in your beautiful country. Deep down in their hearts they mean well, I think, but they are complete yahoos, especially when in close proximity to each other.

The group is building houses and holding mini church camps for the local kids. Son Number One and Two are on a construction team building a two-bedroom home for a family in need, and Son Number Three is on an “Impact” team, getting his butt kicked in soccer by niños y niñas half his age.

This is Number Three’s first year going on the trip, but One and Two got to go last year to build a house, and the stories they brought back were amazing. I mean, the family they build it for was great, and they were incredibly grateful, and it changed how my sons view the world and got them to understand how blessed they are to live in America with our abundance and prosperity and access to opportunities and all of that good stuff, but that’s not what was most amazing.

The thing that blew my mind about the trip was how fast you can build a house in a country with basically no laws.

If you ignore the whole child labor law hassle it really opens up the workforce. Granted, your average high school freshman isn’t necessarily a huge asset to a construction team, but you always need grunt labor alongside the skilled labor. Plus, you don’t have to spend a lot of time on human resources issues and paperwork with child labor, because they have no rights anyway.

The house they built had full electrical, with ceiling lights and wall outlets and everything, but that goes incredibly fast when you can just install all the wires and then immediately cover them all up with drywall without waiting for a city building inspector to show up and check everything first.

The same goes for the framing, plumbing, insulation, windows, roof trusses, shingles, etc. Just build it and move on. Get at least one person on the project with construction knowledge and a plan, add the proper amount of high school monkeys, and you can build an entire house in three days.

Literally. Three days. They had another day and a half of exterior and interior trim work and painting, but the house was up, functional, and weather-tight in three days.

This year’s trip leaders are keeping the Instagram feed stocked with enough progress photos that we’re able to tell that the current house is almost finished, and also, everyone seems to still have all their fingers. That’s a win.

If my Grandpa was still alive, he’d tell you about the time when as a young married man, he bought a lot in town, dug a basement, bought an old house across town, moved it over on a large truck, and set it on top of his new basement. My mom grew up in that house, and we got to go see it a few years ago, still standing.

Things used to be simpler, and they still are in places like Mexico. If you bring some construction know-how to the party, you can get a lot done in a short period of time. And it can be accomplished very inexpensively when you rope a bunch of kids into helping.

But only if you’re able to take away their cell phones.

You see, that’s the other thing that makes this all possible. Along with the absence of building inspectors and over-regulation, the kids don’t have access to their phones for the whole week. They are amazingly able to concentrate on and complete tasks.

If they were allowed to have their phones, that three-day house build would turn into six weeks, with 57,000 “I’m building a house” TikTok dance videos and two million selfies posing with power tools.

I don’t think my grandpa would approve.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2023 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

Your new favorite humor columnist is on Facebook Just a Smidge

An Open Letter to the Guy Who Installed My Floor

Dear Captain Staple Gun,

I don’t know who you are, but since my house was built in the early 2000s, I am assuming you are in your mid to late 30s now. You might still work in construction if you managed to get yourself under control. If you did not calm down, I doubt you were able to hold down any sort of real job and are probably reading this from your parent’s basement.

I’m writing you today because I’m in the process of installing laminate flooring in our master bathroom, with which, you are familiar. You, after all, were there about twenty years ago installing the extra sheet of plywood onto the subfloor in the tiny little three-foot by five-foot toilet room.

Your boss, I’m sure, explained to you that the three-eighths plywood was necessary to raise the floor in that room up ever so slightly so the light beige linoleum would match the height of the dark beige carpet in the main bathroom.

In case you were wondering, the key words that identify the need for our new laminate flooring project are ”beige,” “linoleum,” and “bathroom carpet.”

I just want to start by saying thank you. Thank you for not gluing it down. Since the laminate floor will be continuous throughout the bathroom, I needed to pull out your small sheet of riser plywood so the subfloor would all be the same height. I was already on my knees when I discovered it, so I stopped and prayed that it was not glued down.

I’m not sure if you happen to remember which member of your construction crew installed our original hardwood floors downstairs, but if you do, I’d love it if you would do me a favor and set fire to their house.

We had this same laminate flooring installed in the entire downstairs area of our house a few years back, and I decided I would remove the old hardwood floors myself. After all, they were only in the kitchen and foyer. I thought, how hard could it be?

I’ll answer that for you. They were glued down with some substance the Pentagon would love to know about. You could have vaporized all of Placer county with a targeted nuclear strike centered on my home and those floors would have remained securely attached to the concrete slab, somewhere hundreds of miles away.

I had to cut through the hardwood with a Skilsaw, making a cut perpendicular to the board lengths every three inches, and chip the floor off with a giant long-handled scraper. It took our entire family of five a whole week to get the floor out of two rooms. I honestly wished I’d had access to nuclear weapons at the time. I still have a lingering case of PTSD about the whole thing.

So, yes, thank you for not gluing the plywood down, knowing you had access to whatever the hell that stuff was. That being said, this is where my thanks to you stops.

Instead of glue, you used the pneumatic staple gun that shoots two-inch construction staples. Good choice. I would have used that too. And if I was installing the small little piece of plywood to the small little floor of the small little toilet room, I would have used anywhere from twenty to thirty staples total. But that’s because I tend to overdo it a little on my fastener count. I want to know that it’s going to stay nailed down.

Not you, though. No sir. You, my friend, are on an entirely different level. I hammered my prybar under that sheet of plywood and got stopped cold by your first row of staples across the doorway. You had over thirty staples in that first row alone. The door is only twenty-eight inches wide, so you were doing better than one staple per inch. Impressive.

Speaking of staples per inch, or in the regular construction world, inches per staple, it would have been cool if you had some sort of plan or consistency to your work. But you didn’t. In some areas I encountered staples grouped so close together they were actually touching each other. In other places I may have gone a full two inches before I came upon another one of your little projectiles.

There was one spot in the middle where you had a six-inch line of staples so close together it looked like a zipper. A removal project that should have taken me about ten minutes to complete ended up taking me hours. Hours on my hands and knees in a tiny little room doesn’t really work for me anymore. I’m old now. And in more pain now because of your insane rampant stapling.

I just have to ask. What the hell were you doing? Were you hiding from the boss but needed to sound like you were still working? Were you hiding from the crazy hardwood gluer guy? Can’t blame you there. Was it the end of the day and you wanted to milk that project as long as possible so you didn’t have to start something else? I just have to know!

Were you getting paid by the staple instead of by the hour? That would explain why my fifteen-square-foot floor was honestly more staples than actual wood. I’m amazed it didn’t all cave in from the sheer weight of the steel.

Or was it your first day on the job and/or the first time you ever used a nail gun? If that was the case, then I guess I’m glad you had fun at least. And I hope you haven’t lost that childlike enthusiasm for life. I just never want you to do anything like that again.

Ever.

I have to go take more Advil now.

Settle down,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Bat Demo

Mexico update numero dos.

In update numero uno, we discussed some of the major cultural differences between Mexico and Los Estados Unidos. Now that we’re back on U.S. soil and off the ridiculously slow, and possibly bugged, hotel Wi-Fi, I feel safer about bringing you the second update. As it turns out, wild drivers and El Hombre de Viagra and his burro smuggling operation were not the only parts of our Mexican experience that differed from our regular life.

Another change was the relative security we experienced. One morning after breakfast we came back to our hotel room to find the door wide open, with no maid or maid cart in sight. While none of our possessions were missing, we were understandably concerned. Thankfully, our Mexican hotel security team was all over the problem.

The jefe de seguridad plugged in the electronic scanner to our door lock, downloaded the entry and exit log, informed me that he needed to go back to the security office to print it out, and promptly disappeared. I guess he must have had a paper jam or needed to change the ink cartridge, because a mere five hours later, another hotel security professional showed me the handy printout which informed me that I was the last one in or out of the room, so it was probably all my fault.

Hmm… seems legit. I have never ever left a door unlocked and open in my entire life, so Mexico seems like the place I’d start. Thanks for the super-realistic and timely report, fellas!

If we had any mild security concerns inside our hotel, thankfully they quickly escalated when we went out walking in town. To prove that the neighborhoods are safe, Mexico conveniently displays their militarized police forces for you to inspect. Every other police vehicle was a pickup truck with five or six men dressed like a commando strike force, complete with face masks and M-16’s, standing up in the back, rifles ready for action.

We were impressed with the show of force, which even included an armored truck with a M-60 mounted on a swiveling turret. The locals, however, seemed to display less reverent awe than we did. We got that impression when we watched the ice cream man cut in front of the armored truck and proceed to ignore the surprisingly whiny honking from the driver of the three-axle, heavily-armed, bulletproof vehicle. It was almost as if the ice cream man knew the police budget didn’t include bullets for the machine gun.

Security differences aside, our hotel had some other striking differences to what you might experience in the United States. Mainly, that they were tearing it down while we were there. Sure, they tried to disguise the demolition as a “pardon our dust, we’re making more fun for you” kind of renovation, but there was no mistaking the fact that they were really dismantling the building.

That might have been because when we arrived, the entire right half of the hotel was a seven-story gaping hole, with tile and siding hanging loosely around the area that looked like it had just been hit with a scud missile.

As our week at hotel Fallujah progressed, more and more of the front of the hotel was broken apart by large pieces of heavy equipment and men with sledge hammers. By the time we left, I was getting legitimately concerned about the structural integrity of the building.

The first few mornings, we were nudged awake by the melodious tones of five or six back-up alarms on the heavy equipment all singing out their one-note songs in perfect non-harmony. One particularly exciting morning, we were jolted out of bed by what sounded like someone trying to enter our room through the wall directly above our heads, using a Sawzall. He must have just been cutting up the bed or the couch in the adjoining room, however, because he never actually came through the wall.

Need to get to the pool? Check with the crossing guard in the hard hat. He’ll keep you from getting run over by a front-end loader. The view from the pool? To the south, the beautiful ocean. To the north, heavy equipment plucking the palm trees out of the ground in the hotel’s large horseshoe-shaped interior garden area. What’s that pleasant banging and crackling sound? Just another overhead beam going up near the pool bar, with the welders fitting it into place. No wonder we got so pink out by the pool. Half of our “sunburns” were probably flash burns from the welders.

I’ve stayed at a number of U.S. hotels that were doing some construction onsite, but it never seemed to affect my stay the way it did in Mexico. For instance, in America I’ve never actually had to walk through the construction (or destruction) as part of the only route to my room. In Mexico, six times a day, we walked right through the ten guys removing the tiles from the walls in the main hall. The guys down on the ground with us had all been issued hard hats to protect them from the team on the scissor lift removing the tiles from twenty feet overhead. We protected our heads with beach towels.

My wife even helped out a little and removed a few souvenir tiles from one of the walls by hand. I’m not sure why the guys in hard hats were bothering with tools. The tiles seemed to be attached with the same stuff that sticks your new credit card to the paper.

Despite the fact that four out of our hotel’s five stars were being jackhammered apart, we actually had a relaxing and enjoyable time. Do you know why? Because our kids weren’t with us. Now, don’t get me wrong, we love our three boys to death. I’m just saying, never underestimate how much your children are sucking the very life out of you, that’s all. This vacation proves it. We slept in a construction/war zone, and it was honestly more relaxing than being at home with our boys.

In fairness to the boys, the food had a lot to do with our overall enjoyment of the vacation. Besides the fact that we never had to break up a single fight at any of our meals, the food was amazing. Which brings us to my favorite difference – besides El Hombre de Viagra, of course – between Mexico and America: the wildlife in the bars. Literally.

We saw plenty of wildlife (mostly iguana-looking lizards) on our walks to and from the restaurants, but the wildlife inside the restaurants was what caught my attention. Most places were more or less open-air. If they weren’t completely patio-style, they would certainly keep the doors open. On more than one occasion we saw birds flying in and out over our heads during meals, but it was the bat that made me sit up and take notice.

We were at a table down at the Fish and Grill, having some of the most amazing tacos on planet Earth and watching game two of the NBA finals on the big screens over the bar. We’d had a few birds fly in and out, but just after the start of the third quarter, Mexico upped the ante and added a bat. He (or she) wasn’t much bigger than a flying mouse (which if you think about it, that’s pretty much what it was), and it zipped in through the doors and zig-zagged all over the place up near the ceiling beams.

Then, it made the fatal mistake of wanting to check out the game, or order a tequila. I’m not sure which, and we’ll probably never know. I don’t know if all Mexican bat sonar is defective, if this particular bat was on his fourth or fifth bar visit that night and was drunk as a tiny flying skunk, or if ceiling fans create some kind of magnetic field and are confounding to all North American bats, but things didn’t go well.

He zig-zagged out of the rafters and headed straight for the bar. He made it under his own power just as far as the large ceiling fan above the bar, and then the ceiling fan took over the flight planning. He flew straight into the path of the rotating blades and got hit like a hanging curve ball, straight across the bar and smack into the middle of the big screen TV. He hit the flat screen with a thud and dropped straight down past the impressive selection of local tequilas to the floor behind the bar.

Well, that was a first for me. (And probably a first and a last for him.)

Two bartenders and a waiter behind the bar looked down at the unfortunate winged rodent, shrugged, and went about their business.

Nice one, Mexico.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen

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Mucho Caliente

Update from Mexico – It’s different than the U.S.

I’m not sure if you knew that or not, but I’m here at the southern tip of Baja California, and I can tell you from firsthand experience this week, it’s definitely different.

For starters, everyone here speaks Spanish. Like, one hundred percent of the people. That’s different than where I live in California, where only eighty-five percent of the people speak Spanish.

Secondly, the drivers here are suicidal, but also incredibly polite. If you are in another car, they will do everything in their power to run you off the road. If you are a pedestrian at a crosswalk, however, they could not be nicer or more accommodating. Imagine having crosswalks on the track at a Nascar race, and all the drivers are required to stop to let any pedestrians across or their cars will instantly explode. It’s kinda like that.

Sidewalks are also a major difference. Here in Mexico, sidewalks seem to be something they thought were a nice idea, but not necessarily mandatory. Often times your sidewalk will simply end, replaced by a field of rubble where the old sidewalk was inexplicably demolished and the remnants left in place. Other times the sidewalk will simply disappear, becoming a sand or dirt path for twenty or thirty feet before becoming a sidewalk again.

Occasionally the sidewalk will become impossibly skinny, as if the buildings all moved out toward the street and swallowed it. This usually happens somewhere with an incredibly high curb, so you end up negotiating the skinny section of sidewalk like a mountain climber moving across a narrow shelf on the face of a cliff.

And you can’t walk on the sidewalks with your head up, looking at the scenery. If you do, you will fall into one of the many open manholes and electrical or other utility boxes in the middle of the sidewalks without covers.

And there is construction everywhere, which isn’t that amazingly different, except here it occurs with no safety barriers in place for the general public. America has much more of a “We need to protect you from the dangerous work happening here” mentality, whereas Mexico has obviously adopted a more “Hey, idiot. Watch your own ass” philosophy. You are free to walk right up to the man operating the jackhammer and step through his rubble pile, but you do so at your own risk. Someone welding near your dinner table? That’s just how it goes. It’s on you to keep the hot slag and sparks out of your ceviche.

The language, construction, and driver differences are all very interesting, but they might be too subtle if you aren’t paying attention or if you’ve had one too many watermelon margaritas (which are phenomenal, by the way).

One international difference that is anything but subtle down here? The marketing of male erectile dysfunction drugs.

In America, Viagra and Cialis are marketed on television with almost appropriate for all ages television commercials. Usually, a rich and powerful salt and pepper-haired corporate executive and his beautiful younger wife are seen on vacation or out at a fancy dinner. They hold hands and gaze at each other lovingly as they make their way back to the well-appointed hotel room. “When the time is right, will you be ready?” the understanding and non-judgmental voiceover asks.

The commercials are very targeted in their vagueness. The people who ask, “Ready for what?” are not being marketed to. Then, in keeping with the “we need to protect you from everything” American way, they strongly advise you, the powerful and soon-to-be virile again CEO, to consult your doctor to make sure your heart is healthy enough for sexual activity.

(News flash – no man in the world has ever worried if his heart was healthy enough for sexual activity. The most infirmed of us might worry if we’re healthy enough for a light jog, or a brisk walk, but given the opportunity, sexual activity is always a green light. That’s how we all want to die, anyway.)

Not necessarily surprisingly, they took a different route here in Mexico. They decided the best way to advertise a pill for erectile dysfunction would be to make the blue Viagra pill into a cartoon character for window posters at pharmacies.

He stands at least six feet tall. His torso is the chiseled muscular semi-diamond-shaped blue Viagra pill. He has muscular arms and legs, and vibrant bushy eyebrows, narrowed across his brow in a triumphant smile. He is Viagra Man, or as they say here in Mexico, El Hombre de Viagra.

He has the word VIAGRA tattooed on one of his manly arms, and “MUCHO CALIENTE” scrawled in front of him, indicating – as if you didn’t already know – that he is very hot and spicy.

He stands with his feet spread wide and his hands victoriously on his hips. He wears a traditional huge round sombrero, dazzling white teeth, and the commanding jawline of a hero.

His only article of clothing is a bright red speedo, in the front of which he appears to be smuggling a medium-size burro.

Subtlety is not an issue with El Hombre de Viagra.

Well done, Mexico. Thanks for being so caliente!

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen

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Let's Pool our Natural Resources

Our grass in the back yard died a few years ago because of the drought, so we decided to do the only drought-friendly thing that made any sense. We put in a pool. Droughts are caused by not having enough water, so we put in a twenty thousand-gallon water reservoir in our yard. We’re doing our part, California. You’re welcome.

Our front yard grass died at the same time, so I wanted to help even more by putting in a bass pond, but my wife insists there are some zoning issues with that, or something. I think she just doesn’t want an eighteen-foot MasterCraft floating in her front yard. Women, huh?

Getting a pool is not for the faint of heart. Besides choosing which two of the three kids won’t go to college, you also have to endure an eight-week demolition experience, and be prepared to deal with the aftermath.

All pool builders follow the same simple three step process:

Step 1: Remove fence

Step 2: Completely destroy everything between the street and the far corner of the back yard.

Step 3: Fill new pool with water

It looks like an atomic bomb went off in the middle of our back yard, leaving a beautiful pool in the blast crater, and total destruction everywhere else. Our front yard looks like a bad day in Afghanistan.

Once the pool was complete and it was time to deal with the utter destruction of our property, we did the first thing anyone would do. We ignored it and threw a pool party. And then another one. And another. I don’t know how the rich and famous do it. I have been at a never-ending pool party for two and a half weeks now, and I’m exhausted. We filled the new pool with water on June 24^th, and since then the only time I have left the house was to get more beer, wine, and juice boxes.

Do I care that everything in my back yard besides the pool looks like the aftermath of a Vegas strip hotel demolition? Of course I don’t. I have a pool. Please ignore the rubble and enjoy yourselves, folks. Actually, it makes party cleanup quite a bit easier. Instead of picking things up, you can just sweep everything into the rubble pile the next morning and start over.

And it turns out the pool is convenient, also. Not only have none of us had to shower in the last two weeks (again, you’re welcome, California), but the boys have no more arguments for why staying home in the summer is boring. Every time one of them says anything about being bored, I just throw them in the pool. Many times while they’re still in their pajamas. Boredom problem solved, plus as a bonus, laundry done. The drought-friendliness of a pool never seems to end.

The pool can help in emergencies, too. Our Fourth of July party, for example, had a happy ending that could have easily been the other way around if not for the pool. When you accidentally light yourself on fire with an El Diablo fountain firework, a quick dip in the deep end is not only refreshing, but also eliminates a visit to the ER. California’s tax payers can thank me again in that situation, since we had to give up health insurance to afford the pool.

The bottom line is, I would highly recommend getting a pool, especially if you live in a dry area like we do. If we all do our part, we can not only eliminate our kids’ boredom complaints and prevent holiday-related injuries, but we might just be able to end this drought.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to ignore the annihilation of my landscaping some more and get ready for the pool party today.

Cheers!

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2016 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!