Now
You have to post what's on your mind and this morning I stood in my garage whilst the rain pitter pattered on the roof and remembered how it was a year ago.
Then
My garage was a hovel. A shell. A poor mans attempt at a structure. Sure it looked the right shape with its badly fitted roller door and its cobwebby back window. These were things I could live with and live I did, pottering around manfully eyeing the walls and dreaming of tall shelving units and large tools to stack on them.
Then it rained. As the rain drummed harder on the roof I was snapped out of my man tool reverie by the pitter patter sound of water spashing joyfully onto my floor. I turned and was aghast. Water was slopping down in big fat drips from two locations in the roof. My heart lay heavy in my chest. There would be no cheap metal shelf units banged up against these cold brick walls until my garage was dry enough to keep the finest of things in.
Days later the weather turned and the day shone sunny and bright. I had already purchased some ten year roof sealant and the big red footed ladders in preparation for this day. Within moments I was on the roof looking at the shoddy work that had been done before I purchased this travesty of a tin box.
The Job
The roof was flat chipboard with a very mildly sloping corrugated iron covering. It was shoddy. A child could have done better. I could see the stains of various sealants that had been used over the years as well as the dried feathers and sticky bones of offerings that had been made to the gods when these poor fixings had failed. Well off I went. I opened my tin of sealant and my inner man nodded his head in approval at the grey gloop that roiled within. It was obvious where to slop the stuff as I copied those unfortunate sealant-o-nauts who had gone before me. In no time I had covered their work with my exceptionally odd textured sealant and had two thirds of a tin left. Well, when in rome they say - so I slopped more on, then more still. In fact everywhere that looked even slightly suspect I covered in sealant. Eventually I felt I had done enough. Most of the roof was covered (Its a big garage too) and I had even covered a large portion of my arms and face.
The wait
Now it was time to wait. And wait I did. I stalked the weather, praying for rain when fools prayed for sun. The clouds defied me with their fluffy snide 'O' shaped mouths. Flatly refusing to be darker and angrier and pour down the rains that I so craved in the small hours. Then some ten days after the sealing as I unpacked some shopping it happened. The rains fell. Not just rain but proper sky machine water. Smashing down through the air like aqua racing cars on a translucent track. I ran to the garage and threw myself into my old man chair and gazed at the roof where it had wept its poor garage tears before. Nothing. The rain drummed harder. Nothing, the very aridness of the garage parched my lips. The rain lashed the garage like a ship on a stormy sea and yet nothing leaked. The old garage creaked slightly and settled, I could almost hear her imaginary sigh of contentment as I stood and patted her faithful walls. "Dont worry old girl," I whispered. "I'll take care of you".