A couple days ago, I got an urgent text asking me to return a Lifeguard Training DVD that I had borrowed. Rob Gass, aka the Gass Man, insisted that I had it because he had turned his office over looking for it. I thought I had returned it when I took the test. I was not at home when he texted, so I promptly forgot about it. The following morning at 5:30am, he sent a reminder text, “NEED that DVD!!!” Of course, that’s how everyone wants to wake up. I actually popped out of bed and began searching. After a half hour of looking all the places it could be and some of the places it shouldn’t be, I woke Travis up to assist. I figured that I MUST have it or he wouldn’t have insisted that I had it. About 20 minutes into the combined search, Travis sprinted up the stairs and into the girls’ room. I guessed that that was as good as any place, so why not. But that sprint was followed by some barely audible swears. I remember thinking, “Is he in the attic? It certainly isn’t in there” as I moved quickly up the stairs. And he was in the attic, looking at ice on the walls and floor of the attic from a leak in the roof. I quickly texted Rob that I would buy a new DVD, which I had found on the American Red Cross website for a mere $175, because suddenly $175 seemed like the least of my worries. Apparently, Travis saw water on the ceiling of the garage, which prompted the bound to the attic over the garage, accessed through the girls’ bedroom closet.
As I texted work to let them know that I wouldn’t be in that day, we went to the garage to find scrapers and shovels so we could clean up the ice. There was a few inches of ice on the floor of the attic. I grabbed some flashlights too, because those lights don’t work so well in the cold. Then I texted friends for roofer recommendations that could come out on short notice. I sent everyone else off to work or school and continued cleaning the area. Travis had hung a couple buckets on screws on the joists where the water seemed to be coming in based on the thickest area of ice on the floor), so that we could monitor additional leakage. Dan from DTM Construction and Roofing was recommended independently by a couple friends, and he was coming to take a look between 10 and 12.
Sometime in the flurry of activity, Rob decided to send an email to anyone else that might have the DVD. Really Rob? There were other people that might have the DVD, and you didn’t feel like it was important to text them at 5:30am? Turns out one of the others had the DVD, and delivered it to Rob posthaste. On the upside, we wouldn’t have found that leak if Travis hadn’t been in the garage looking for the DVD. Not sure why a DVD would be in the garage, but that’s where we were in that search. We had moved from likely locations to unlikely locations to seemingly impossible locations for a DVD. Anyway, I shared that thought with Rob, to which he responded, “St. Robert works in mysterious ways.”
And this is what Cathy, the girls swim coach, and I deal with all season. Rob was dubbed St. Robert after I had covered a practice for him, where his boys were less than ideal. I told him he owed me a drink. This started a litany of the things he does for us (oh the martyr). He cleans the locker rooms, which isn’t his job, to keep them Covid clean. While they were very clean this season, the locker rooms also aren’t my job to clean. Rob is not just the head boys swim coach, but also the aquatics director, which I think makes it closer to being his job than my job, as I am a lowly assistant coach (as all diving coaches are). There were other kindnesses that he apparently bestowed upon us that I can’t even remember. I dubbed him St. Robert, patron saint of swimming pools. Since he needed a miracle attributed to him to be a saint, I concluded that having convinced a kind and beautiful woman like Jody to marry him and STAY with him for 30 years was indeed a miracle. As an additional blessing, it kept St. Robert off the market, thus saving all womanhood from his potential advances, whatever that nastiness would look like. I know that Jody should be the saint, but sometimes we just give Rob what he wants.
And Cathy and I did buy Rob a drink when we went to see his band, Dead to Rights, Saturday night. Of course, that was before the DVD incident. I find myself going through Rob withdrawal with the season being over. I would admit that I enjoy our mental jousting, but that would give St. Robert some sense of power, and we don’t need to do that.
Oh, and the roof leak is apparently an insulation problem, so I am working on that. Apparently the driveway is not enough trouble in the winter. We need to add the roof and insulation to the mix. Have a great week everyone!