Portable Gas Powered Generators

The great thing was that we were finally building our new house, my husband Joe is a builder and I was working as his assistant. The not so great thing was that we were living on site and it was generous to say that the conditions were rustic. Cave like was what came to my mind but I didn’t complain, we were on our way to making our dream come true and that was truly a beautiful thing.

Joe had built the garage first to lock up stage and that was where we were living, lucky it was a double garage! We had been living without any power for a few days but Joe had promised me that he was going to hire one of the portable gas powered generators form the hardware place in town, they hired out all sorts of building and hardware related equipment and Joe was sure that he would be able to hire one of their portable gas powered generators to suit our needs.

I was struggling to cook our dinner when Joe arrived home, it was just about dark and the candle I was using had blown out a number of times. I had placed it inside to keep the flame from extinguishing but that meant that everything I was cooking was in shadow. I looked up at him; he walked to the back of his pick-up and removed a small plastic box with one hand. He smiled at me shyly holding the box up and sad this is the only one of the portable gas powered generators that they had available.

I had to laugh, that had to be one of the smallest portable gas powered generators that had ever been created. Joe set it down and hooked it up to the internal lights, placing it against the garage wall. He tried to start the mini portable gas powered generator a couple of times but it coughed an fell silent, I know  he muttered to himself and fetched a can of fuel and filled it up. This time it started and managed to power a single bulb, when we tried to add anything else it would splutter to a stop.

I tell you it might have been the smallest of the portable gas powered generators in the world but it certainly was the noisiest and we had to yell to talk to each other during dinner until we finally gave up, turned it off and went back to candlelight.

The next morning over coffee Joe told me that he was returning the smallest of the range of portable gas powered generators to the hire shop and he wanted to get one big enough for our needs and I pleaded with him to get one that didn’t make so much noise. The idea of living in the country was peace and quiet after all. He kissed me goodbye and headed off in his pick up.

A couple of hours later Joe returned with a big grin on his face, this time he had a much larger model from the family of portable gas powered generators and it took the two of us to lift it from the bed of the truck and onto the ground outside of the garage. I was much more hopeful about this generator and was excited when Joe pushed the button to turn it on. Nothing happened, zip, zilch and if it was running it was the quietest of the portable gas powered generators in the world. Joe assured me that it wasn’t running. He tinkered for a while and pronounced oil – like it was some magic word. He disappeared into his truck and when he returned later it was already dark (town is a long way away) and I had crawled into bed a bit defeated by the growing saga of the portable gas powered generators.

The next morning it still wouldn’t work, oil was not the magic word after all. I helped load the quietest of the portable gas powered generators back onto the pickup and watched Joe drive away. Deciding to be constructive not defeated I decided that I would use my energy to dig a vegetable garden. Joe came back a couple of hours later followed by a truck with a very large generator on the back – I could not even begin to see how this could have been considered as a part of the portable gas powered generators family. I looked at Joe and he looked at me and he told the truck to turn back.

I climbed into the passenger seat next to Joe, this time I was going with him something was going wrong when he went to look at portable gas powered generators and I wanted to find out what. We arrived at the hardware where Joe had been getting all of the portable gas powered generators from and a dear old man came out and greeted us. I said hi and he said heh? I said hi a little louder and he smiled and said heh again. I looked at Joe and he shrugged his shoulders, this man was totally deaf and it was going to take a while to explain to him what we needed in terms of portable gas powered generators. I needed something to give me strength. I climbed back into the cabin and looked at Joe. “Drink?” I said and he said Heh with a smile and drove us to the closest bar.