I know the big back wheels on my mulching mower, which is out in the garage, will work. Taking them will render the mower useless, but I won’t need to worry about that until next spring.
I’m going to need some lumber and some hardware—bolts and nuts and such—and some paint and some lacquer and some other things, too. I need to write my inventory down and take some measurements. Home Depot will be open in two hours and forty-three minutes.
My idea—for now, I am going to call it “The Big Project”—is one of the best that I have had in a while. I used to have a lot of big ideas, and I have never made any secret of the fact that I enjoy new projects, but many of them never came to fruition. (I love the word “fruition.”) It’s not that I couldn’t do them; it’s that they often collided with my other, more established projects, like watching Dragnet every night.
I am confident, however, that The Big Project can get finished. It will require close attention not only to the fundamentals of the project itself but also to the clock.
My idea has come on the day that the Dallas Cowboys play football.
Today’s trip to the Home Depot store in the West End of Billings goes so much better than the one Tuesday I can hardly believe it. But it’s a fact, and I trust facts.
This has happened for a couple of reasons. First, I know exactly what I need and exactly where to get it, so there is no need to seek out potentially unhelpful store employees. Second, there are no choices involved—even with the spray paint. I can see in my mind exactly what color The Big Project will be, and so I simply grab the appropriate cans and put them in the cart.
As I wheel the heavily laden cart to the front of the store, I see that Home Depot even has self-checkout stands. If I kept data on such things, this might be the best day ever. Until today, however, it never occurred to me that the days were worth rating.
The total bill at Home Depot comes to $221.95. This sounds like the sort of cost you might hear on a late-night TV commercial, but in Montana, it’s common. Montana has no sales tax, which is something that most of its residents seem to appreciate. My father, as a Yellowstone County commissioner, is not so ebullient about it. (I love the word “ebullient.”) My father often bemoans the fact that the county doesn’t extract more money out of tourists by imposing a sales tax on them. He even led an unsuccessful charge against the state legislature to get it to empower individual counties to impose sales taxes as they please. An editorial in the Billings Herald-Gleaner criticized my father over this and said, “In his zeal to tax visitors to Montana, Commissioner Ted Stanton apparently fails to realize that he would also be soaking the many thousands of people who live here and pay his salary.” My father did not talk to anybody from the Billings Herald-Gleaner for several months after that.
Here’s something else that my father will not be happy about: a bill for $221.95. He will get it next month. I will surely hear about it thereafter—perhaps even from his lawyer.
I arrive home at 9:23 a.m. The Dallas Cowboys will play in an hour and thirty-seven minutes against the St. Louis Rams. I am nervous about this game. The Cowboys’ best player, quarterback Tony Romo, is not going to play because he has a broken finger. The Cowboys ought to be able to win without Tony Romo because the St. Louis Rams are terrible, but I am still nervous.
You are probably wondering why I am a Dallas Cowboys fan. I will tell you. First, the Dallas Cowboys are “America’s Team.” People call them this all the time. I don’t think America took a vote on it—and there are probably a lot of people in America who don’t even like professional football, although I can’t know for sure without taking a scientific poll, and I already have The Big Project.
Also, my father grew up in Dallas, and his parents—my Grandpa Sid and Grandma Mabel, who are both dead now—were very good friends with Tom Landry, who used to be the Dallas Cowboys’ coach. Tom Landry is dead, too. The only time I saw my father cry was the day Tom Landry died. He didn’t cry when Grandma Mabel and Grandpa Sid died, at least not that I saw.
Tom Landry must have been a very good man.
In 1978, when I was nine years old, my father took me with him to Dallas on a business trip. I mostly stayed with Grandpa Sid and Grandma Mabel while Father did his business. He worked for an oil exploration company then, and he was in charge of its Montana and North Dakota operations, which is why we lived in Billings. He didn’t become a politician until a few years later, after the oil business “went in the crapper,” as my father likes to say. By then, he had made a lot of money and didn’t need to be in the oil business anymore. He was a Billings city councilman for a while and then mayor of Billings and then Yellowstone County commissioner.
But back in 1978, when he took me to Dallas with him, he was still in the oil business. One day, when he didn’t have meetings, we went to Irving, where the Dallas Cowboys work out. I got to meet Tom Landry and Dan Reeves, who was an assistant coach with the Cowboys at the time and later went on to be a head coach in places like Denver and New York and Atlanta. I also got to meet Roger Staubach, who was the Cowboys’ quarterback and my favorite player. I also met lots of other players, and they all signed my autograph book. I still have it.
It was a great day. I felt very close to my father then.
Before the Cowboys start playing, I haul the stuff from Home Depot downstairs to the basement and organize it in the order that I will need it later. I can’t start The Big Project just yet. There’s not enough time before the game, and I have to prepare. For one thing, I have to grab the newspaper off the stoop and record my weather data so it is complete.
At 2:16 p.m., I am sitting on my couch, facing the TV, agape. (I would say I like the word “agape,” but I don’t like anything right now.) My authentic white Tony Romo jersey—I also have a blue one for when the Cowboys wear those—has been stripped from my torso and is in a wadded ball in the middle of the living room.
It was horrible.
First, not having Tony Romo is going to be tougher than I thought. His replacement, Brad Johnson, did not do well today. He threw three interceptions. Tony Romo also throws many interceptions, but he throws a lot of touchdown passes, too. Brad Johnson threw for one touchdown. That is not enough.
Second, the Cowboys’ defense was terrible, and Tony Romo doesn’t play defense, so I don’t see how anyone can use his absence as an excuse.
The St. Louis Rams’ running back, Steven Jackson, ran for 160 yards and three touchdowns against the Cowboys. That was not Tony Romo’s fault.
Third, I think the Cowboys are not as good as they think they are. They have lost three of their past four games and now have a record of 4–3. Even when Tony Romo was not hurt, they were not playing so well.
Fourth, the Cowboys lost 34–14.
If I kept data on the quality of a day, and I’m thankful now that I do not, this would no longer be the best day ever.
Ordinarily, I do not write my letters of complaint until just before I go to bed, but I think that I need to do it earlier today so I can clear my mind and concentrate on The Big Project.
I have a thick green office folder of letters to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
Mr. Jones:
I am sure you know why I am writing to you today. Your Dallas Cowboys played pitifully against the St. Louis Rams, and I have begun to fear that they will not make the playoffs. After all, Tony Romo will miss at least two more weeks.