Springtime Contest from Epoxy-Coat

[rugerlady]

Hi Guys and Gals,
Spring is in the air, time to clean out the garage and get that floor coated! We here at Epoxy-Coat want to help, We are going to give away a free kit for the funniest story again, you know the routine by now. Why do you deserve a free kit of Epoxy-Coat. As some of you may know from previous contests, I will give away 1 full kit for first place, 1/2 kit for second place, and 100.00 off any kit for third place. Some of you may also know, depending on the amount and quality of stories, I usually give away alot of extra kits!! So on with the details!!!
The story must be humorous, about why you should get a free Epoxy-Coat kit. It will start immediately and run until midnite EST April 6th. The winners will be announced by the following Tuesday. You can enter as many times as you like. If you are in another country, you can enter too (you just have to help cover the cost of shipping).
You guys have never failed to make this really fun so......lets hear some great stories.

 

[rugerlady]

Nothing yet??? I was looking forward to hearing a couple good stories this morning.

 

[txusa03]

A chance to win products and no one jumped at it.

I, on the other hand is waiting for a contest where the sponsor will also include a professional installer to come to your place to etch, clean from start to finish.

I think everyone is brainstorming right now...

 

[rugerlady]

Yep, that must be it... they are all compiling their stories. If your close enough or want to fly me to your area, I'll help

 

[xDavidx]

If I had a sense of humor I would be all over this.

 

[rugerlady]

She's cute and all...but you do realize females will be judging this contest. lol

 

[DRP6833]

Toucar was so disappointed that he lost in the last contest that he refuses to enter this one.

 

[central1ny]

Are we looking for garage related funny stories specifically?

 

[n2ocamaro]

Summer 2010-A buddy and I are working on my Camaro. I am under the car on the drivers side. He is under the hood (we are installing new headers!). My buddy says he is not feeling well and turns towards the side door of the garage. He makes it to the driver side door and starts puking. Hitting me with splatter in process. I am trying to get out from under the car on the other side while he is still puking, trying to avoid splatter and puking myself. Apparently the mix of beer, mexican food and heat did not set well with him and the mix of puke and heat did not sit well on my garage floor because it stained the floor and smelled for days afterwards.

 

[central1ny]

For a number of years, I owned an older lawn tractor that was a bear to keep running. It was a beater but I needed something to mow 1 ½ acres and the push mower was out of the question. The tractor had a weak battery and if the thing stalled in the middle of a job (which it did often), I would have to drive my car over to jump start the thing (I don’t own a battery charger). Well one day, the tractor stalled as usual and I couldnt get it started, so once again I had to get the car and drive it over for a jump start. I hooked up the jumper cables as normal and revved up the car engine a bit to get the juice flowing. After about 5 minutes, I decided that the battery was charged enough to try starting it. I pressed my foot on the clutch of the lawn tractor while standing next to it and it started right up. Great, I thought, so I took my foot off the clutch. Then I watched in horror as the tractor started speeding away from me and the ends of the jumper cable were ripped off. I took off running to catch and stop the tractor. I hadnt realized that I left the tractor in gear before I started it.

I deserve a free kit of epoxy-coat because I am a man of many mis-haps and my floor deserves superior protection. Plus I would be more inclined to fix up my beaters instead of applying band-aids.

 

[formanbob]

Why I think I deserve a free epoxy kit?
Let’s make this long story a short one.
My wife and I bought a New Build house right before the market took a crash, it had a massive basement and a big two car garage. I had two man caves. Well then all the sudden all of our neighbors started letting there’re houses get foreclosed on, my unlocked beater truck got broken into 3 times. Fence locks tampered with cars down the street set on fire. (Don’t ever buy a house in a questionable area in the winter) . So after many visits from the cops the last cop says GET OUT, I said what? He said that a house down the street when up for sheriffs sale for ½ its original price. So we list our house. realtor says we are going to lose tons of money and we should everyone says just let it get foreclosed upon. I was like no way. I was not one that did not know what I was getting into (well payment that is) I made this choice I need to live with it. So we finally get an offer on the house, but I would need to bring $20k to the closing. Now I was just married my wife and I wanted to start a family (not in this area now) I had saving and was well vested in my 401k. So I collected all that I had saved and bit the bullet and moved.
To add insult to injury we get a tax bill that year for $7k tanks to the 401k withdraw ---NICE

I do the right thing and pay my debt instead of foreclosed and I get a kick in the .. moving on.

And this is what I got for a man cave on my new house.

My wife and I have been working on our fix er up er for 5 years (with to kids now) and I have built most of the garage myself. Paying for everything with cash as it comes.
The roof is done just waiting for the slab to cure.

Ok so that was not as short as I thought it would be, and it is not as funny as it sounds in my head. But that is my reason I want to win.

Thanks
Jacob

 

[hobie1dog]

OOPs, sorry for the misplaced cute girl pic, I was posting several replies simultaneously.

Anyway, last year opened the door from the house to the garage and at the bottom of the steps was a King snake. Let me explain: In a previous life I was obviously killed by a snake bite on the left foot, as everytime I see one my left foot feels like it just got hooked up to 230 volts. This is from a phenomenon called "cell memory" and has been proven through thousands of Past Life Regressions used in Therapy centers. Sometimes a condition starts at a certain age in your life, say age 45 and under hypnosis, they take you back to previous lives and will find out what happened to you back when you received that injury in that part of your body. There's many fascinating books written on it lately with all the research being done.
So upon site of the snake, I go into PANIC MODE, as I always thought that a snake is the only mistake God made in the creation process. So I'm looking around for a way to get this thing out of my garage. I open the garage door thinking it is just going to leave, but no, it raised up and stuck it's tongue out at me...little ******* It goes around the perimeter of the garage and ends up in the front corner, and won't go out after much prodding with a broom handle. Now you have to get the vision of me at the front of the garage doing a little Bluegrass Jig Dance, as everytime I get near it, my foot starts buzzing and I'm shaking it in the air and stomping it back down trying to get it to stop. I finally grab a kart axle and kill it, and I ended up having snake blood all over the corner area. The stain still won't come up, so everytime I go to that corner and see the blood, my foot starts tingling again.
I need some Epoxy-Coat to cover this up and put this behind me as my neighbor was watching the fiasco from his garage and came over to ask me what in Hell was I doing in the corner the other night. I guess the cheap Rustoleum water based epoxy soaks up snake blood pretty good.

Send some snake repellant along with the epoxy too.

Thanks,

Marty

 

[rugerlady]

Are we looking for garage related funny stories specifically?

It should be any story about why you deserve a free epoxy floor, if you need some ideas of what people have done in the past, search previous epoxy-coat contests.

 

[rugerlady]

Toucar was so disappointed that he lost in the last contest that he refuses to enter this one.

I think another try is required!! Come on it will be fun!

 

[frankbmg]

I've been procrastinating for about 3 years. Do I tile, stain, paint or nothing. Finally decided on an epoxy. I've looked at different coatings and companies. Please help me make my decision.

Frank

 

[rugerlady]

I figured I would come in this morning to some good stories....whats up guys??

 

[OldracerJones]

My story starts about 30 years ago when I was a teenager and had convinced my buddy to let me use his Father's garage to change my clutch in my 1970 442 W-30. This guy was the first person I knew that had a fastidious garage; everything in it's place and a place for everything. We were forbidden to use his tools or anything in the garage but when the mouse is away...

Anyway, about 4 of us started the project one morning, his Dad wouldn't be back for two days so no problem getting it done in time. Someone found a bottle of Bacardi and mixed up some rum and cokes and we proceeded to get way to lit to be working on a car so we took a little break. About 3 hours later, my buddy received a call from his Dad that their plans fell through and he would be home in about two hours. Here I am, half baked with a clutch laying on the floor under my car ready to go in and three friends worthless at this point. I jumped under the car and started, he'll it was hard just trying to put a wrench on the bolt let alone do this correctly. I was making real good progress towards getting out of the garage by the time he got home until I picked up the old Muncie 4 speed and tried to line up the pilot bearing. I look over and 90 weight gear oil is draining out of the tail of the ****** all over this spotless garage floor. By the time I was able to get repositioned to where I could put the ****** down, half of the fluid had run out over the floor.
Holy ****! My buddy who's Dad owned it was screaming to get the clutch done so he could get it cleaned up and I'm trying to figure out how I was going to finish it at all. In the end I was able to get the clutch and ****** back in, start the car and backed it out of the garage and we started cleaning the floor. I don't know if you have ever cleaned up 90 weight gear oil but it doesn't just wipe up. My dude was hollering how his Dad was going to kill all of us, I'm wiping like mad and my other to friends run in and tell us his Dad just pulled onto the street. We threw the rags in the can and waited for his Dad to kick our you know what. He walked in, said "you guys stink" and went in the house! He never saw this ********* stain in the middle of the floor. We hightailed it out of there and thanked our lucky stars. Many years later I saw him and he told me he knew what happened but felt sorry for us, covered in gear oil, just waiting to be sick from all the rum we drank and driving a car with a clutch installed in two hours by a drunk teenager. He felt I already paid the price.
Too bad he didn't have epoxy-coat floors, it would have been very easy to wipe up with no evidence of the spill at all.

 

[central1ny]

I thought of another somewhat funny story that I thought I would share. The exterior portion of my garage was completed by the Amish last October. I decided to do all of the interior work myself, which in turn has resulted in some interesting mishaps. I had (key word ‘had’) a Craftsman table saw that I was using in the garage a couple months ago to rip some boards and the saw motor was acting quite sluggish. I knew WD-40 usually worked at freeing up rusty bolts so I figured it might do the same for the saw. So I drenched the motor with WD-40 and it seemed to improve the motor performance a bit but not perfectly so I moved on to my next bright idea. I had used brake cleaner before on brakes and saw how clean it got the brakes so I figured it might just do the same for the motor. I did remember that the brake cleaner was highly flammable so I thought it would be a good idea to move the saw outside. With the saw outside and powered down, I drenched the motor with brake cleaner and let it sit for a few minutes. I figured 5 minutes would be plenty of time to allow the brake cleaner to evaporate. After this, I powered up the saw but it didn’t seem to be any better. So I gave up and went into the garage to continue working on a project. After about 10 minutes, I thought that I smelled smoke but figured it must have been lingering from when I just started the saw. I waited a few more minutes and the smell of smoke seemed to intensify so I figured I had better check it out. When I opened my garage back door, I was overwhelmed by a 10 foot towering inferno and it was only about 10 feet from the garage. I saw my son at the house back door staring out and I ran into the garage and grabbed a long 2x4 and was able to push the blaze away from the garage. Thankfully, my new garage didn’t go up in flames but the same can’t be said for the table saw. R.I.P old Craftsman table saw.

So once again, I think I deserve a free kit of epoxy-coat because I am a man of many mishaps. With my floor protected with epoxy-coat, at least that should hold up to anything I can throw at it, or drench it with.

 

[Davd_Pa]

I think I deserve the epoxy coat b/c I'm sick of being the painter, grounds keeper, electrician, plumber and most importantly general laborer at my house. I'd like to be able to do a project 'just for me' to enjoy. Thanks Ruger lady!!!
Dave

 

[rugerlady]

Your Welcome!

 

[dawgee]

I was working under a 4cyl. pickup truck i raced at a local short track. My friend was outside sitting on the fender of my towing trailer when 2 "church" types walk up to him and ask "Have you found Jesus?" He in turn says "If i knew he was lost i would have helped you look for him" I stained my floor from laughing so hard

 

[MSC]

I need some epoxy cause I have a problem with spilling stuff! Take the time I was under my car with a friend and I went to spray some wd40 on a stuck bolt I lined it up pushed the cap and damm if it didn't spray sideways into my friends eyes. He got up and started stumbling around swearing and yelling he was blind! He's still my friend but wont help me with any repairs anymore.

 

[kwikrs]

I don't really have a funny story. But my wife would really like a nice clean floor for when we break in the garage at the new house... if you know what I mean

 

[Bulldog13]

I have recently purchased a home in Florida which I had absolutely no part of the decision . My only request was that it had a 2 car garage.As of now my "garage " has turned into a patio furniture storage facility.Everytime someone comments on the house I can take no credit because I didnt pick anything in the house...my wife even picked out my recliner! I could use the epoxycoat to replace the crappy concrete paint I have now and get my space back!

 

[willbrown82]

My story. When changing the oil in my vehicles I like to have them up high enough move around good and check out things while the oil is draining. I put down newspaper to catch any splatter that jumps out once it hits the drain pan but I always seem to have oil on the floor outside of my protected area. This time I decide I would be smart and use something to get my catch pan closer to the engine to avoid the usual splatter. I place my catch pan on top of my portable toolbox and everything is going good. I rotate my tires while the oil is draining and come back to remove the catch pan and replace the drain bolt. Not wanting to get any oil on my floor I decide to leave the catch pan where its at and install the oil pan drain bolt before moving it out of the way. Sure enough as I'm reaching around to replace the bolt I knock over the catch pan and now all the oil is on the floor, my jack, jackstands and splattered on my head. I grab my bucket of oil dry and cover my puddle to soak up the mess. I now have a nice big oil stain on the floor instead of the little specks I normally would of had. Having Epoxy-Coat would have made clean up much easier and I would still have a nice looking floor.

 

[patent pending]

My previous "garage" (parking space) was approximately 8 1/2' x 15' with no walls, no power outlets and no storage space (other than back seat of my 1970 Bronco). I had all that, plus an apartment manager who didn't really like me working in my "garage" anyway. One day, I decided it was time for my little Bronco to grow up, so I orded a lift kit and brand new set of 33" mud tires. The day came when my parts arrived, and I couldn't wait to get to work out in my "garage". A few weeks beforehand, I noticed that someone had left a perfectly good "jackstand" (beer keg) by the "tool shed" (dumpster). Knowing I would be working in my "garage" really soon, I quickly snagged the "jackstand" and tucked it away in my storage area (backseat). I quickly tore into the Bronco's suspension and had the rear springs and shocks knocked out in no time. I then turned my attention to the front end. I jacked up the front, put my regular jackstands under the frame rails, then my special "jackstand" under the front bumper for just an extra measure of safety, as well as adding just a little more class to the situtation.

I proceeded to swap out suspension components only to find that it did not go quiet as fast as I had hoped, and turned into a multi day project. About day three my wife called me at work and informs me... "I just got a call from the apartment manager...Do you have the Bronco up on a beer keg?!?" Who would've thought they'd get so bothered by that? So I proceeded to crank out the rest of the work at madman speed and get it back up on all fours again. On the home stretch now, just had to figure out how to weld my new extended shock towers on. (remember, no power in my "garage") Then it hit me...I'm so rich, I've got a second "garage". So I pulled under the balcony...err gararge of our apartment and dropped down the trusty extension cord. BINGO! I had my little buzzbox welder ready to go then. My wife's family was in town for the weekend, and my mother-in-law was kind enough to sit by the fuse panel and read her magazine, and flip the switch about every thirty seconds when the breaker kicked off. All in all it was a fun experience, that we still laugh about today. The Bronco turned out awesome, by the way.

Every time I walk into my garage now I'm grateful to have a place where nobody can tell me to "please take my car off the beer keg"...even if my concrete is dusty as ****! (link) . On second thought...I could really use some Epoxy Coat!

 

[rugerlady]

I loved that story ^^^

 

[leowerberg]

Hi everybody!

My wife and I have been holding an annual Garage Party for family, friends & colleagues for the last 8 years.

It's become a bit of a much-talked-about institution- always held on a frigid Friday night each fall.

We escape the cold & darkness by huddling in the garage and fill the night with whiskey sipping, cigar smoking, hot-dog grilling, dart throwing, guitar playing and other silliness.

This year we moved to a new house and have just finished building a modest 12x24 garage. We're looking forward to hosting the inaugural Garage Party, but don't dare do it before we treat the floor. We don't want mustard, stout and ashes soaking into our precious new slab.

We've been planning to purchase a full kit of Epoxy Coat when the budget allows, but it would give us yet another story to tell if we won it in this contest.

Live music on the nose of the MGA (we did eventually get that car running):

The wives staying warm and chatting it up while the guys tell big-fish stories:

Lighting cigars with a torch, why not?

Pick your poison, but don't mix up the Sam Adams and the Chain Lube:

Best of luck to all of you, and keep on enjoying your garages!

Leo & Allison

 

[ckadams00]

I don't have a "new" garage, I have an old, 1923 two car that needs insulation and the floor painted/sealed/something. We only use it to get the cars out of the snow in the winter. Last summer I built shelves and got everything cleaned up and organized; in the fall it got a new roof. The floor has been daunting and annoying. I'd like to win first off because the floor needs to be redone, secondly because I've never done anything like an epoxy floor before (cut to shot of happy Noob saying "wow, Epoxy-Coat worked GREAT! Thanks Epoxy-Coat!"). LOL
Seriously, the floor "gotta get done". This would be both a good excuse, probably create a raving fan, and make my wife very very very very happy.

Thanks for the contest & opportunity!

 

[padstack]

About a year ago, I helped my brother in law with his landscaping business. He needed some help and I had some time. He had this habit of taking my lunch and thinking it was funny. I'd usually just write it off as him being a jerk, but since he was "family" I didn't really worry that much about it. I'd just give him some idle threat like "I'll beat your a**" and let it be as we usually just stopped somewhere to eat anyway. We had been out for an abnormally long day once and ended up back at my garage where he was storing a couple mowers (fixing to store everything for the night before going home). I let him keep a couple in my garage b/c his was so small. The **** that comes out of those is nasty and stained the concrete floor like no one's business. Oil, grass, etc. Real nasty, dirty stuff. I still have stains that I can't scrub out from those things. I always keep a mini-fridge full of beer in the garage and had one of those aluminum Miller Light bottles with the widemouth top sitting on a trash can in the garage and he tells me "Think you're gonna kick my a** for this??" and grabbed the bottle and turned it up and took about two chugs. Now, I DID make an attempt to warn him (obviously not fast enough), but he realized after his two gulps that he had just bit off more than he could chew (or swallow, if you will).

Now, I'm not a big beer drinker, but I appreciate utility when I see it. You see, when you're mowing for 8-10 hours a day and are generally filthy after 15 minutes, you don't really want to go in a customer's house to use the bathroom and there aren't always bushes to hide behind. I keep a couple of these cans in the bed of my truck for just this purpose. You can hide behind the door pretty easy and cap it off when done and toss in the back of the truck. Gross, but effective.

Fast forward back to this day and as brother-in-law takes his second gulp and realizing he WASN'T chugging a Miller Lite (and a look of panic coming over him while his eyes got the size of golf balls), I calmly say "Nope. But I hope you enjoy my pi**." I laughed so hard I thought I was going to pass out while he puked in the grass while kneeling on my driveway. I did at least go get the garden hose and turn it on for him to wash his mouth out. Needless to say, he's never stolen food/drinks from me again.

Now, if I had a good epoxy coating on my floor, I could still let him store stuff in the summer, but not ruin my floor. And it would seal against vomiting after ingesting urine!

 

[rugerlady]

very funny!!

 

[4wd4ever]

I don't have a funny floor story, but I think I can imagine what most of my female customers would say about my shop after seeing a nice shinny epoxy coated floor...sorry ladies! I can't count the number of times I have asked one of my customers about their car, like what year is it or what model is it or even what size engine they think might be in it...I had one customer who just kept saying "it's red, that's all I know. I know I gotta put gas in when the light comes on". Now I am sure that once they see such a beautiful floor that I will from that day forward be "the guy with the shinny floor!"

And that is why I deserve an Epoxy Coat flooring kit!

Again, sorry ladies.

 

[Kevin C]

The city thinks I'm building a garage.

View media item 18163
View media item 18167

 

[Ranger]

Bad choices can doom you to a life of misery:

If you have a garage you want the floor to look nice.
If you want the floor to look nice you paint it.
So you paint it with cheap concrete paint.
When you paint the floor with cheap concrete floor paint it keeps flaking off
When It keeps flaking off you have to repaint it.
When you repaint it the cycle never ends
Don’t paint your garage floor paint with cheap concrete paint .
Save yourself a life of misery like I have had repainting my garage floor.
Use EPOXY-COAT

 

[rugerlady]

Sorry to say, but that is an ugly floor. It needs help!

 

[cruzn57]

funny, but dumb on my part!
I just built a new garage, 30x50, I did alot of the small stuff myself to save costs, one of the things I did was to install the sectional garage door.
while most folks are smart enough to admit their limits, I guess at 62 yrs old I'm still learning ( slow learner)
I had never installed a garage door prior to this, but figured I'm up for it!.
I started like the directions say, placing sections against the opening, and securing them, all went well until the last piece ( oh, by the way this is a 16x 9ft tall door) I had installed the track to secure the first 5 pieces and noticed the wind has come up, here in the Az desert wind is normal, anyhow I lifted the last section up and put it in place ( I'm on a 6 ft ladder) the wind hits the door and the section starts to come back at me, I reach and hold the door. but the wind wants to blow it into the garage , my tools are 6 ft away on the tool cart, and the wind is blowing good now, maybe 15 to 20 mph, if I let go, it will fall and ruin the door panel, I try to remove it , but the wheels are wedged in the tracks and will NOT come loose,
so... there I sit ( yes I turned and sat on the top of the ladder) trying to figure a way out of this without destroying the new door I just bought.
I am 50 ft away from the house , where the wife is working, and nearest neighbor is 1/4mi. I wiggled the door, no luck its stuck, its is not fastened yet, as I hadn't reached my tools to secure it, It will take 30 seconds for me to crawl off the ladder to my tools and get the fasteners and screw gun, with the wind blowing like it is, the door panel will surely fall and damage it or me!
I sat there for probably 20 min contemplating what to do, mean while the wind has actually increased! after another 15 min (total of 35 min) one of the dogs pokes his head in the door and looks at me ( I'm sure he is thinking "how did this dumb *** get into this situation") I whistled in hopes the wife would hear me, no luck as wind is making to much noise, I tell the dog to go get the wife, he looks at me , I'm sure he's thinking, no way, this is way to funny!.
by now I'm getting numb in the ****, and arms are sore, when............
the wife pokes her head in the walk in door way and says are you resting?
I politely ask her to grab a 2x4 and wedge it against the top door panel .
which she does, I quickly grab my screw gun and fasteners, and secure the panel .
the wife asks me why were you sitting on the ladder?
I told her I loved her , and would she mind going back into the house.
I did explain later the whole story.
I think back and wonder just how long I would of sat there??
Moral of the story? keep the cell phone in your pocket, even while working in the garage.
why do I need /want floor coating? to keep the new concrete looking nice and new, without oil stains! also so I have a nice clean floor to look at next time I'm in another dumb situation. LOL

 

[Lawson4450]

Well not funny just desperate lol we were looking to purchase a house last year when a little something eventually named Jake came along. well that put a bit of a rush on things and I of course being on this forum wanted that first garage never had one so i wanted it all and what do i get a small one car well the car dont really fit with a floor that was painted by the previous owners and well now its all peeling and such here is a pic of the garage

we moved into the house when she was 9 months pregnant and two weeks later he came along. The house was a foreclosure and well that means other priorities so the garage is on the back burner. I have done the best with it i can setting up wood working area and built a couple of benches but I need to finish more rooms in the house. The wife is pregnant again due in august so I am finishing the downstairs powder room(split level house main living and kitchen downstairs raised family room and more steps to bedrooms) so as she gets bigger she wont have to climb the stairs with the other baby to go to the bathroom. I am a firefighter emt full time plus the Chief of my volunteer dept so my days are pretty full and trying to repair a house and keep things usuable in the garage is not easy. A new floor is on the list but well down it at the moment but it would definatley help with keeping the shop clean and usable while continuing working on the rest of the house. I know its not funny and I am not complaining in the least and I know there are people in worse situations then me but if it can make my house better with little to no money then Im willing to try lol

 

[rugerlady]

Liking the entries so far! We have until Friday at midnite to get your stories in!!

 

[turbosl2]

So I have asked my wife for some help with this since she has spent a lot of time out in the garage with me. This is her favorite funny story….
Back probably about 7 years ago, Tom was under his car changing the transmission fluid and I was my gopher for tools and such, he was on my back lying under his car, the plug was giving him a hell of a time coming loose, so there was a little grunting going on (a lot!!). When it finally gave loose there was a loud yell, he rolled himself out from underneath his car and was covered in red transmission fluid, at that time he was still teaching me about cars, so I though after the loud yell that he had gotten hurt with the wrench. He was yelling for me to bring him a rag, I though the wrench had jammed into his eye and that all the red fluid was blood, I started screaming, and thinking that my future husband was going to be blind in one eye for the rest of our lives together. Meanwhile, he is still screaming for the rag and I am screaming because I thought he was hurt. When I finally got him the rag, and realized he was not hurt, and that it was just transmission fluid, we both started laughing so hard when we realized what it really was. I haven’t really worked out in the garage with him much since this !!!

 

[JamieK]

My story starts about 2 years ago, and my wife and I found the perfect house with a two car garage to move into. I had been working out of the basement of our rental house, which was okay, but was cramped, dark, and smelly from years of the previous owners letting cats stay in the basement. Cat pee does a number on concrete, and you can never get the smell completely out. (If Epoxy Coat is cat pee resistant, you should really point that out as one of its benefits.) Anyway, we move in, and I’m excited about finally having a nice garage to fix up and work in.

Our new house came with a fenced in back yard, and even though most of it was falling down, I managed to patch and repair until it resembled a fence again. Then my wife had the brilliant thought that since we had a fenced in yard, we should get a dog to live in it. So off we go to the pound, and pick up Maggie. She’s a sweetheart, but had been abused and was terribly afraid of men. She became my wife’s “baby girl”, and I started to get jealous, so back to the pound we went, and got Vegas. He’s Daddy’s boy.

Of course, the whole “dog living in the backyard idea” was immediately ruled out, and they became inside dogs. Then on the way home from work one day, I found a pit bull mix puppy in the median of the interstate. Poor thing had been thrown out of the car and was covered in road rash. We took him to the ER vet, and brought Petey home to live with us.

As Petey grew up, we found out that he and our other two rescues didn’t get along very well. It wasn’t Petey; he’s very energetic and wants to play, play, and play. Our other two dogs are getting a few years on them, so they prefer the quiet life. We still don’t trust our fence, so all three live in the house, but can’t be left together while we are gone. So Petey gets to stay in the bedroom. And puppies, especially playful Pittie puppies, like to chew. He has destroyed our bedroom. He managed to chew out of his crate several times. He has chewed the window sill, my night stand has become toothpicks, our box springs are destroyed, and the carpet is ruined.

Thankfully, he has finally grown up some, and now just chews on his rawhide bones and the occasional 2" x 4".

Remember how I said I finally had a garage to fix up like I wanted? Well, I have been scrimping and saving for all this time so I could afford to fix the garage up. I have repaired all the holes in the walls and ceiling by myself (the previous owners must have been using them for kung fu practice). When I moved in, the kitchen cabinets had severe water damage and were replaced immediately along with part of the subfloor. (There went the First Time Homebuyers Tax credit). I saved the old cabinets and replaced the rotted particle wood bases. I found some paint on the “mis-tint” shelf at Lowes, and they actually don’t look that bad. I found some more cabinets in the dumpster at work and hung those up. With a lot of luck, dumpster diving and the Habitat Restore store, I’ve finally got my garage into a decent place I can call my own. The only thing I haven’t been able to find in a dumpster is Epoxy Coat! So, behind my wife’s back, I was saving up for it. A few dollars here and there and I almost had enough to buy it.

But then my wife was going through my drawers, (my desk, not my britches!), and found my secret envelope marked “Epoxy Coat Floor Money”. She wasn’t too happy. And she has laid down the law. She has told me, in no uncertain terms, that the money WILL be going to repair all the damages in the bedroom. She wants the windows fixed, a new mattress and box spring, and new laminate floors. This is going to be a lot more than what I’ve saved up, so even more scrimping for me. My dreams of having an Epoxy Coat garage floor have been destroyed. By a single rescue dog named Petey. So Christine, please find it in your heart to help a big hearted guy with a passion for rescue dogs have the garage floor of his dreams. Because my wife sure won’t let me! And if you want, I’ll even name our next rescue dog in your honor!