13 Trips and A Request for Feedback

Note: I wrote this last week during an Abydos session on Building Community. We used a grouping strategy called "Pointing": original developed by Peter Elbow. But we ran out of time. I'd like to try it out with my friends online so I can use the data to show how we extend the grouping activities for revision and differentiated instruction.

Would you help? Can you read my writing and then "point out" the words and phrases that "penetrate your skull" or seem to be the center of "grabbity" that catch your attention? If you have time, give me an idea of why the words or phrases stuck out to you. 

There's 13 trips for a sprinkler  repair. Unlucky? Always. Why? 

You never have all the right things. It's the wrong size. Wrong gage. Wrong thread. Wrong length. Just wrong-wrong-wrong. And that was wrong too. 

1. You bought the wrong thing the first time because you were hapless enough to go the store to buy what you thought you needed before you started digging.

2. You returned to the store to buy the new thing, but when you went back to install it, you realize that thing doesn't fit any better than the first thing. You need that other thing that makes the second thing fit. Misfortune again. 

3. When you put the adapter on to make the part fit, a foreboding crack undermines your efforts.. So now you need more parts to fix that thing too. 

4. When fixing the new problem, you use an old tool at a cursed angle and the plastic for the new part snaps. You go buy the new part only to realize upon return home that...

5. Jinxed, you need a different tool so you can remove that thing that broke. So you go back to the store to buy the tool remove the part the broke so you can use the part you bought the last time. 

6. Now that things are in place, you dry fit the parts only to find that the ill-fated glue you bought the last time - only last week - has already turned solid. 

7. And the lid on the other thing that makes the first thing work won't come off. So you need another tool or chemical to open the second one and buy a new one so you just buy both of them. But then there are three choices now for the same product that used to work just fine and the wretched original is nowhere to be found. 

8. When you are digging past the mud and clay, you realize that the blighted person before you must have taped the thing together with Gorilla Glue and an old garden hose and you'll have to fix that part too. 

9. Then you go to put the new part on and realize that some star-crossed do-it-yourselfer laid the new pipe on the old pipe and there isn't room for replacement connector. So you go back for a flexible bendy part to add to the other parts you just bought. 

10. So you dig a bigger trench because you think you might lift up the pipe to make some room with the bendy part you just bought. Avalanches of dirt cover your previous attempts. So you carefully leverage what you have in the dark.  Blindly, you lift until you hear a crack and notice that on the other side of your repair there is a T where the damaged pipe intersects with two other directions. 

11. So you dig a bigger trench to uncover the new problems. Traipse back to the store to get more things. Things seem to be gong fine when you dry fit that parts and use the new glue stuff. Only to realize that you weren't quite ready for the glue. The pipe is still too long, but now the connections are too short and you'll have to catastrophically cut off the T and replace the whole thing because the pipe is too close to accept a new adapter. 

12. Back to the store. For all the new things and other adapter things. You dry fit and double check everything only to realize - calamity - that when you reach for the glue that you didn't close the lids properly and the gunk is now a dried goo all over your new tools.

13.  Since you've already spent the dire, equivalent funds and wait time for calling a pro, you throw your muddy gloves down into the hole, wipe your bloody hands on your soaked pants, and ask Siri to call the sprinkler repair guy that you should have called before your first, ill-fated trip. 

MH's Pointing Feedback: I love the phrase "avalances of dirt."  It creates a vivid image in my mind.

I like the repeated use of the word "thing."  In real life, I get frustrated with too many uses of "thing," but it fits perfectly here because I'm guessing you don't really know what all the "things" are really called!  It shows from the beginning that you probably shouldn't have been the one making this repair.

The phrase "foreboding crack" tells me "uh-oh."