Breaking stuff

I love the show Clean House. It serves a dual purpose, as both entertainment and dire warning (in a Scared Straight kinda way) not to become a pack rat.

In an effort to avoid becoming a participant on the show, I cleaned my backyard this weekend. I tossed anything I hadn't used in the last year, and then tackled the biggest challenge: my adobe chiminea.

I used that chiminea exactly once in the 6 1/2 years I've had it. It was at my house warming party, when my brother Brad and friend Joel fed it so much wood, flames actually shot out through the top. They thought that was the coolest thing ever, but I freaked out they were gonna burn my new house down. (Gave whole new meaning to the phrase "house warming.")

And so it sat in my yard, a giant eyesore. It weighed about 300 pounds, so I couldn't just throw it away, and no one wanted it (Besides, we couldn't even roast marshmallows in it, so who would want it?). This weekend, I finally figured out how to toss it, and I knew Mark would want to help if I asked him in just the right way.

"Hey Mark, wanna help me break something?" I asked casually.

His eyes lit up instantly -- he searched mine to see if I was kidding.

"Yeah, I do!" he shouted. "Duh!"

I handed him a hammer, this nifty pair of safety goggles and told him to follow me.


"What are we breaking?" he asked. "Do I get to break it, too? With this?" He waved his hammer around wildly.

I pointed at the chiminea. "We're gonna break that," I said. "It's too big to throw away whole, so we're gonna break it into pieces."

"Woo hoo!" he shouted, and went to work (although I didn't call it work, because he would've stopped working and started whining immediately). He even took off his shirt, so he could swing the hammer freely -- no sleeves to get in the way.

We broke it down into pieces really quickly. I showed Mark where to hit to crack it, and he smashed away. In a few minutes, the trashcan was full.

But Mark wasn't done. He kept smashing the pieces in the trash. He didn't know when he'd get another opportunity like this, so he made the most of it.

I finally stopped him after one too many pieces of adobe flew dangerously close to my head.

"OK, our work here is done," I told him. I closed the lid, and spent the next 15 minutes inching the trash can to the curb. Turns out adobe and sand are pretty darn heavy.

Mark, however, was no help. He had disappeared. He suddenly whooshed past me on his scooter, and I started laughing -- he was still shirtless, and still sporting his stylish black safety glasses. And was happy as a clam.