6) Skaven Engineering: I Ride the Lightning

First off, I got sick. I guess I had it coming. I literally had not been sick for over two years. I didn't paint, because I didn't think it was a good idea to sit in my chilly basement while I was ill, and I didn't really have the motivation to do much of anything except fill my housecoat with rats, drink NyQuil, and sleep for a couple days, anyway. So that weekend was a bust. I felt better going into the next week, though, and planned to finish the warriors that coming weekend instead.

As the next weekend approached, Rangerous Dangerous, our beloved '97 compact Ford pickup truck, broke down. She used to be a spare vehicle, but now that the kid is driving, we need all three to be up and running at all times. So off I went to O'Reilly to buy a new starter. My Saturday morning was spent underneath the truck, getting snow in my buttcrack, and lamenting my missing 10mm, which is likely the prize artifact in some local packrat's nest. The wife and kid both had to work, so I was on my own. Fortunately, replacing a starter on a RWD 90's Ranger is really easy, even with just basic hand tools, and I had her up and running in no time. I made lunch, put away laundry, changed out our bedding, and did a few other little chores around the house. I was feeling pretty accomplished. It was early afternoon, now, and it was finally time to paint some rats.

I went down in the basement to paint. I set up my homemade wet pallet, lined up ten minis, and got started. I was four rats in on the second batch color, when the fluorescent light fixture above my painting station flickered and went dark. The bulbs had always been very slow to illuminate, and were blackened at the ends for as long as I could remember. I assumed that the bulbs finally burned out, so I hopped in the truck, went to Menards, and bought new bulbs. It wasn't the bulbs. The fixture was dead. I tried swapping starters with a different fixture, but that didn't help, so back to Menards I went. I ended up getting a really nice LED light bar for about twenty dollars, because I didn't feel like trying to replace a ballast in a 60 year old fixture. The real problem came when I went to remove the old light fixture. I didn't realize it before, because it came with the house, but it wasn't plugged into a socket. It was hardwired to a junction box mounted on the side of a shelf, with conduit going up to the rafters. This struck me as odd, but not really a big deal.

As I got out my tools and a lamp, I noticed that a trio of deer mice were peering out at me from behind the water heater. Whenever we get deep cold in the winters, they seem to find their way into the house in substantial numbers, but we almost never see them in the warmer months.

I shut off the breaker labeled “Basement Workshop”. This caused all the lights on that side of my basement to go out. I put on my headlamp, took the front plate off the box, touched my screwdriver to the 70 year old flathead that held the splice, and was immediately jolted with household current that caused my arm to go numb and my hair to stand on end.

“Huh...” I said to the assembled rodents, “Must be on the circuit for the other half of the basement.”

I switched off the other basement breaker, for the Rec Room. I returned to the box. Still confident, despite my previous mishap, I touched my screwdriver to the screw once again. The zap was actually audible, this time, and knocked me back enough to induce a string of cursing on my part, and a chorus of delighted squeaks and snickers from the family of deer mice watching from the water heater.

I shook off, and returned to ponder my breaker box. The only other breakers for the basement were the ones for the water heater and dryer, and the one for the air handling unit. It wouldn't make sense for it to be the 240v one, so it had to be the air handling unit. This was weird, but it was the only one left, so I shut it off.

The third jolt chattered my teeth, burned my finger, and left the gathered rodents, who now numbered five, rolling with high pitched, squeaky laughter. It was at this point that I found a better insulated screwdriver, and managed to get the live wires off without further incident. I pulled the now disconnected wiring out, and uninstalled the old fluorescent fixture, to a very tiny round of applause from somewhere over by the water heater and washer/dryer.

The new LED light is about ¼ the size, but puts out probably 3x the light, so I am very happy with it. They offered a deluxe model that had bluetooth speakers built in, but I already have a speaker in the workshop, so I went with the basic one.

I finished painting the spear warriors, figured out how to arrange the unit on a movement base, and glued them down. There was a minor issue with the unit leader. His dramatic, billowing cape was just a little too dramatic and billowing, and I couldn't fit a spear warrior into the space immediately behind him. A quick rummage through my vintage metal figures found a much smaller ratman, naked, and blowing a trumpet. He fit perfectly in the spot behind the leader, so I quickly primed him up for painting. The unit was completely finished and based by Sunday evening.

I did it. I painted eighty-one ratkin warriors in just four weekends. The core infantry of my army was done. Now, I could move on to something elite...

It's important to set goals and to challenge yourself, from time to time, but it's also important to roll with the punches. We had a saying, when I was in the Army, that no plan ever survives first contact. More often than not, that's true.

Try not to get frustrated.

Keep your priorities straight.

Keep your chin up.

Keep moving forward.

Just because things aren't going smoothly, doesn't mean that they aren't going.