if a window breaks in the forest, does it make a sound, or, in space nobody can hear you break a window

high fiving myself for keeping, recovering and dusting off this m.i.a. draft form april '09.

______________________________

admittedly i was a tad nervous about the afternoon's half pipe excursion w the skateboard-enabled huggle bears.

we were t minus 2 minutes from buckling seat belts. Mason and Jeremiah were all prepped and ready -- gloves (important foreshadowing or at least critical element), knee pads, helmets, board, razor scooter, sun glasses. we were gonna thrash and ollie and 180 like mofos. and then thrash some more until only a large slurpee would revive us. soooo close. and then i heard a window shatter.

the front of our house has 7 windows and a front door w a paned transom above (duh, transoms are up). in total that amounts to 7 large pieces of glass, some of which are still the orig drippy stuff from 1913, and a whopping 138 7"x7" panes. uh huh, i counted. that's a lot of opportunity for breakage. 2 boys, 4 arms, a trazillion acorns from an overproducing oak tree, a bazoodle balls having lived here 6 years... i don't know the algorithm, but i know this being the first pane broken EVER means i have been really extra special lucky thus far. they were really extra special lucky pops was at aaron's. now, i don't mean that it would have been like a daniel day lewis movie, say, There Will Be Blood, but fixing a window on a sunday afternoon is just a pain in the ass, regardless of parent gender.  i'm getting way ahead of myself.

the shatter didn't trigger the alarm's glass break sensor, but it rang out plenty loud throughout the house. i ran because every mommy pictures dismemberment, evisceration or  dagger shaped shards shish kabobbing 4 out of 4 eyes. i am certain i set a back-to-front-of-the-house-sprint pr.

oh! what's this? had i missed the rapture? it's a ghost town. ennio morricone music playing. tumbleweeds. where are my cherubs? who could have caused this domestic disturbance? hmmm.

not concerned w looking ugly to the neighbors, i screamed for both of them to show themselves if they ever wanted food and shelter again. to be fair, the wind drowned out my impressive volume. peeking into their bionicle bunker, i found accessory to the crime aka witness to the prosecution cowering on the lower bunk and looking not unlike an already beaten and starved rib sticking out PETA poster puppy. NEVER put this one on the stand for you as a character witness. unless you like jail.

coconspirator had fled the scene, running to the backyard to seek solace and refuge w the chickens. when i found him near the back porch, he confessed he'd wanted me to find him, not unlike Roskolnikov in Crime and Punishment -- we all know it's coming. judging by the throbbing veins in his neck, i estimated his heart rate was roughly 175bpm. i grabbed his hands and to my great relief saw no blood; skateboard gloves are a good idea if you accidentally are going to put your hand through a window.

he told me the play by play in partially fabricated detail. still, it sounded plausible. i figured he'd already had the crap scared out of him by actually doing the thing and then anticipating my reaction and scope of wrath. honestly, i was way more afraid that he'd julienned himself than i was upset over a 7x7 piece of glass. too, they both knew the skate park was now out of the question, another duh there. natural consequences are so beautiful when they present themselves.

psa for all you diy ers: home depot doesn't cut glass anymore. but the nice man (who called me sweetheart -- can you call a customer sweetheart in 2009??) sold me a 12x12 piece and a cutting tool. at this point sweat is beading up on my forehead. the guy said ace hardware cuts glass but that they were already closed. nice. i'm thinking of that measure twice cut once thing, but still think it might be good to buy like 5 of these 12x12s. instead, in a fit of hope, optimism and overconfidence, we bet it all on red, buying only one pane + the glass cutter and then skedaddle.

get home, scrounge vis a vis pen to mark dimensions, find arrow from bow-n-arrow set to to use as dowel to place under pane once scored, couple of drops canola on cutting blade, and though i don't consider myself at all religious or home project-y, light a candle and say a quick prayer to bob vela.

jeremiah hands me my sunglasses to protect my eyes, and both boys stand back squinting as i put the blade down against the smooth surface.  

-brief James Thurber interlude-

i imagine myself steady as a surgeon preparing to make the critical incision, scalpel in hand, placing said sharp instrument above abscessed and diseased tissue. yum.

understandably  i had visions of the pane shattering, strafing us with glass needles, shrapnel to take out our eyes and generally disfigure three otherwise decent looking people. no such thing happened. the second cut also went just right. my audible sigh of relief mingled triumphantly with the fellas animatedly cheering our great success.  a passer-by could easily have mistaken us for hunter gatherers that had just killed the mammoth and dragged it back to the cave for the annual australopithecus bbq and chili cook off.  hey, no harm in being proud of a job done well and done right.

whew. with the hard part behind us, i gathered some additional  hodgepodge primitive tools, removed the 4 pieces of wood holding in the pane of air, and "installed" (fancy!) the glass that i had bought, measured twice and cut once.    and all  this required exactly zero spankings.