Every so often, I change the CDs in my car's 12-disc changer. I've gotten in the habit of cruising through my collection in alphabetical order, picking two or three or four albums by the same artist as I go. So right now, I've got the Wrens, Neil Young, Young Fresh Fellows, Afghan Whigs and Alkaline Trio in there. It's a pretty good set. In fact, it's hard to imagine a better one, unless I managed an utterly cosmic Firewater-Woody Guthrie-Hurl-Iron Maiden-Jesus Lizard grouping.

The Whigs are playing something from Congregation as my friend Kevin and I are headed to the Lowe's for the second (or was it third?) time on Saturday, hoping once and for all to buy exactly what I needed to finish putting in my new kitchen counter. In theory, yesterday would be the day our new kitchen emerged in all its glory.

My theories don't hold up nearly as well as Newton's.

We started the day by ripping out the old sink. Took me about ten minutes to loosen the thing, and then Kevin and I wrestled it into the front yard. It's one of those massive cast-iron affairs, which is cool and all, but we decided to go in a different direction.

The old counter--which turned out to be a couple of 2x6s and a couple of 2x8s slapped together--came up just as easily. And, to my amazement, our 60-year-old plywood cabinets didn't fall in. In fact, they felt remarkably stable. It wasn't even eleven, and we were halfway home.

Sure. At that point, we went to Lowe's for the first time. I bought a copper pipe cutter (just a bitty little thing, only cost seven bucks), some copper fittings (the old fittings for the old sink would not work and had to be removed) and a propane blow torch. Fire, fire. Heh-heh.

I've never used a blow torch before, and neither had Kevin. He did cop to soldering a plant hanger back in metal shop, which gave him infinitely more experience than me. But this was my sink, and by God, I was going to do the burning.

And I did. I somehow managed to drip a large glob of molten solder onto the top knuckle of my left middle finger and also soldered a number of hairs on my left arm. That was cool. Unfortunately, my first attempts at fusing the new copper fittings to the pipes failed miserably. But after a strategy session with my wife Barbara, we did succeed on the third try. And we didn't even set the wall on fire. Much.

Then came the beast of the day: the counter. I needed to cut a notch in one end to make the thing fit around a door, and then I had to cut the hole for the sink. The guy at Lowe's said this would be a snap. And it might have been, if our sink was designed to fit in cabinetry as small as ours.

We knew we couldn't put in a double sink. No room. But after careful measurements, we thought we'd selected a sink that would fit in the limited space available. Turns out we misjudged by about a quarter of an inch.

But I didn't know that right away. So after another trip to Lowe's (to buy some assorted bits of wood, caulk, water connection hoses and other things I just can't remember), we commenced to cutting the counter. The notch was complicated; I needed to jigsaw through five different pieces, many of which were longer than the length of my blade (did I mention that the notch had to be cut through the backsplash?). But after using a jigsaw in ways I'm pretty sure it was never intended, the thing fit. Then, after a brief moment of reflection upon the cost of the counter, I bored a hole in the middle and began roughing out the sink hole.

The sink didn't fit. So I sawed some more.

The sink still didn't fit. So I jigged even more.

The sink fit in the hole, but then it hung up on some extraneous cabinetry supports. I sawed those out. The cabinet held. The sink still didn't fit.

I can't remember if there was a third trip to Lowe's or not. I just remember that it took forever to make the sink fit (mostly). Even with all possible cutting, it still sits about 3/16 of an inch above the counter. And it's going to stay there.

It was getting on eight o'clock, and Kevin was long past the call of duty for a friend helping out on a thankless task. We called the hole good and retired to my beer cellar, where I instructed him to take six beers. Any six beers.

And I meant it. I've got some damned fine beer down there (about ten of my homebrews and some 30-40 "professionals"), and I fully intended for him to go after my best.

He restrained himself, selecting two Anchor Christmas Ales (2002 and 2003 vintages) and four Bell's beers of various types. All wonderful brews, but also ones that I have in good supply. I encouraged Kevin to go for some of my rarer Belgian singles, but he wouldn't hear of it. That's okay. I'll pop him one the next time he's over. When I make the crab dip I promised but didn't deliver.

The kitchen isn't done. I did manage to get the sink working today (I'm still watching for leaks, though there haven't been any gushers). Then all we have to do is actually attach the counter to the cabinets (it's simply sitting on top of them now), repaint the lower cabinets (removing and replacing a counter tends to inflict damage), touch up on the walls, screw in thresholds over our new flooring, haul in the newly-repainted radiator, drag the refrigerator back into the kitchen, install the "new" pot rack I got for Christmas back in 2002 (we've been planning this renovation for some time) and put in new lighting. Oh, and maybe bring down the old wine rack we put away when Max started crawling. Then we can actually put all of our stuff back in the kitchen and use it once again.

So we're hoping to be finished by the end of 2005.

We've been working on the kitchen since the beginning of last November, and finally we're in the homestretch. Yesterday was a long day, but it would have been much longer without Kevin's help. And that of his wife Julie and their son Holden, both of whom managed to keep Max entertained most of the morning before retiring home for a well-deserved naptime. Only true friends would pitch in to such a frightening task as that we engaged yesterday. A six-pack of beer, no matter how precious, is hardly a just payment.

Jon Worley thinks a case of Delirium Tremens might be closer to the going rate for a day of hard kitchen labor.