A Vengeful Nemesis Lurks Below + Mystery Ingredient

Required Starting Materials

1. An old kitchen
2. No tools, save a girly car kit (because so-and-so will bring all the crowbars, sawsalls, everything)
3. No dust mask
4. Safety glasses, duh
   

Prep Work

You dutifully turn the water shut off valves, then find the solitary small crescent wrench. The wrench will only remove the water supply lines from the shut off valves because the wrench is too small for the end attached to the sink. Your Norm-Abram-Intuition hints that this is not the best idea, but you proceed. True to form, the shut off valves have fulfilled their duty of not completely shutting off, and water leaks from one and sprays from the other. You reattach the supply hose to the valves and pointlessly try to find another wrench large enough to remove the end attached to the sink. Naturally you do this so you can perch the ends of the hose over a trash can to collect the dripping water until the new pluming is in.

There is of course no bigger wrench so you do what any hangry person would do and reach for the remaining kitchen knife and hastily slice the hoses up near the sink. Slicing the second one, you realize, wow, this is quite a bit of water spraying all over your face and crotch. Your instincts kick in again and you quickly kink the thick plastic, stemming the spray. Fortunately there remains a roll of packing tape on the desolate counter top within arms reach as you pinch the slippery kinked hose. With only one had to spare you bite down on the end of the tape roll and pull back on the dispenser to get enough tape to wrap the kinked end of hose. After you've managed to cut the tape and remove a large chunk of your chapped lips you realize that when wet, packing tape is rendered instantly useless. You make a quick calculation (based on what room below is about to sustain some ceiling damage) that it's better to let some water slide down than remove another layer of skin from your now bleeding lips. You happily discover that enough wet packing tape can be used as a primitive twine to hold a kinked water supply hose. Cut, kinked and dripping ends are placed over a trash can to fill.

Stall more by removing sundries such as paper towel racks and light fixtures that you know should be left on the soon-to-be-obliterated cabinets on their way to the dump. Finally go get your own dang tools that you knew you should have brought in the first place.

The Demolition

1. Wield crowbar.
2. Remove kitchen.
3. Feel remorse for tearing out such stout craftsmanship (hundreds of hand-nailed 3-4 inch nails holding the solid wood cabinets together).
4. Inhale unholy amounts of horrible dust and insulation.

The Floor

The entire time you've been prepping for and executing the demolition, dread has been building for the floor removal. First, ensure that the floor is created of the following layers.

The Layers:

1. Ceramic tile
   
2. Quarter-inch ply
3. Linoleum
   
4. Quarter inch ply

The Plan:

1. Insert crowbar
2. Remove floor "...in big chunks -- when we get under that bottom ply, it'll come right up..."

With the third hammer of a finishing crowbar you have a sudden realization about that little line on the estimate entitled "demolition", and how good of a deal it would have been. After 10 sweat-filled minutes of earplugless-sledgehammer-on-crowbar nastiness, having removed a noteworthy 3-4 square inches, you realize this isn't going to come up in three or four giant chunks.

The Discovery (aka, The Real Layers)

1. Nigh-indestructible ceramic tile from the 60s(?).
2. Mortar
3. Quarter-inch ply, screwed down every 4-5 inches
4. Glue
5. Linoleum
6. Glue
7. Quarter inch ply (?) nailed down every 5-6 inches
8. Subfloor, soon to be removed of its structural integrity

Kneeling, sans knee-pads dodging the pincushion of nails and screws trying to work their way into your patella, you realize that you are in for one hell of an afternoon. Potential excuses race through your clouded mind. These pathetic ideas make no sense ("...sick kid? -- I don't even have a kid?!") due to the low blood sugar. You foolishly decide to proceed by harnessing the escalating hanger and channeling it through the jimmy bar like a lightning rod at your new nemesis.

Each inch of progress you fight with your entire body, wrenching the crowbar with all your might. Dust collects on the sweat-covered-dust that covers your body. Minutes pass as you slowly uproot the detestable floor. While unsure of the time, it seems about 30 minutes have passed and two of you have removed one row of tile.

One. Row.

You miraculously resist the urge to run any calculations based on the remaining rows in the kitchen, which once seemed so tiny, now mentally transformed into a near infinite plane of black-and-white-checkered splintering torture. The fury continues as crowbars are pounded between the layers of this nightmare lasagna.

Note: To add to the fun of this process, ensure you have a fridge and stove, which by some Douglas-Adamsian travesty of space and time will not fit through either exit of the kitchen. These of course must be moved around so you can remove the floor under them. Ergo, you must unfurl destruction within the confines of a tetris game closing in on you, the worry of damaging pristine appliances with one errant swing of the sledge-wielding wrist ever present. Carry on.

You think maybe a different approach is in order so you wield Vinny (the sledgehammer) with retribution on the tile. This deafening deluge of rage obliterates rows of tile, leaving the dust-filled air with the smell of flint. Surely having the tile gone will help, you think to yourself. At first it seems that by having the tile removed the death plys come up with less brutality, but upon further rumination, there is really no difference save that the satisfaction of destroying the tile provides an intermittent break between the real torture of crowbar-ing.

You end up with three crowbars to share between two people, one actually large enough to provide enough leverage to be somewhat beneficial. The other two smallish prybars, useless against this foe, end up only used by the person not employing the hefty one as an unspoken empathy device as if to communicate "brother, I feel your pain and I'm right here with you." You simply put in your time with the useless ones attempting to appear as if progress is being made until the other person casts down the good one in disgust. You take your turn slamming the bar under the plys, more often than not having your nerves electrified and hands walloped as you hit with full force an unseen nail or screw rather than delivering the blow to the actual ply. You simultaneously curse the builders and feel the guilt you'll have caused future remodelers as you think of subfloor you've layed with a similar amount of screws. The work is punishingly slow and requires more strength than you contain. When rarely you have a non-nail hit, you pry with all the strength in your body with the expectation that surely, this time a bigger chunk will loosen. You are however unsurprised as either the ply splinters or subfloor cracks, plys intact.

As the turns progress with the unspoken agreement, the rare instance of a reasonable size piece begins to lift. Reasonable that is, compared to a pocketful of slivers. You lunge for the cresting chunk grabbing, wrenching and gyrating with full body force as the other prys from below. Naturally you end up on your back in a pile of tile shards, slivers penetrating the new holes in your gloves, but triumphant as a you hold a 9 inch fragment of the scourge.

You marvel at the mystery of how when converting a floor to shrapnel, the largest pieces no more than a few inches across, the energy, effort and muscle required is so vast and unexpected. As you try to daydream yourself out of this backbreaking existence, you begin to appreciate the true atomic strength of materials. You even think that Dante might have missed a circle.

Epilogue, A Time for Heros

The best part of the ordeal? You just spent hours hunched over writhing with crowbars on the ground, your back to a crowd of girly-girl onlookers, both friends and strangers. You arrive home exhausted and coughing like a 50-pack-year-smoker, a triumphant warrior of perseverance. You have done the impossible. As you strip for the much needed shower the herculean pride you deservedly feel vanishes as you discover the final mystery ingredient of this story:

A 10-12 inch crotch-to-belt split right in the butt what formerly qualified as pants.