As part of my continuing quest to rail against acts of God, I thought I’d post this rant. I’ve yelled at the waves on a beach that inundated my sand castle, screamed at the hail that dented my car and actually punched a tree that fell across my firepit and benches. This rant continues this long, futile history of outrage.
I had (note the past tense) a screen gazebo in my back yard. It sat under a large maple tree, the gazebo and the shade combined made it a very pleasant place for my family and I to eat dinner. We had a nice table in the gazebo, and several times a week we would eat dinner outside rather than in the house, enjoying the cool shade and the break from being inside our house that was heated from cooking dinner. It was nice. Very nice.
At about 3:45 yesterday afternoon, a vicious thunderstorm visited our house. I had THOUGHT that the Gazebo was secure, each corner of it was secured with two heavy paving blocks, but the wind trumped all that. My gazebo was blown over on it’s side, snapping and bending it’s metal framework, My 3 year old son saw it happen and called me, I rushed out into the blinding rain (and it was a blinding rain, the alley behind my house was a river from side to side and I’ve been in showers that were less forceful. Literally.) to see if I could right the gazebo and get it back to where it belonged.
Alas, it was not to be. When I observed the twisted metal framework of the gazebo, I realized it was a goner. The thunderstorm quickly abated, and my wife and I sadly broke down the gazebo, saving a few things (candles, lights) and trashing the rest. The upside (if there is an upside, which there isn’t) is that we’re moving in five days, at least we don’t have to move the gazebo. The downside (reality) is that I’ll have to spend a couple of hundred bucks to buy a new one at our new house. Having that outside place for my family to bond, eat and relax has been great, I’m not going to forgo it. Still, that damn, fucking, cocksucking thunderstorm…
Damn that thunderstorm! Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!
I feel your pain. We bought a tarp like canopy for our deck. There are no trees in our yard so it is a must if you want to enjoy the deck at all. I do not want to sit in the blazing sun. With no trees and a good amount of land on each side it gets the full blunt of winds and rain with nothing to block it.
We went through three last year. This year we are only on one because of the spare parts from the other three and the fact that during two of the major storms we had we were home and outside holding on to the thing. It is anchored to the deck with screws but the hard wind will bend the poles and loft the canopy into the air.
They are cheap at $25 each. I would get a more expensive one but I am afraid that what happened to the cheaper ones would happen to a more expensive model like the one you pictured.
Well, I assumed that the mistake in the second post was on purpose, but still, I am not as bothered by the your/you’re mixup. It’s because the your/you’re mistake is more obvious to readers when the mistake is made (at least it seems obvious to me - I think that most people will immediately be able to tell that something is wrong), whereas with the its / it’s confusion, I get the impression that more and more people just don’t know the difference anymore.
I feel for you, but at least you can replace the gazebo. A bolt of lightning and/or high winds recently took out one of my mature trees. My dad had given it to me when it was a wee sapling and it had grown to over 25 feet. I nearly cried when my husband chain sawed it down.*
Can’t replace a 12 year old tree.
*He looked positively gleeful as he buzzed through that maple tree. What is it with men and chain saws?
That sucks, PunditLisa. I’d have been very sad if our Silver Maple had bit the dust. One across the street from us lost huge limbs, as big around as my arm, but in our area no trees were downed. Just my beautiful gazebo.
