building stretchers for 9 foot canvases

today i carried on the labor of building stretchers which i had started last weekend. it was a pretty nice Saturday last weekend and i knew that i was going to have to take that huge piece of canvas down and put it on three smaller stretchers so i can really get to work. the task was going to begin with a trip to homedepot to get wood. i went to the homedepot close to where we live and they didn't have a way to cut the wood that i was figuring i needed but they informed me that any of the other homedepot stores in town could do the job. so i went home and found the one neares my school. about an hour later i was there realizing that it was going to be very hard to get the lumber i needed to the school by way of the bus and train. my first thought was to have the lumber delivered... "that will cost $60" i was told, so back to thinking about the prospect of carrying 6 ten foot 2x6s and a 4x8 sheet of plywood. soon i was approached by an older Mexican gentleman with very broken English who told me that i could rent a truck for $20. now that sounded like a superb idea! i could just stack all my wood into the bed of the truck and drive it over to the school real quick! so i went over to the rental area and waited for someone to come help me. when the homedepot associate arrived i asked how long she thought it would take me to drive the lumber to the school (because the truck rental was for just one hour), she seemed to think that the mile and half i had to drive would be no problem. next she asked for my license and proof of insurance. well, since selling our cars we don't have car insurance any more so that ruined the rental idea! back to the bus idea again... soon my helpful older Mexican friend was back asking if everything was taken care of, and when i told him it wasn't he offered one last solution: there was a man out in front of the store that could drive me for a fee. so i went out front and haggled with a black man over how much to pay him to drive me and my lumber to the school. he started at $60 and we negotiated down to $35. finally i arrived at the school with the wood i needed and began the process of hauling it all into school and into the woodshop. after an hour an half of working with the crooked wood i bought (even after searching through the pile while at the store i still ended up with not very straight wood (mostly crooked because it was cheep)) i finally stopped for the day and went home. i'm a little closer to being ready to stretch canvas now!