Schrag Family Yields More Education Than College

I try to lead a busy life. I don’t like to sit still for very long. I want to be on the go. If I’m not moving, I might as well be dead. I . . . well, you get the idea.

Therefore, my weekends generally are chock full of events.

Most of the time it involves either covering happenings for The Ledger, or spending time with my family.

This past Saturday was a mix of the two.

In the morning I ventured over to Keith Schrag’s building to observe the gentleman of Triple D Flooring lay carpet in the back portion of the building, which is going to house Cindy Bartell’s Path Finders Physical Therapy and Consulting.

Triple D Flooring’s DaWayne Stos spreads carpet glue while Dave Stos prepares to stick the carpet down Saturday morning at Path Finders Physical Therapy and Consulting, 135 S. Christian in Moundridge.

Triple D Flooring is owned and operated by Dave Stos, of Galva. His son DaWayne Stos, of Newton, also helps.

I grew up with DaWayne and have subsequently known Dave for nearly my entire life.

DaWayne Stos spreads glue before sticking the carpet down. Wait. Is that a plumber’s crack? I thought he was a flooring guy . . .

Dave Stos trims the carpet to get it to fit just right. I guess this takes the term “cutting a rug” to a whole new meaning, eh?

They are friends, so I saw this as a chance to not only get some content for the paper, but also see some friends.

DaWayne and Dave Stos do . . . something. I don’t know what is going on, but they seem to be enjoying it.

I spent the afternoon taking pictures, shooting video and just chatting.

And then it happened.

I realized I was learning things about laying flooring.

This isn’t to say I could go do it myself, but I did learn some very valuable and poignant pieces of knowledge.

For example, do you know what the most important rule, The Golden Rule, or flooring is?

I do.

The Golden Rule is “don’t ever bleed on the rug.”

If you cut yourself, that’s not good and it will be dealt with, but the first priority is get off of the carpet you are laying so you don’t ruin it.

Don’t be mesmerized by the ruby color of your blood. It always looks that way. If you want to admire it, do so somewhere other than on the rug.

You will be taken care of in whatever manners the wound necessitates, but just don’t make a mess on the fine work you just accomplished.

Also, don’t touch the boss’s trowel or take knives from his tool pouch. He frowns upon that.

I also watched how much craftsmanship goes into what they do.

Everything from gluing the carpet down to making the stairs look right requires a lot of skill, and I was quite impressed, especially with how I couldn’t even tell where the seams in the carpet were after they were totally finished.

It was great work and great fun, and it was something I normally wouldn’t have seen because I wouldn’t have wanted to bother them while they were working. However, I found a news angle I could exploit, and I’m glad I did.

Thanks to Keith owning the building and more businesses coming to town, I got the opportunity to learn something.

I would have thought that was all the learning I was going to get in that day, but then I went to a sports bar in Newton with DaWayne, who along with the other gentleman were waiting for their wives and girlfriends to finish a jewelry party.

The party was hosted at the home of Rondell and Rachel Burge. Rachel is Keith’s daughter.

After the jewelry party was over, I went over there with DaWayne and the others.

We were all chatting, and it was fine. I was discussing thoughts of shaving my head when Rachel’s sister and Keith’s other daughter, Taylor Schrag, made a comment about my eyebrows.

Now I knew they needed cleaned up a bit, but I was shocked to hear it come from her mouth.

I explained that I hadn’t had them waxed in a while, but I planned on doing so soon.

Taylor persisted and before I knew it she had a pair of tweezers and was going to town on my eyebrows.

This is where the education kicked in.

The waxing always hurt a little, but it was quick. And I have used tweezers to take care of my own uni-brow, so I was prepared for that part of the plucking.

I was not, however, prepared for the excruciating pain involved with plucking eyebrow hairs that aren’t in the uni-brow region.

Wow.

I don’t think I stopped crying.

Others in the room, which included Rachel, Rondell, DaWayne and Britney Stos, said you could hear the hairs popping out of my flesh as Taylor yanked them from my face.

At least she only “accidentally” grabbed my skin a few times. There wasn’t a lot of blood.

The end result was a set of eyebrows I could once again be proud of.

As seems to be the theme of my weekend, a Schrag taught me a very valuable lesson: don’t use tweezers to clean up your eyebrows because it really hurts.

I’m going to stick to waxing in the future, but it is nice to know that if I get in dire need to an eyebrow shaping, I have a place to go in a pinch.

I was a strange weekend for me, and, without going into the details, most of the strangeness centered on my time with Taylor and the rest of the gang.

Now I have the coming weekend to look forward to.

You know, the Wichita State University Shocker baseball team has its home opener this weekend.

Baseball is my favorite sport, so perhaps I will be heading to Wichita this weekend . . .

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