garage of doom

Since we both work for defense contractors on contract to the federal government, Don and I had yesterday off. Thank heaven for federal holidays, and thank heaven I don't work in retail anymore. On Sunday, we went to Home Depot (the retail I used to work in, natch) to pick up some wood for a project Don is working on for his fraternity. We left the wood in the car overnight, because we're lazy. But yesterday, we needed to clear out the car so we could take our massive amount of laundry over to his parents (did I mention that the dryer doesn't work? Yeah. We're going to buy a new one... eventually).

Rather than, you know, just moving the wood onto the porch or something SIMPLE, Don decided to put it in the garage. See, the garage has been divided-- it's a two car garage, but the Brinkleys built a dividing wall down the middle and turned half of it into a workshop. It belonged to Pop-Pop Brinkley first, then Uncle Eddie. Now it's Don's. You can still see the outlines of where Pop-Pop's tools used to hang on the walls, and some of Eddie's unfinished projects are still tucked away in the corners, but for the most part it's empty. It's well-lit, of course, and perfectly set up as a great shop, just empty.

So. Putting the wood in the workshop. Okay. Simple, right? Not so much. The only way to get into the garage is of course the garage door on the left side (the right side, which is the workshop, was sealed shut long ago). It's got an electric opener, and there's a little keyhole by the side of the door with a cover over it so it won't freeze, and there's even lights above it (one red, one green) so you can tell when the door is in operation or something. Or at least I think that's what they're for, since they-- and the garage door opener-- don't WORK. Rather, the opener works just fine if you are inside the garage. (Don, standing inside the garage, looking helpless as he made the garage door go up and down: "So what do I do?" Me: "...run.") But the fancy little key thingie? No go. We have a key that fits it, but it doesn't turn and nothing happens. So Don spent an hour trying to figure out what was wrong (and learning about how garage door openers work-- I didn't know he didn't know anything about them, or I would have been able to save him some time!), and then finally just turned the damn thing back off (it was off when we got there, we got in by just hauling the thing up by hand) and put the wood in the shop. Finally.

Eventually, of course, we're going to have to figure out another solution, because we plan to put a glassworking studio in the unfinished side of the garage. But that's a long way off. Maybe Don can make something in his new workshop to pass the time.