Howdy folks, Glen Blamstead here, reporting in from the Sherman Buildings yard in Mora with a small triumph and a slightly bigger problem. I got a new pair of work gloves last week. They fit like a mitten. Now, before you write in to remind me that a mitten IS a kind of glove, technically — yes, I know. That's the whole point. They're supposed to have five separate finger holes. Mine, apparently, have decided they're a four-fingers-together social club with a designated thumb.
How A Glove Becomes A Mitten
Here is what happened. I lost my favorite pair of gloves. This is not breaking news around the shop. I lose my gloves every season the way other men lose their hair. They turn up in the strangest places — in the truck bed, under a sheet of OSB, inside the toolbox I swore I checked first, one time genuinely inside the freezer at home, which I still cannot explain. My wife has stopped asking. She just nods like you'd nod at a horse who keeps trying to eat a sign.
So Monday morning, knowing we had a couple of pole barn jobs lined up and a customer coming in to talk about a 40x60 with a lean-to, I marched into the farm store before coffee. Bad call right there. Decision-making and coffee should never be that far apart. I picked up the first pair that looked like a glove, paid for them with the wadded-up bill that lives in my back pocket, and got on with my day.
By the time I got to the jobsite and pulled them on, I realized I'd bought a size that was generous in the way an overserved bartender is generous. My fingers had a meeting in there. They were caucusing. The thumb stuck out doing its own thing, like a kid at a wedding who refuses to dance with the rest of the cousins.
The Crew Was Not Helpful
Now, I love the boys on the crew. They are hard workers and absolute professionals in every way except when they smell weakness. They smelled the gloves immediately. "Hey Glen, you headed sledding later?" "Your mom dress you this morning?" "Should we tie a string between 'em so you don't lose one?" I took it. You have to take it. It's the price of admission.
The Dog Was Even Less Helpful
Murphy, who is mostly Labrador and partly suspicion, came over to inspect the new gloves the moment I set them on the tailgate. He sniffed the new tan pair. He sniffed the old beat-up brown pair I'd dug out of the truck as a backup. Then he picked up the new right-hand glove and walked off with it like he was leaving the country.
I got it back. There is a small tooth-mark in the leather now that I am choosing to consider character. Murphy considers it a receipt.
What I Had Was Neither
A glove is a promise. The promise is: your fingers go in their own little rooms, and you'll be able to do useful work. A mitten is a different promise. It says: you and your fingers are in this together, friend. We will be warm. We will not be dexterous. What I had was the worst of both worlds — not warm enough to be a mitten, not snug enough to be a glove. Just sort of flopping there on the end of my arm like a windsock at a quiet airport.
The Fix
I went back to the farm store the next day, this time after two cups of coffee and a conversation with my wife, and bought a pair that actually fit. The boys still call them my "big boy gloves." I will accept that. The new-new gloves are working out fine. Murphy has tried to abscond with them only twice.
As for the gloves that fit like a mitten — they have been demoted to truck gloves. They live in the door pocket of the F-150 now, for those emergencies when I have to grab a hot exhaust pipe or pull a piece of trim out of the way without sticking a sliver in my thumb. They are perfectly fine for that. They are, in fact, ideal for it. Just don't ask them to do anything fancy.
A Word About Customers
While I was sitting on the tailgate that first morning, contemplating my mitten-gloves and feeling sorry for myself, the customer for the 40x60 pulled into the yard. Nice fella, drove over from Hinckley, wanted to talk through doors and windows for a hobby shop. He looked at my gloves, looked at me, looked back at my gloves, and said, "You alright there, Glen?"
I said, "I bought the wrong size."
He said, "Boy, I have done that with a building."
And we both laughed, because that is exactly why people end up at Sherman Buildings in the first place — they bought a building somewhere that did not fit them. Maybe it was too small. Maybe it was the wrong height for the lift. Maybe the roof pitch fought the snow load. Whatever it was, the building was kind of a mitten when they needed a glove. We can usually help with that. We're not always the cheapest. We are usually the right size.
Wrap-Up
Anyway. New gloves, fitting correctly. Old gloves, demoted but still useful. Dog, slightly smug. Crew, still ribbing me. Wife, no comment. Building going up just fine over in Brook Park, wooden trusses overhead, posts in the ground, exactly the size the customer asked for.
If you've got a project rattling around in your head and you don't want to end up with a building that fits like a mitten, stop by Sherman in Mora sometime or holler at us. We'll get the sizing right. I cannot, however, guarantee anything about Murphy.
Glen out.