Old people shouldn't eat pizza with everything on it.

My eyes popped wide this morning at seven a.m.

I'm lying in bed.

Still.

Listening.

Listening for the impending storm.

Minutes pass.

I am still.

Leslie touches my shoulder and asks, "Are you awake?" I nod quietly.

It's now seven-thirty.

The calm before.

Seven-thirty-five.

Off in the distance, I hear something.

Seven-thirty-eight.

Thunder!

The storm has begun. Nope, it's not thunder after all; it's just my dad unloading all of his crap.

The Fable of the (Backporch) Reconstruction Part II is back underway.

My pop shows up this morning at 7:38, ready to work.

I'm still in my underwear. I answer the door yawning, scratching my nether region, and picking crunchies out of the corners of my eyes.

"Hey, old man. How 'bout a cup of coffee?"

"C'aint. Ain't got time. 'gotta get that roof on before it gets too hot." He's saying this to me as he rushes by me with a ton of tools and a portable air compressor.

He's tooling around (excuse the pun) like a rat on acid. Trying to slow him down, I say, "Dang, Pop, it's only going to be in the 70s today. No need to rush." He ignores me.

So I drink coffee while watching the old man scale the ladder like a fireman. I should feel guilty that he's up on top of the porch, taking care of business while I'm still shaking off the morning ugly. But I know if I give him that particular inch, I'll pay for it the rest of the day.

Eight minutes and two cups of coffee later. I'm up on the other ladder, in full battle gear– blue jeans, t-shirt, baseball cap, Fat Max attached to one side, my hammer to the other.

We're hammering our way into the morning, twenty-five feet up on top of what are basically wooden monkey bars, when he looks at me slyly and says, "I know this is going to scare you, but you're gonna be walking on top of this in a few minutes." To which I replied, "Scare Me?! You think the thought of falling to my death scares me. I'll tell you what scares me... I'm scared you're going to launch another one of those grizzly, old man, farts of yours. God, will you let me know before you do that again? I walked right into the last one, and my face is still numb."

He smiles proudly, whacks in another nail then says "Pizza last night."