The $3,000 November Ice Rink

Arrogance Don't Check the Weather

It was mid-November out on Oliver Road. The thermometer was sitting at a crisp minus fifteen. I had a twenty-by-twenty detached garage pad to pour, and a schedule that I stubbornly declared would not budge.

My wife told me to wait for the spring thaw. The ready-mix dispatcher told me to wait for the spring thaw. Even the kid in the drive-thru who handed me my morning coffee looked at the sky and said it was a bad day to lay mud.

I ignored them all. I am the Slab. The Slab does not delay logistical operations for a light wind chill.

The truck was already idling at the gate. The rebar was tied tight in a wire cage. I ran a quick slump test and it looked pristine. I gave the operator the signal to drop.

This is when the cold reality of physics stepped in to humble me.

You cannot beat Canadian Shield bedrock, and you certainly cannot out-trowel a localized polar vortex. About halfway through the pour, heavy flakes began to cloud my glasses. Ice started choking the water bleeding from the surface. The heavy clay was freezing from the bottom up while the mix literally stiffened in the chute.

I was dragging the screed board through the mud, watching three thousand dollars go red before my eyes. We didn't even get to the finishing stage. At twenty below, the lot just locked up into an unusable, heavily textured gray glacier.

I spent the next three days out there with a rented pavement saw singing sharp, cutting out the frozen lines and hauling away massive chunks of my own pride. I signed the rework invoice and framed it on the shop wall.

Some guys write country music about losing a woman or a reliable hound dog. That is fine for them. But true, devastating heartache is the high-pitched hum of a diamond blade tearing up a ruined pour. Next time, I let April do the heavy lifting.