D Note Chronicles #60

D Note Chronicles #60

Brother Matthew and I were in the D Note basement recently and he began to tell some of the kitchen staff about an incident he had while sandblasting the paint off the walls eight years ago when we were building out the D Note. After he told the story I secretly turned the voice recorder on the smart phone and began to record. The following is a transcription of what happened next.

Adam: "So that was the was the worst it got while you were sandblasting?"

Matthew: "Whatever! That was a nightmare! I still have nightmares about it. The worst it got?! It was 14 days of sandblasting. It was the summer time and we had to wear extra clothing. We opened up the doors and people were complaining because there was a big flume of lead paint coming out the door. Oh God that was evil. The worst it got?!"

Adam: "So tell me again what happened?"

Matthew: "Remember the hood we wore? Remember the glasses, you put the lens in and out? You pull it out and put a new heavy glass lens in? I was like this (tilts head to side) and the glass started coming out of the hood, without me doing it, I'm holding the thing. I'm looking at it and thinking 'Oh that's not good.' All the sudden the sand started hitting my eyes and oh that's not good. I don't know what I did, but it was pelting my eyes and you know how when you have dry mouth and they throw sand in your dry mouth? Like oohg ick ick ick. So my eyes are dusted and I can't do anything and, like, I'm on the scaffolding with the stupid hose in my hand. Okay here it goes, I'm dropping it! You were supposed to be right there helping, I don't know where you went, and I'm yelling 'Adam, where are you!' So I drop the hose. Okay, where's the side of the scaffolding I need to come down on? AH THOONK! Uh, I'm down. Okay I'm gonna go toward the sound. Okay, I hope I don't put my finger in the wrong area here! Okay, it's off. I make it outside. THUNK! Oh, there's a wall. Oh there's a box or something. I'm finally outside. What do I do now? My eyes are gone. I took off the hat and I was sweating."

Adam: "Did you think your eyes were screwed up?"

Matthew: "Yeah, I thought I lost my eyes. When you are sandblasting and you are seeing sand take paint of bricks? Yeah, your eyes don't really stand a chance against sandblast. So I thought my eyes were completely gone. Who knows, there's probably pelts from it still in there, but anyway. So then I took off the gloves to try get the sand out, but my hands were full of dust. How am I going to get my eyes clean with my dusty hands? So I finally found my water bottle and poured it in my eyes, glug glug glug. That whole thing was evil. Sandblasting in general was evil, 14 days of it. We rented this sandblaster for a week and we kept paying over-night fees because we thought we'd be done the next day. Then after buying 10,000 lbs of sand we had to re-use 200 lbs of it and so it is extra super fine in the air. We had Regina at the Picking Parlour next door hopping mad at us. All the neighbors were mad at us because we were dusting the whole neighborhood. And then there was the fact that it was lead paint, which is still probably in our lungs. We had lead paint that covered up soot from when this place was a blacksmith and then whatever 4 cylinder engine model Ts were in here when it was a Ford dealership. So right after the gray paint, which would be lead, then there would be like an octopus-in-the-ocean blackness that would hit us. You remember that?"

Adam: "Yeah. So then when you threw the sandblaster hose down it just went onto the floor?"

Matthew: "So it was doing like the snake thing until it got stuck in the scaffolding, because it hit me once or twice when I was blind. I'm trying to get to the sound. I know it's over there so I'm going to shut it off. Okay, it's off. I still can't see. I'm going to make it to the door. Oh that sucked."

Adam: "But, because the sand blew a hole in the carpet, that's how we knew we had a wood floor?"

Matthew: "No, the carpet was always missing. It was just glue. But the sand actually blew through the glue. But yeah, it was such thick glue that we would have never seen the blond hundred year old red oak underneath."

Adam: "So that was the silver lining to your ordeal since the wood floor lead to us having a salsa night. The D Note probably wouldn't have survived without salsa during the early years. The wood floor has been the biggest attraction for the salsa night."

Matthew: "Yeah, and also the biggest distraction on the salsa night when the old wood has popped through leaving holes. I mean give and take. Yeah, but we wouldn't have had the salsa night, that's true. But Oh God that sandblasting was evil."