#25

I once helped a friend to install a clothesline in her backyard. It was one of those ones that has a central pole. To secure it, she wanted to dig a hole in the ground for a block, put the pole in the block, and then fill the hole with concrete. At the store it was suggested we buy “instant” concrete... basically a product where you add water and pour the mix from the bag. The instructions failed to mention—or maybe they mentioned, but failed to emphasize—how aggressively the product would expand once the water had been added. We managed to pour the amount we needed into the hole, but there was no way to confine the remaining product to the bag. Because we hadn’t made a contingency “dump the relentlessly expanding excess concrete here” plan, we had to abandon the bag on the lawn and stand well back as a temporary patio formed around it.