EMBARRASSING MOMENT AT A BUSY INTERSECTION

This afternoon I headed to Lowe's to purchase some fence-repairing supplies: Six 2x4's and two fiberglass panels. I first loaded the two fiberglass panels onto the bed of the pickup, then covered them with a row of the six 2x4's so the panels wouldn't blow out of the truck on the trip home. I didn't tie anything down because the weight of the lumber would keep the panels in place.

I was wrong.

I didn't take into account the possibility that fiberglass panels on the bed of a pickup might be slippery.

As I waited patiently at the stop sign of a busy intersection between Lowe's and Walmart, I eventually saw my chance to make my left turn. With traffic coming at me in two directions, I moved quickly. I heard a loud snapping sound. I looked in my rear view mirror. I saw my load sitting right in the middle of the intersection in the exact position in which I had loaded it: Six 2x4's neatly lined up in a row across two fiberglass panels. The load remained undisturbed. It had simply been relocated from the truck to the street.

People drove around my supplies to avoid hitting them. I quickly pulled back into the parking lot and waited for an opportunity to dodge traffic and get my stuff. A lady had stopped her car near my pile on the pavement so that others would not hit it as I attempted to gather it all up and return it to the bed of my pickup.

This lady had a teenage son who was already stacking the lumber for me by the time I got to the pile in the street. Together, we carried the stack from the street to my truck. I told him he was my hero for the day and game him a buck. I would have given him more, but I rarely carry cash anymore and that's all I had.

Then I grabbed some twine, tied down the load and drove home very slowly.

This is how the load looked as I pulled into the intersection. This is also how the load looked a moment later as it sat neatly in the middle of the street.

This is how the load looked when I actually hauled it home.

This is how the load looks now, sitting on our tarp-covered patio table waiting to be used to extend the height of our fence in the area circled above. As I pruned some dead branches from one of our blue spruce trees earlier in the fall, it left an opening which ruined the previous privacy those branches once provided. That privacy will return once my project is completed.

The area needing restored privacy is shown above.