Tradesmen

With tradesmen on the job the world is your basement.

“I assume I shall be required to use the tradesmen's entrance?”

~ Oscar Wilde

“In the beginning there was the Heavens and Earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. Then the fuse box blew and left God in quite the shits.”

~ Genesis 1:1

Without tradesmen this is about where history would have concluded, leaving only enough material to bore high school students for half a lesson.

However, as it happened God remembered the number of the local electrician and as it was late... or early... - it's very hard to tell these things when existence doesn't exist - God simply thought bugger it and hired a bunch of men named Barry in an unregistered van to make the land and sea and all the plants and creatures that dwelleth upon it. God just made up the creation thing to impress the girlfriend with his DIY skills.

Ever since then tradesmen have been stepping in to plug the gaps in history left by the inabilities of common man, all for an exorbitant hourly rate and a few stale meat pies.

The pyramids? Tradesmen. Mayan temples? Tradesmen. Barak Obama's election? Wait no that was Aliens.

Tradesmen in History

Most people these days dismiss tradesmen as the people they call when they have a problem who aren't hitmen, yet behind every great moment in history there is a tradesman scratching his ass and muttering about washers.

Prehistory

The first few billion years were hard for tradesmen as neither molten sulfur vents nor single celled organisms had any desire for a door to be fixed and subsequently rebroken. This trend continued throughout the Paleozoic, the only recorded job coming from a senile old trilobite who complained that the sink in the basement had leaked and flooded the earth in a shallow sea. The tradesman at call noted that he'd have the replacement ice age shipped in by next geologic era.

The Mesozoic was no improvement either as dinosaurs, being the cold skinned conservative voters they were, insisted they could fix every problem that confronted them, so long as those damn unionists didn't bring their Trotskyite mumbo-jumbo onto their hard earned patch of dirt and leaves. Luckily for tradesmen, when the asteroid came the dinosaurs figured that atop a ladder, armed with some store bought filler and upper-middle Cretaceous sensibilities, a few squirts would fix it.

Human History

The advent of mankind was a particular boon for tradesmen. Never before had there been a creature so adept at realizing how poor their surroundings were and attempting modifying them. Or as useless at fitting door handles.

The first jobs usually consisted of plugging gaps in cave roofs with excrement, not to prevent leaks but simply because humans like to watch people smearing poo. Gradually humans began to realize how important tradesmen were and tradesmen began to realize how gullible humans were; with the popularization of fire tradesmen were called to light a new fire every time it went out, only asking payment of a first born child. Soon after the Neanderthal died out, but that's what you get for not being tall enough to fix the leaking roof.

Thus human civilization continued unabated in this vein; whereby every so often a great man would have an idea and hire some tradesmen to follow through with this idea and eventually that great man or his decedents would become stingy and a washer would fall off and some Mongols would get in and ruin everything, then the cycle would start over.

Sects of Tradesmen

Particular respect is given to Jehovah's Witnesses who, collectively, provide large amounts of business installing door bells. Apparently they don't like strangers knocking on their door and asking questions.

Rituals of Tradesmen

Tradesmen do not follow a specific religion per say however they do perform a significant number of customs in order to ensure the success of the job.

Future of Tradesmen

As long as there are human beings there will be tradesmen. Even if humans are wiped out by an army of robot zombies with a yearning for internal plumbing there will be tradesmen. Unless we lose the recipe for meat pies. Then we're screwed.