Crashing the gate. . .

Or at least trying to get it going again.

The other morning, I went out for a quick run and noticed that the front gate at the top of our driveway was a bit askance. It was early, I was in a hurry, and didn't pay it much attention.

When I returned from my run, Lucy informed me that the gate was indeed kerfuddled (to use a technical term).

We went up to investigate and sure enough, the doo-hickey was unhinged from the thing-a-ma-jigger (again, sorry for the technical language).

We hauled up a ladder and some tools, and finally got the doo-hickey hinged on the thing-a-ma-jigger.

Success!

Not.

The doo-hickey either was suffering from metal fatigue (or some jughead had rammed the gate) and had broken off from the thing-a-ma-jigger.

Long words short, we were hosed. We called Miguel, on Father's Day, no less, and he agreed to come out and check out the situation later that day. In the meantime, Lucy and I were forced to drive the ATV over the back roads to let guests in and out (forced being a nice way to say that we got to get our inner speed demons on on the back roads) to let folks in and out.

Now, being a tool- and mechanically-challenged fellow, my best guess was that someone had hit our gate and knocked it off the rails and hence the break in the doo-hickey.

I was right; though I didn't know what, exactly, to do about it. Miguel did, luckily, and within an hour (in between Gold Cup soccer matches) he had the doo-hickey welded back up to the thing-a-ma-jigger and the gate was working just fine.