OK, Who Wants to Go Down the Scary, Dark Hole?

It started out innocently enough.  The Author and the Food Blogger are buying a house—an older house, one of those houses that the realtor describes as “Charming” and your local Home Depot manager describes as “Huge Annual Bonus.”

Disclosure: It’s a great house, and they are buying from an extremely honest and reputable friend, but, this is the Band Blog—we have to get a post out of this.  If you want to read about how happy they are, go to Facebook.

It’s a really is a fantastic old house with many cool, hidden away areas.  As we painted and prepared, we imagined how much fun our brave little grandchildren would have exploring every nook and cranny of their new home. 

But the one place no one seemed to want to go near was a Scary, Dark Hole in the wall of the basement. 

The Blond’s sister said, “You wouldn’t catch me dead going in there.”  Even Grandpa Vince, carpenter extraordinaire and designer of the famous “gnome porch” said, “Uh-uh.  Too claustrophobic.”

But there was still lots to do without venturing down into the Scary, Dark Hole. In fact, our buddy—the Developer—had a main-floor project in mind. 

“Hey Colonel!" he said.  "The happy couple wants a kitchen window removed and an outlet installed where the window was.  Now normally, (insert Snidely Whiplash voice here) this would cost tens of thousands of dollars, but if you take out the window and, (this is important) RUN THE WIRE TO THE UTILITY ROOM, we can have the electrician hook it up for just a Benjamin.”

Made sense to me.

So the Colonel got to work.

The window was here.

Now, it's here.

The Colonel survived with Minimal Damage.

So now it was time to run the wire.  According to Snidely, it was to be an easy, straight shot to the floor, and then through the floor joists to the utility room with the electrical panel.  “Simple,” he had said.

One problem.  Between the kitchen floor and the utility room was a staircase—the basement staircase.

To run the wire, we (The Colonel:  third person, plural) would have to go under the basement staircase…

…into the Scary, Dark Hole.

After crawling 2 ½ miles, through the dirt, on his hands and knees the Colonel's (this is true) flashlight went out.

“Uh…help?” he whimpered, knowing that no one could hear him since he was now tunneling under Bismarck, North Dakota.

Luckily he found a light switch.

Hours later, he emerged, dusty but triumphant.

Later, telling Snidely about his ordeal, the Colonel happened to mention the light that he had found.

“Yeah, I could have told you that was there,” he said.

But the Colonel got even with him.  When it was Snidely’s turn to paint the high ceiling above main staircase, the Colonel called upon all of his imaginary years of engineering school to help him design this safe, OSHA-approved Ladder Stabilization System ™.

He lived.

And the former window is ready for power.

But the Colonel is getting too old to mess around in Scary, Dark Holes.

 

Unless we really want to scare the Grandchildren this Wednesday.