Spackle, spackle, spackle

Brothers often fight. With only 18 months separating us we were great friends but we also fought a lot. Some of which included us rolling around in the isles of the grocery store wrestling. My dad, apparently embarrassed by the spectacle of being seen with the two of us, would simply walk around to the next isle and wait for us to finish the bout. These fights were much more evenly matched until Josh began taking Karate while I didn't. Little did I know that I was now out classes when it came to fighting. That would soon become apparent.

The exact reason for this epic fight eludes me, but I recall an argument ensued over laundry. I believe I had taken Josh's clothes out of the washer to put my own in. I didn't care to pass his clothes to the drier so I just tossed them on the floor as any reasonable person would do. Josh happened to come into the laundry room just as I started the washer for my own clothes. He realized what I had done when he saw his wet whitey tighties being trampled by myself. An argument ensued and we ended up arguing at the top of the stairs. I don't remember who struck first (I'm sure it was Josh) but a good ol fashioned fight ensued. I attempted to throw a coupe punches but as I was kicked in the face I realized that my current knowledge of fighting styles were no match for a kick to the face. I quickly came to the conclusion that I should go straight to wrestling to counter his reach advantage. As he threw me down the stairs I realized that this was a poor decision. He threw me so efficiently that I didn't even touch any of the stairs on the way down. Luckily the drywall at the bottom of the stairs broke my fall. I was lucky enough to hit the wall between the studs, allowing the largest possible hole to be created. He realized that Josh now out-matched me, I was desperate. I ran back up the stairs at him- I couldn't lose, I wasn't going to lose! So I pulled out the last tool in my fighting tool box, to be used only in case of emergency . . . and so I bit him!

The fight was over but the aftermath had just begun. My father came home and saw a hole you could walk through in the wall that had been created by our colossal struggle. My father was very upset! He immediately ordered Josh and I to patch up the hole. He told us there was a bucket of spackling in the garage and left us to do fill the small cave we had created. We had limited spackling experience, especially with a hole the size of my little brother Taylor.

We went to work filling the hole with the entire bucket of spackling material. We didn't know of the aluminum mesh that could be used as a backing to the spackling, nor did we have any extra drywall to cut to an approximate shape to fill the majority of the defect. Even if we did we wanted a good solid repair- so we filled the defect with a 5 inch thick layer of spackling. My dad took one look and walked away muttering something indiscernible under his breath. Two years later this spackling had failed to completely dry. Before I went away for college I remember seeing a large crack form in the center a repair that was finally drying out. Needless to say I have never been asked to spackle another hole by my father.