If you have been reading some of my recent posts, you are probably aware that I have been talking about some of my exploits and experiences after being assigned to the JITC at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. My story today centers around a subject that is near and dear to my heart, but it is not hunting or running. Sorry to disappoint, if that is a topic you were expecting. But hopefully, my subject will still offer you some enjoyment. Today, I am continuing to talk about a subject that I started in my last post. In my last post I was talking about building a custom home. Well, we had that custom home built out on the edge of town in Sierra Vista. And that house was a nice big house with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, an Arizona room that I was going to use as a weight room, and a pantry that we had built off the kitchen. Additionally, there was lots of storage space with walk-in closets in every bedroom. The house had a formal dining room and a formal living room in the center of the house that were separated from the Arizona room, the main bedroom suite and the family room by three sets of double French doors. The center of the house had Cathedral ceilings and windows to allow for the view of the local Huachuca mountains. The house was oriented so that it faced North and South. To the south, we had a view of a waterfall in the Huachuca Mountains through our formal living room, master bedroom suite, our Arizona room, and our family room. There was a fifteen foot by twenty-five foot covered patio that extended off of the family room where we could barbecue and host parties. The house also had a three car garage. One stall in that garage was an oversized stall with a ten-foot door to allow for a mini RV (recreational vehicle). In front of the house, there was an arched driveway that allowed for drive-in and drive-out access plus parking. Thus, when we were entertaining friends, they could park off the street and still enter and exit with minimal backing. On the right side of the house, we also had a concrete RV driveway along the side of the house, which gave us access to the backyard. To the left rear of that RV driveway, we had a fifteen foot by twenty-five foot shed built of cinder blocks with a concrete floor. Okay. Did I actually get to use the Arizona room as my weight room? Oh, hell no. My wife saw that and said it was too good to allow me to put my weights and junk in there. As a result, I got kicked outside to the shed. That was okay because the shed was plenty big enough. I put down one of those eight-foot by ten-foot imitation Persian rugs that I found at a yard sale on the floor. Then, I set my weight bench on top of that. I did all of my weightlifting and exercises on that rug. There was a window on that end of the shed. I used the shed door, which could be opened as a double door, and that window as ventilation. On the other end of the shed, we had shelves built wall-to-wall and ceiling-to-floor that were three feet deep to allow us to store more stuff. Additionally, I had a workbench in the center of the shed. Now that I’ve oriented you to all of the finer points and details of the house, I’ll talk about the move-in. We moved into that house in November 1994. Arizona was having one of its wettest monsoon winters that year. Actually, Arizona had a very wet monsoon summer season that year as well that never really stopped. We started moving our furniture and small stuff down to the house and storing it in the garage in the middle of November in between rainstorms. That worked out pretty well for us. We had a couple of our friends assist us with the move, so it didn’t really take that long. When it came time to move all of the big furniture, we did everything on a sunny Saturday morning and completed all of our moving by Sunday afternoon. My family and I spent the following week cleaning our quarters on Fort Huachuca so that I could clear quarters. At that point, we were living in our custom house outside of town 100 percent of the time. Then came a barn burner of a deluge. The monsoon rain started and didn’t stop for three days. At one point it even seemed like it was raining sideways. It was raining so damn hard that rain started leaking in through the Cathedral Windows of the Arizona room. And when I say that it was leaking, it wasn’t just leaking like a drip, drip, drip. Oh hell no. It was leaking like somebody had opened up a seasonal creek with a waterfall and the water was just cascading down inside the damn house. I had been in monsoon rains in the jungle where whole damn tents would wash away because the rain was coming down so damn hard. But let me tell you, I thought those goddamn Cathedral Windows were going to wash away. I had five gallon buckets to try to catch the water, but they were filling up so damn fast that I didn’t get any sleep. I was on constant bucket duty, emptying the goddamn buckets as they were filling up with water. I called the building contractor, but those bastards didn’t come out to look at the problem until the rain stopped. What the hell good was that? I told them they needed to come out and see the problem while it was happening. Well, they came out and looked at it and said, “I can’t see where it’s leaking.” I replied, “No shit! You don’t suppose that has anything to do with the fact that it ain’t raining right now?” The idiot in charge didn’t have a comeback for me. Well, the next day it started raining again. And as soon as it started raining, that Cathedral window in the Arizona room started leaking like a waterfall. I called the contractor again. This time, I told them that if they didn’t send somebody out right now, I would take them to court. Two guys were out there. Twenty minutes later to assess the problem. The problem was that the window hadn’t been sealed before it was installed. We found a couple other little issues similar to that. But nothing that was as severe as that Cathedral window leak. Of course those sorry bastard contractors came out and fixed the issue once the sky stopped dumping water everywhere. Once all of the issues were fixed, our move-in to our custom house was successful without any further exercises in futility.
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