I said "fix it up." Maybe I should have said "completely rebuild."

From a distance, in the twilight of evening, you can see there's a heap o' building there. Closer up with better light you can see there's pieces of rusty corrugated metal pretending to be something with structural integrity. I don't know if the blown leaves are the only reason I can't see holes in the roof. I've heard Oklahoma is in Tornado Alley, but that makes me wonder where this shed was hiding when one blew through.

I think the siding is steel. We can't patch or replace steel yet because we haven't worked out how to make steel. Iron we have aplenty, but our steel recipe requires bomb ash, and   ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶  I am not aware of the presence on Earth of the fiery and occasionally explosive gasbag creature known in Eorzea as a bomb.

But bomb ash is one of the creature drops that in Eorzea can be mined...I guess they're a type of fossil. So we might be able to find bomb ash in the same sort of clime that it's found in in Eorzea. Which around here might mean the Oklahoma panhandle, also known as the home of Black Mesa, the Oklahoma badlands and the epicenter of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. A pretty miserable spot, but then so's the Sagolii Desert in Southern Thanalan.

Bit of a drive. Not a common bus route. Poor camping prospects.

So. Derelict cars. Desynthesize the parts for steel. Maybe make a deal with junkyards to do metal reclamation. Probably more rust than metal out in the wild, but as long as there's some and it's free it's still a gain.

Or we can just redo the whole shed in wood. Tsu'na thought I wanted the shed for projects...at this rate the shed is the project.

I headed into the Pit to tell Sam what I had in mind, but he had something to tell me. "Hey...Your wife ain't a heavy drinker, is she?"

"Uh...far as I know that cider was like the second drink she's ever had. Why?"

"She came and got a couple bottles and left. Weren't for the two of you?"

I had no idea what her lead might have been that I needed to follow. I tried anyway. "Might be. I'm headed home anyway. Thanks."

She was indeed at the Hartman place, curled up on her side on the couch in her White Mage gear, her staff lying next to her. Her eyes tracked me as I came in, but she didn't move.

"You okay, my love?"

"I am trying to not vomit."

I noticed two empty cider bottles on the coffee table. 'You've been drinking?"

"I wanted to see if I could cure being drunk."

"Oh. That makes sense. And?"

"An antidote works. Esuna does not."

"Heh. Yeah, Esuna only clears one status effect, but alcohol is like morbol breath...you've got three or four status effects at once. Plus, if there's any left in your stomach you'll just get drunk again."

"Water slowed it down."

"Food slows it more. But still, once you drink it you're committed." I settled next to her on the couch and stroked her back. "Sam was worried about you."

"I saw that. Why?"

"He's an alcohol professional, and drinking by yourself is a bad sign. New research task: look up alcoholism."

She squinted up at me. "Is that a social movement?"

"Heh. Not in the sense you mean. No, alcohol is addictive if you drink too much of it too often. Some of that's physical, some is emotional."

"Yet people find it fun."

"Yeah. Some do."

"How can they drink enough? One bottle made me ill."

"You get used to it, a little at a time. You build up a tolerance."

"Do I need to?"

"Might be a good idea for social situations. But there are people who never drink at all. Whatever you prefer."

"I will think about it." She closed her eyes. "Carry me to bed again, please."

I didn't tell her it would be way too easy to get used to doing that.