Grade A1 Super Heavy Duty Industrial 4' Ladder

So today I had one of those moments I'll never forget. Those kind of moments typically fall into one of two categories, 1) victories that are assured to become the stuff of legend 5 years down the road or 2) brutal and pitiful humiliations that haunt you for the rest of your life. I had one of the latter this afternoon.

So, I'm running all over town looking to pick up a few odds and ends for the wedding that I'm shooting this weekend, mostly tissue to clean up the bride, a ton of batteries for the flash and ... a ladder. Yep, a ladder. For nothing is so handy for getting those unique perspectives (i.e not straight on) like a ladder. That is, unless you happen to have a liquid hydrogen fueled jet-pack; but I do not have such a jet-pack.

Right, the ladder. OK, so I'm wandering Aisle 3 of Home Depot browsing the "ladder offerings" if you will, and deciding if I should go for a two foot version or the three foot, in classy brushed aluminum finish or irradiated banana yellow. My eyes spot a smart little four footer and, hefting its ultra light two kilo weight, I'm sold. But wait, what's THIS? "Grade 3: 200 lb load capacity"? But I'm...um...OK, that isn't going to work cause unless my camera has an "antigravity mode" feature buried in the menu somewhere, I'm SOL. OK, move on down the line...oh, here we are, "Grade 2: 225 lb load capacity". Uhhhh...YAH...no good. I guess its straight up to the "Grade 1" version, much to my embarrassment. But NO! "Grade 1: 250 lb capacity". WTF?!?!?!?!?! How is it possible that there are not industrial ladders engineered to bear my weight? Well, as it turns out, there is something even stronger than the Grade 1 ladder and that puppy goes by the very-presumptuous title of "Grade 1A: Super Heavy Duty Industrial". And, it only comes in irradiated banana yellow. I'm sure its a bragging point on a construction site, but it's hardly inconspicuous in a reception hall. In fact, there isn't even a grey aluminum option which makes me think that its specifically designed to say "HOLY CRAP LOOK AT THE LARDA*S!" Surprisingly it IS possible to feel embarrassment at having one's ladder-purchasing options limited in such a manner. Much like one may feel marginalized shopping in the "Extra sizes" section of a clothing store, so might the same individual feel marginalized shopping in the fatties-only section of Home Depot.

So, today's moment of abject humiliation debuts at number 2 on the "Chief's Chart of All-Time Humiliations", right up there behind the little ditty that has held down the number one spot for 624 straight weeks. FLASHBACK, MAY 1995, MIDLAND: A damaged youth of 21 years is sitting at a computer putting the finishing touches on the first engineering report of his year-long internship at IRDI. He's just put the title and author information using this, the first graphical version of Microsoft Word and, hitting the F7 (Spell Check)key is dumbfounded when the first thing that comes up is "Overwater not found in dictionary. Replace with 'Overweight?'". Enraged at this petulant piece of productivity software, he grabs the 30kg 22" screen with both hands and...nearly has a hernia. Luckily, I chose to be a bigger man that day. Ironically, being a "bigger man" is why I find myself in the afore-mentioned predicament. It will be a while before numero uno falls, I think. :D