11/16/07

I'm not sure what I'm going to talk about today. Hang on, I need to go back and look at something. Wow, I totally forgot to tell y'all about my day off. Ok, remember how I took Wednesday off because it was my birthday? Well, I spent the day thus. First of all I went to the dentist. The hygienist poked, prodded, and scraped my teeth for about an hour and sent me on my way. From there I went to the county courthouse. I parked in my usual garage which was weird in the middle of a workday because I'm used to it being virtually empty. From there I walked across downtown to the building I thought I had gone to before for some kind of building permit. Why I went downtown for a building permit in the past I don’t remember, but that was where I went. It was not the right place. The lady looked up the records though and sent me across the street to the actual courthouse. I realized I still had my pocket knife on me when I got to the bottom of the stairs of the parking garage and should have taken it back up to the car then. I didn’t. I placed all my belongings in the tray and went through the metal detector. It went off. I took off my belt and plopped it in a tray and went through again. This time I was fine. The guard was about to let me by when he saw the knife in the tray. “Knives are not permitted in the courthouse,” he said, wide eyed as he opened the six inch blade. He suggested taking it back to the car or hiding it in the bushes outside. I did that. I went back through and to the room I was instructed to go to. I waited for someone to acknowledge me and told him I wanted the plot plan or plat or whatever for my address. He sent me across the hall to see “Jeremy.” Jeremy took the information from me and sent me back across the hall to pay for the plat. “It’ll be ready when you come back,” he said to my back as I left the room. I went back into the other room and waited for someone to acknowledge me again. I told this one I needed to pay for a plat and she said it would be $3.50 then asked if I had exact change. I knew I did not have the fifty cents so I offered to pay $4.00 for it. She shrugged and took my money. I took the receipt, which showed that she gave me fifty cents change by the way, and went back across the hall to see Jeremy again. He pulled the plat off the printer and handed it to me. I knew immediately that the city of Benbrook would not want what I had. I left and found my knife right where I had hidden it, much to my surprise. I fully expected to have lost that as well. I walked back to the parking garage and drove down to the gate. Apparently it took more than half an hour to walk to the courthouse, transact, and walk back because I had to pay $2.50 to get out. I drove out of downtown totally resigned to getting rid of as many cars as was going to be necessary because I knew I didn’t have the paperwork Benbrook wanted. They were never going to issue a permit based on that plat. Let me tell you about the plat while I'm on the subject. It is a three by one foot printout of the lots down my street. It was originally drawn up in 1962. My lot is smaller than a dime on this thing and since it wasn’t built until 1969, there was no house. I was screwed and knew it. I almost forwent going to talk to Benbrook. Well, I was considering foregoing seeing Benbrook because I was first going to have lunch with mom. I knew she was supposed to be at the church, which was only slightly out of my way home, so I stopped there. She was there and we went to the “Road Kill Café.” I'm not sure what the real name of the place is but they have something called “road kill chili” so mom and I call the place that. When I told her that the thing I bought at the courthouse wasn’t right, mom suggested taking the original blueprints with me to the city. I did that, after taking a nap. I found the office I needed and began to talk to the folks. We had a look at the plat and they said, as I knew they would, that it wasn’t what they needed. They needed to see how the existing structure sat in relation to the property lines. I then pulled out the “Blue Prince” and was arrested for indecent exposure. No wait, I pulled out the blueprints and showed them the plot survey with the house. That was what they needed. I had that the whole time. I didn’t need to go downtown, blow $6.50, and almost lose my knife. Oh well. Now, the problem with the blueprint is there is a notation saying the corner of the house is 29 feet from the corner of the property line. Having taken measurements, and just looking at the damned yard, it is obvious that something is wrong. There is way more than 29 feet from the corner to the fence. “Well,” the dude said, “there’s nothing saying that the fence is on the property line.” He suggested that I could either shell out $300.00 to have the lot re-surveyed or I could measure it myself. Well, he actually was trying to tell me where to find the property markers but it gave me a plan. I'd go buy a 200’ tape and just see if the property line was approximately where I thought it was or if it was twenty feet further into the yard. Oh, they also told me that I didn’t have to stop twenty feet from the property line with my building unless it was in a back yard. Since it was a side yard, and there is a honking great field next to it, I could go five feet from the line! I thanked them and went to Tractor Supply to buy a measuring tape. The longest one they had was 100’ so I bought it. At home I began to take measurements. The property line was supposed to be 149’ long on the east border, 80’ on the north border, and 129’ on the west border. I think the south border was 110’ or something but it didn’t really matter at this time. I was told that the measurements start 10’ in from the curb so I knew my southern property line would be 159’ from the north curb. I began measuring. Guess what, the fence was almost exactly 159’ from the curb on the east side of the lot. I was quite pleased. I measured 139’ or so from the curb on the west side and was right on the fence. The property line was exactly where it was supposed to be. I still don’t know what that 29’ from the corner of the house is supposed to mean unless they built the house too far north. Anyhoo, I took some measurements from the side of the house to five feet from the fence and it turns out I can build a shop 45’ by 36’ if I want to. I won’t, but I could. I was very pleased at that point and went inside to take another nap before John, Pat, and I went to dinner. There was a concert by some Dana Pennsylvania, or Rita Florida, or some semi-rhyming combination of a girl’s name and a state going on downtown so everything was really crowded. Actually, that isn't true; there was a little traffic and a few middle-aged parents roaming around while their teenage daughters attended the show. We joked about buying some scalped tickets but heard they were selling for $1,500.00 a pop. Billy Ray Cyrus’ kid is cute and all, but she’s not that cute. I'll only go so far with my dirty-old-mannitude. Well, I think I've said just about all I have to say today. Besides, it is lunchtime and I have to go pee! I'll talk to y'all Monday.