Painting with Tyson

This post should probably be titled "Sanding with Tyson" or "How to catch a fly with a vacuum cleaner", but we did some painting too, so it's "Painting with Tyson".
The old house is in bad need of a paint job inside. After a blessing and some medication, I'm starting to feel human again. So, tonight Tyson and I went to the old house to paint some. There's still a lot of prep work to do so I spent the first half of the night putting mud on all the holes and gouges in the walls. Tyson got real familiar with my new battery powered drill. (The next blog entry). He took off the remaining plug and switch plates.
When he was done with that I had him start sanding some of the spots that I had done earlier. Two notable spots were the big open holes under the shower and bath plumbing from the bathrooms upstairs. We had fixed the leaks, but never, until now, actually patched the holes. It was difficult to sand them because they are on the ceiling, so you're looking up into the spot where you're sanding and all the dust comes down in your face. Mud dust doesn't taste very good and it's murder on your new hairdo.
Anyway, I came in and Tyson was covered with white dust. He said he'd be perfect as a ghost for halloween. I told him to go get the big shop vacuum upstairs and run that while he was sanding and it would filter the air a bit.
Next thing I see is Tyson vacuuming with one hand and sanding with the other. Not something one can easily visualize, but once you do, prepare for a gut buster. Picture a guy, up on a ladder, holding a big black vacuum tube in one hand, while trying to sand the ceiling with the other...
So, I thought I'd spell Tyson a bit and started sanding myself. Tyson held the vacuum tube up while I sanded. It actually worked pretty well until we saw the fly...
Of course, what does a 15 year old do when he's holding a vacuum tube that could suck the skin off your bones and a fly happens by? Why of course, he tries to vacuum the fly in. After a few minutes of him trying to catch the fly with the vacuum and me trying to sand, what does a mature and experienced father say?
I grab the hose and say "Here son, I'll get 'im!". I was sure I could do better. We spent another minute or two trying to suck the fly into the vacuum.
"Put it right there, he'll fly right into it"
"Wait, here he comes!"
"Get im!"
Ultimately, the fly won and we went back to the drudgery of sanding the ceiling and painting.