But he did drive away…

Sometimes it's hard to believe I've had this job for a whole year. It really has turned out to be a great fit for me; I have only one tiny complaint, but I'm sure that situation won't last much longer, so I won't get into it here. (Dude, I know what "Dee-Oh-Oh-See-Eee-Dee" means.)

I move trailers, and I work alone. Not a hundred percent alone; I pick them up and drop them off at staffed locations, and I sometimes encounter folks who want to "be helpers," but mostly, I work alone, and it seems to work quite well for me. I climb into the truck at 7:30 AM, I start a little earlier than the aforementioned staff; so usually at least once a day, I get to pick up my first one before anyone else arrives to start their workday.

As I've grown more experienced, gotten more practice at what I do, I've been less worn-out and grunged-over at the end of the day -- I don't get home dying to get in the shower every day like I did those first few weeks, and it's nice to be able to just take a shower in the morning because I feel better through the day that way. Sometimes on Saturdays, I'm a little less up-tight about that whole morning shower thing. Like I said, I work alone. Heh. Sometimes on Saturdays, I just get out of bed, put my bra, jeans, and shoes back on, and stumble out the door to grab breakfast on the way in; then I work the day thinking about how great it'll be to take a shower and go out to dinner with clean hair…

That's pretty much what I did last weekend; I came home Friday night still looking decent enough to go have dinner. I got up Saturday morning and went back to work with previous-day-hair and clothes, something I certainly wouldn't do if I were working in an office or going anywhere near "out in ordinary public." For what it's worth, I don't usually smell bad at the end of the first day, but at the end of the second, hoo-boy…

Anyway, the incident I can't get out of my mind happened early on a Saturday morning, so I wasn't smelly yet.

I'm almost always alone in my high-ridin' three-quarter-ton pickup, in the morning (or sometimes the night before), I get a list of places that need trailers. I show up with an empty one, find a place to park it, and unhook from it. Then I back the truck up to the full trailer; often I can get it lined up in one or two tries, sometimes I have to move the truck just a little tiny bit more to get the ball under the trailer. Even though this truck sits much higher off the ground than the half-ton I learned with, I can still feel where it needs to go, I can still keep my left foot on the ground and use my right one to work the pedals, right hand on the wheel, left hand securely on the door handle so I don't wipeout and end up on the ground if something slips or goes wrong. Nothing has gone wrong yet, with God's Grace, even though I can't sit my right hip in the seat like I did with the old Ford back in the day. After I hook onto the full trailer, I pull it away from its spot and find a place to park it, unhook, move the truck, hook the empty trailer back on, back it into the spot where the full one was, then unhook, re-hook to the full one, and haul it away.

So, among those trailer parking steps, which are less than important to this story, I was backing the ball of the truck under the hitch of the full trailer when I saw a red Monte Carlo pull into the parking lot across the street. I don't remember exactly what the business is, but it's a big metal building with a gravel lot next to a big power station, probably manufacturing of some sort, and there were not any workers there at seven-something on a Saturday morning. He drove in there at about the moment I had stopped the truck to get out and see if I'd landed in the right spot on the first try, I was in the driver's seat facing that direction with the car off to my right just a little ways, so I watched for a minute, kinda like an "alert neighbor," because the business was not open. The car stopped, the trunk popped, and the driver's door swung open. I'm not entirely sure what year the red Monte Carlo was, but it was the newer bodystyle, the front-wheel-drive variety of the last few years, not the dirt racin' kind. It had pulled straight in, with the taillights facing me, and a guy got out. He was one of those guys who's probably a small or medium, but he's wearing a 3X white T-shirt with basketball shorts and tall white socks and those velcro slides like for taking showers in places where you're scared to put your bare feet. I watched him get out and go to the trunk, he flipped a green bag over, it kinda looked like one of those enviro-friendly reusable grocery bags. He rooted around in the trunk a little more, then closed it.

I thought through a few situations where maybe I should've been a little more suspicious; the boyfriend who "met someone," the friend who asked me for a "payday loan" in spite of making about five times the money I do, the salesman who reached for my hands and arms way too many times… I got out of my truck and dashed back to peek at the ball and hitch, it wasn't quite there yet, so I backed the truck up just a bit. As i put it in park, he was walking toward me. Out of the parking lot, across a four-lane, undivided street, through the gate, down the driveway, and up to my truck. I wondered if maybe I should've stayed inside and locked the doors.

Whups.

I keep a hunting knife between my seat and the console in the Mark VIII. I keep the lugwrench under my seat in the SHO. In the seat of my work truck, eh, I have two phones and that's about it. I can't use my iPhone with my work gloves on, and I'm not gonna let some jerk have a chance at stealing my iPhone anyway. I grabbed my work phone (remember flip phones?) and decide not to punch in 9-1-1 just yet; I figured I'd just be ready to flip it open. My eyes landed on the handle of the rake behind my toolbox, so I tossed the phone to my left hand and made sure my right hand landed on the rake. Not a leaf rake, but a more serious steel rake, like for gravel or heavier stuff like that.

He said the car ran out of gas and asked if I had a gas can.

I have a gas can, filled from the City's pumps, but something just seemed suspicious. I lied. "Nah man, sorry, just the ol' work truck, I don't have anything but the trailer tools." Something about the whole deal just didn't feel right.

In all honesty, I only entertain vivid fantasies of beating wrongdoers to bloody near-death; even when I have weight advantage, I most likely don't have any real skills. I'm probably not worth a shit in a scrap, except that I could most likely really keep that rake moving and spinning fast enough to keep somebody away from the sharp parts and therefore away from me. Where it'd go from there, I really don't know, but there I was, he walked up and found me behind a half-open truck door, phone in one hand, rake handle in the other, yesterday's hair may have been a little wild, and yesterday's jeans probably showed the roughness of shoving trailers that last inch or two with my knees. I am not a small woman, but I hope to think I wear it well, I carry enough weight to grab the tongue of the trailer and lean back and make it scoot over a couple inches to land on the ball. I am not exactly "stacked," I'm more of a "sturdy." I've fought hard for every crumb of self-confidence I've got, I know deep-down that I am really only "cute" to a limited target audience.

I'll never know why he stopped and dug in the trunk or why he walked all that way across that wide street to approach me, but I do know that his car was not out of gas.

After I didn't produce a gas can, he went right back across the street, jogging in those stupid velcro slides. He got in the car, drove away, and was gone.

I have no idea what just happened. Did I foil a robbery attempt? There's no cash handled at any of these worksites, unless the folks who work there are holdin' a little lunch money. There's no cash in the truck except for my own purse, which I left locked in the trunk of my car the first few weeks I had this job. Could he have been looking to see what might be easily stolen, now or later on? Could it have been a rape situation? Am I that visibly female across four lanes of street and through a yard and over to the other side of a truck? Did I maybe "not look that enticing" once he got over there close enough to see me? Did he abandon whichever idea because I am butch enough to kick his ass? Any of those ideas might seem mean-spirited because I don't know why he came over to me, but I do know that he damn sure did not need a gas can, 'cause he drove away as soon as he walked back over there and closed the car door!

I still love my job, but I think I'll start putting that hunting knife in my bag so it stays in the truck with me instead of leaving it in my car.

Notes From A New Job.

So, a while back, I wrote (eh, vaguely) about a big change.

I also covered an old story and a thrilling moment with the trailer.

In the month or so since, I guess you might say another big change took place.

After I'd heard the words "prollyoughta look for a job," way too many times, I put in a couple applications. Prollyoughta, that's one of those Oklahoma words, like "y'uns." Don't look at me like that, this blog and F@ceBook are the only places I actually use those Oklahoma words in type.

I'd applied for a couple jobs that sounded interesting, but I can't say I was being real serious about the hunt. I didn't hear anything back and none of the people I'd given as references heard anything either. Then one day, I got a phone call from this friend of mine… Probably the best friend I've had as an adult, and certainly the closest guy friend I've got who's never seen any part of me nekkid. (Heh, there's another Oklahoma word.) He was the first person to hand me an iPod to play with, he showed me the magic of microwaved peanut butter as a dessert topping, he made me cry with emailed pictures of brand-new babies, and he taught me how to order my dinner at Taco Bueno, as in "say these exact words," so that I get a whole entire box of just what I want, and it's so good, he'd about as well be a Jedi.

Find your people, you need a friend like that!

So, he calls me with this job offer, and first, I panic and say I need to talk it over with my Mom and Clay… As soon as I hang up, I start thinkin' I'll go for it… I was scared shitless, but I decided to go for it. I wouldn't have had the balls to try something like that from a want ad or a CL post, but since my name had already been mentioned as having experience, I went for it.

It involves moving trailers. It's three ten-hour days. It works out to more money than I was making in the ol' salvage biz.

It's only three days a week.

I get a comfy seat with AC and heat, and I pick the radio station. No retail public. No phones.

No more calling tech support then answering questions about the p@rn on the office PC. No more sharing a bathroom with Teh P@rnhunter.

Those first couple days, I was kinda worried; but it's been getting easier and easier as time goes by.

My trailer-backin' skills are gettin' better and better, like within inches. The in-traffic people-watching that comes with a couple hundred miles a day is incredible.

I already got a raise.

It's pretty freakin' schweeet!

_\,,/

Psychic Powers.

I've joked about bein' psychic before, and deep down, I know it's bullshit, but…

A couple weeks ago, the neighbor kid crashed his Ford Explorer on the way home from Owasso. Someone ran a stop sign, he tried his best and managed to slow down a good bit, but he didn't quite miss 'em. Thankfully, nobody got hurt and the owner of the other car had good insurance, which provided a rental car and hauled the almost-driveable Ford Explorer away to a storage facility "while they decide which way to go." I'm not here to bitch about insurance companies, but we're talkin' about a highschool kid who was makin' payments on a cheap-but-decent older-ish Ford Explorer -- it wasn't a new car, but it was reliable and he liked it and it really wasn't crashed all that hard.

We were all standin' around at work talkin' about it Wednesday afternoon, 'cause he'd called us to ask about the place where they'd towed his Explorer. Oh, That Other Auction Company, the one we don't use. We have an account with one of the local insurance auctions, it's where I got the limo, which has led to my habit of checking the listings every few days or so. I look through That Other Auction Company's listings once in a while, but I don't have a habit of it 'cause I know I can't log in and bid, so there's really no point.

The auction company that we use has their website set up where users can search for specific vehicles, and if a given car is on the property, it shows in the inventory -- if it's ready to sell, it'll show an auction date and location, if it's not, it'll show a reason why, something like "hold" or "need title" or whatever. Apparently That Auction Company That We Don't Use doesn't work that way, they only show the cars that are ready to sell. I had hoped to get a look at the Explorer just to see how bad it was damaged just because it didn't really seem like the insurance company was giving the kid a fair deal… I didn't have any luck, but I did end up skimming through a few listings. After I'd checked out a few trucks and looked through all the Towncars, DeVilles, and Fleetwoods just to see if there were any hearses in the bunch, I clicked the little button with the calendar on it and scrolled down to the Tulsa list.

Their auction in Tulsa was on Friday, and the list was set up a lot like the other auction company -- list of cars, thumbnail photo on the left side. I looked through a few cars and trucks, just clicking the ones that looked interesting for whichever reason. I guess I was about a quarter of the way through the list of a couple hundred cars when the though hit me: I wonder what ever came of the car that Kenny & Debbie crashed over here on West 61st Street… I figured I'd finish looking through the rest of the sale listing and then search for Toyota Solaras just to see if it turned up, ya know, unless I got distracted with the phones or something and forgot.

A little further down the list, there was a blue Toyota Solara with a junk title and a biohazard flag.

Oh shit. There's that sick, sad feeling, just like when that "Estate Sale" sign turned up on the corner at 61st & Union.

Now, when I used to see 'em every once in a while, they had a white minivan and a couple burgundy cars. I never saw the Toyota except the little bit of silvery blue that could be seen in the spill of the firetrucks' lights on the television news…

I grew up in the salvage business, I've seen a lot of crashed cars. I've seen some really really bad ones where somebody shows up asking if they can get their stuff out of the car -- even when the cars have the unholy shit knocked out of 'em, I guess I just always harbor the hope that the people might've made it out alright somehow. I'm sure we've had several that nobody walked away from; but there's always that chance, 'cause we really never know, we don't get any backstory unless we buy it from a family member. With auction cars, anything could've happened; driver thrown clear by the impact, car unoccupied at time of impact, who knows, there's always a chance somebody made it out of a really bad one. I walked (eh, stumbled) away from Ford Truck that looked like nobody got out, it can happen, so there's no way to tell.

When we can know what happened, that makes it completely different.

When belonged to someone we know, that also makes a big difference.

Even without a definite identification on the car, it was a silvery blue Toyota Solara, it was hit really hard, potential fatality hard, and it had been hacked up with the jaws. When I saw the wheelchair still in the back seat, I got that sick and sad feeling even worse -- yip, that's their car. I guess there wouldn't have been any real reason to get it out of there, or maybe the car was wadded up so bad it wouldn't come loose, whatever, I'd say it was a sure sign it was the same car.

When I wrote that post, "The Shit You Been Through," I mentioned having questions that I might not ever know the answers to. Seeing the pictures of the car only left me with one really big question. To crash a car that hard, it takes tremendous speed, way more speed than you'd see from normal folks, driving at night on a little two-lane street among houses with a "day school" on one side and a park with a jogging trail on the other side, having just come through a major intersection with a stoplight. They were almost there, two more turns and then into the driveway, that close to home. To tear the car up that bad, it must've been haulin' serious ass. Haulin'. Serious. Ass.

None of the news articles mentioned who was driving, but one did say there was no evidence of involvement of drugs or alcohol.

My one big question: What if it was that whole Toyota throttle thing? What if…

I guess where I was going with that is that when we hear about that whole throttle thing on the news, it's scary, but it's not personal, it's just somebody on the news. When it's someone you've spent time with, it's heartbreaking, even if you kinda lost touch over the years. It's not just somebody on the news, it's somebody who handed me a cold beer and then made me laugh 'til I couldn't drink it without choking.

It's never too late to send a quick hello to someone from your past -- because when they're gone, they're always gone too soon.

Was that a drip?

So, yesterday, Miss Messy Kitty was down here with us all day, on her leash and hangin' out on the counter. Today, it's a little cooler so I haven't tried to get her down from the top of the back office.



She's our baby kitty, she lives here, this is her home. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to just take her home with me, but she's "Teh Official Recycling Faciliteh Kitteh." We've been keeping her on her leash since the weather has been warm enough to prop the doors open because I really don't want her to end up being a snack for whatever it was that made those massive paw prints in the snow across the parking lot last winter; and probably also those massive paw prints in the mud between here and the post office last week.

Yesterday, while I was sitting on the barstool and Miss Messy was stretched out on the counter in front of me, this guy came in lookin' for a steering column. While I was punching numbers into the computer to look up the column, he reached for Miss Messy, petted her, and said something like "Awww, kitty-kitty-kitty."

Now, tryin' to trick me into knocking fifty bucks off the price of the column irritated me just a bit, but hey, I had a sweet little kitty waitin' to love on me and that guy would be outta here soon enough, so I let it go.

He said he was gonna go get the cash and he'd be back later.

Miss Messy even got a "Buh-bye, kitty" as he turned away from the counter to head toward the door.

Today, his easily-recognizable car pulled in the parking lot. When the door opened, the cane came out first, then the guy, then a fannypack that he hung on his shoulder, then a leash.

A leash.

With a dog.

A leash with a dog which he led right through the front door, then he said "izzuh cat around today?"

I'd only managed to shoot a look of irritation because I had a phone to my ear; My Mom, through near-panic, said "No, she's hiding on top of the back office."

"Oh," he said, and he took the dog back out to his car.

Seriously? You brought your dog in here just to see what our cat would do? Pardon my "language," but, you fucking douchebag.

And then when the cat wasn't nearby, you put the dog back in the parked car? What? Not worth the hassle of holding the dog's leash when there's no cat to harass?? Yip, you fucking douchebag.

Your fannypack probably smells like vinegar & water.

Competency. Huh?

Heads-up, I'm gonna rant and bitch about work, but it's okay, I ain't gonna get Dee-Oh-Oh-See-Eee-Dee over it. And seriously, how does she ever make a living off that website? How does someone who doesn't even know the difference between "itching" and "scratching" pay for health insurance by making money from "writing" on a website? Anyway, on to what I wrote...

Once upon a time, not so long ago, in a little town not so far away, there lived a guy who though he was old enough to know better, he used drugs and drove a car anyway. Through this course of action, the cops caught him driving said vehicle while under the influence of said drugs, and after the traditional court case experience, this guy was left without a license.

Now, my part of the story begins.

Friend of the folks' was in here huntin' this taillight for a truck we don't have around here, The Boss ordered one in from an aftermarket supplier. When it got here, it ended up being the wrong side. I'm still not entirely sure who told who the wrong side, but anyway, there was some catch involving delivery fees for getting the aftermarket supplier to exchange it for the other side, so that light is still in the box, layin' on the counter.

A week ago yesterday, I was given the task of finding a used one -- which I attempted, even though now I wonder if I might've been better off to just put the box in my car and drive into Tulsa to exchange it for the other side. Now that it's been a week and a day, I might've even been better off to hook the box under my arm and take off walkin' to Tulsa to exchange it, but anyway...

So, a week ago yesterday, I typed a request into that computer system that connects, at current count, 783 salvage yards all across the country. Eh, the 783 yards that are willing to pay what amounts to the equivalent of a payment on a reasonably decent truck every month to be connected to the system. It's like those phones that used to have the speaker on 'em and just talk all the time way back in the day -- now we've gone digital and we type it in to show up on a screen. From voice phone to satellite to internet, the connections between salvage yards have come a long way over the years, but we still get the same ol' BS, I guess.

Looking through the list of replies from yards where someone had seen my request and sent a reply, the closest one with the best price was in Tahlequah, the little Oklahoma town made famous in "Where The Red Fern Grows," as in "What're we goin' to Tahlequah for?" It's not close like jump in the car and dash right over there, but it's close enough our football teams play each other once a year; it's been a long time since I took that bus ride, but I'm guessing it's probably about an hour and a half or so.

Part of the accountability of that "like a decent truck payment" fee that we mail off every month is being able to just send a purchase order and get it goin' without all the hassles of making an account and filling out a credit application or using a credit card; yards who pay in have credit with other yards automatically, supposedly to make for an easy flow of commerce.

Apparently, nothing is ever at all easy.

I sent the order and we waited a couple days; figuring that two days was enough time for "the big brown truck" to bring a box from Tahlequah, I sent another message asking for a tracking number. I had to re-send it about half a dozen times, and finally, I was told that the yard in Tahlequah "didn't see the message," and had never shipped the taillight.

In the midst of the bitchyfit that I caught for "dropping the ball" (apparently I was supposed to drive to Tahlequah and point at somebody's computer screen), I was told that "____ is really worried about his kid driving around with the broken taillight because if he gets stopped, he'll get hauled to jail for not having a license." Call me crazy, but it seems to me that if someone doesn't have a license, a broken taillight should be the least of their worries, 'cause their car really should stay in the driveway and they should ride with somebody who has a license.

So, I caught a bitchyfit because someone at some other yard wasn't paying attention to their computer AND some un-licenesed drug user is driving around with no license. Both are totally my fault. Nice, huh?

After sending back "nevermind, cancel my PO" to the yard in Tahlequah, and resisting the urge to scream at anyone, I looked through the replies again and the only yard that matched the price was in Tennessee. Since I felt like I'd been bitched at enough, I wasn't really in any mood to ask about spending more money. I sent an order to the yard in Tennessee; thankfully, they sent back a reply thanking me for the order so I could at least know they were paying attention.

After the holiday weekend, it kinda seemed like the one that was ordered from Tennessee should be here first thing Tuesday. It was not. Today, Wednesday, I sent four messages asking for a tracking number and got no response at all. On the phone, I still couldn't get 'em to give me a tracking number, and I was told that they "shipped it to the wrong place" and had it returned; they'd shipped it out to us on Tuesday. Terrific.

I resisted the temptation to scream into the phone because being mean to someone on the phone won't make the taillight get here any faster. For the record, taking it out on me isn't going to make it get here any faster either, but that's a whole 'nother rant.

There's been no shortage of bitchyfit on the incoming side... Seriously, I don't work in Tahlequah, I only had dinner there a time or two, it's not my fault they didn't see the message on their screen. I've never even been to Tennessee, so that whole shipping the part to the wrong place mess wasn't my fault either.

We're waiting-and-seeing if it shows up tomorrow.

Once upon a time...

I know, I know, I've made some mistakes of my own, but I know which ones are mine to deal with, and the ones in Tahlequah and Tennessee are not mine.

Once upon a time...

Now, just let me clarify this: If you drink or use drugs and drive a car, then get caught and lose your license, it's your own fault. Don't even try to tell me cops are dicks and that's why you got caught. You got caught because you were drunk or high, end of story. If through some odd occurrence, lawnmower flinging rocks, errant golf ball, crazy ex-girlfriend, whatever, you get the taillight broken out of your truck, that sucks. If you're driving it around with that broken taillight and the cops stop you and ask for your license, it's still not anybody's fault but your own because hey, you weren't supposed to be driving anyway.

Yeah, yeah, the folks at the salvage yard are trying to order one in and it takes a little while, that sucks, but hey, if you don't have a license right now, you've got some time to find a taillight 'cause you won't be driving anywhere for a while anyway, right? If you get hauled in for driving without a license, it's not my fault, it's yours. If you get hauled to jail, it's not 'cause your dad ordered the wrong side, it's not 'cause Tahlequah ain't watchin' their computer, it's not 'cause Tennessee sent the box to the wrong address, it's not 'cause of me or anybody else in the salvage business. If you get hauled to jail for driving around without a license, it's not because it took me a while to get your taillight shipped in, it's because you're the one who decided to hop in the car and drive around with no license.

I have a few hard questions I'm dying to ask... So, if you're driving around with no license, do you have insurance? While driving around with no license, if you do have insurance, will it cover you without a license? If you hit someone, will your insurance company take care of them, or will the claim be denied because there was an unlicensed driver involved? Since you lost your license due to a drug/alcohol related offense and you're driving around unlicensed, are you still driving around under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol too?

I really hope the big brown truck shows up with that taillight tomorrow, 'cause I am sick and tired of catchin' hell over it.

I really hope I can resist the temptation to call the cops on this guy just as soon as he gets that damn taillight installed...

More later.

_\,,/

Roar!

Way back before the nature of the marketing empire came out, I used to go to meetings every Thursday night... Now, I won't disclose the name of the company, because even though I left angry, it's not my place to drag 'em through the mud here 'cause that's not what I'm here to write about.

Stay with me here, and you might recognize 'em anyway. This company provides a service which has been life-changing for lots and lots of people -- alas, they are in a business to make money, not just to help people make these changes. There is a cost to attend the meetings; once you've met your pre-set life-changing "goal," you get to attend the meetings for free.

Can y'all see the "Catch Twenty-Two" there? The person who leads and teaches at the meetings has to get paid, but the more people learn, the less they have to pay. A really great leader who teaches people how to meet their goals isn't bringing in enough money for the company because there are way too many successful people in the group who have met that goal and don't have to pay anymore.

A great leader got "let go" because there were too many "freebies" in her groups.

She was awesome, and I'll never forget her -- she made a tremendous difference for me, but my experience just wasn't the same after she left.

One of the things she told us was this: "If you had a bad week, you need your meeting; if you had a good week, your meeting needs you."

Wow...

So...

I had a few rough moments today. Now that I'm not at work anymore -- sittin' here in my car with the windows down and a bit of a breeze blowin' through -- now that it's just me by myself with the computer and the car, it seems further away and less important, but I said I'd try to write more, so here I am.

We sold a car yesterday, and the kid took it home and tried to put a stereo in it. He's struggling. He's calling, a lot. We had to haul it back in once and change the starter, then he took it back home and tried again; there have been fuses and relays and phone call after phone call -- I'm sure he's a lot more stressed-out than any of us are, but it just seemed like every third phone call I answered, there he was, poor kid.

Boat confusion. Using Go0gle to answer questions over the phone for someone who could just as easily click over to Go0gle without calling me. The creepy guy. Several phone calls from people who weren't sure how the phone is supposed to work -- please, you have to say something else besides "hello" forty times, or I'm gonna hang up. The other creepy guy. That woman from the transmission shop who thinks she has to "talk to a man" every time, even if he turns around and asks me to look up the parts on the computer. The guy who thinks he's a pimp. The girl who flipped Miss Messy in the forehead yesterday.

Seriously, what the feck was that about? I know, I know, you've got fifteen-year-old-girl-hormones and Chemistry homework to deal with, but if you can put up with getting a text message every twenty seconds while you're supposedly doing your homework, there's nothing wrong with a kitten sniffing the edge of your Chemistry book. Just like the ol' man with the Chihuahua said, "This is that kitty's house, you're in her house, you better be nice." Bitch just flipped her right in the forehead while I was on one of those phone calls where somebody wasn't sure what to say after "hello," and it was a hard, full-on middle-finger-from-thumb, hard-thumping flip. I was so mad I wanted to scream. Or just reach over there and flip her in the forehead. I think of her like family; but I really wanted to hit her when she did that.

I'd parked on the very edge of the parking lot this afternoon, right out by the street, and when I got ready to leave and there was a white Chevy truck headed South down the street as I got in my car. He had both windows down, and as I walked toward the street to open my driver's door, I noticed he was leaned over toward the middle of the seat and NOT looking in the direction the truck was going. As he got closer to me, I could see the toddler standing in the middle of the truck, between the driver and the baby carrier car seat in the passenger side. I was reaching for my phone when I saw the paper UD tag...

A black Honda ran the stop sign to pull right out in front of me by the crummy trailer park and I found myself imagining being the next car in line behind some numnutz who ran a stop sign and got smeared under the front bumper of a Freightliner. I couldn't see a driver at all; no head over the seat, nothing visible in the mirrors, and let's be reasonable, a Honda Prelude is a pretty small car -- how small do you have to be to be invisible in there? Ten, eleven years old? The black Honda ran the stop sign at Peoria Avenue too, but there was no Freightliner there either.

When I put on my left blinker to turn into my neighborhood, there was a silver foreign SUV behind me that darted to the right, off in the grass to pass on the right -- they ended up having to slow down anyway because there was another car in the intersection. One of these days, if I can just do it in something I don't care about, I'm gonna make a right turn in front of some jerk like that and sell off a car... Just not in the SHO or the Mark 8...

I still really like the ol' three-hundred-dollar Mark 8, I've put just over 33 thousand miles on it now, and I just really like it.

I dashed in the house to grab a quick bite to eat and pick up my Bible -- I really thought about skipping tonight, keepin' my nasty attitude at home instead of being out among other people, and then I thought about the wise words of that wonderful leader from several years ago; "If you had a bad week, you need your meeting; if you had a good week, your meeting needs you."

I tossed a quick snack in a bag and filled an icy glass with some orange caffeine and headed back to the car.

Out I went, out on to the highway and into the evening rush-hour traffic, where there are way too many people doing way too many things that shouldn't happen with the car in gear. If you want to talk on your phone while drinking coffee and working a crossword puzzle, there are many, many far more appropriate places to do that than in your car. If you'd like to talk on the phone and ignore everything outside your car, please do it with your car in "Park." For the love of the planet, turn the car off, and I guess since I'm trying to be a little more humanitarian, crack a window so you don't smother. I know, I know, I shouldn't have to tell people about that whole crack a window thing, but hey, if they're not smart enough to put down the phone long enough to use turn signals and check their blind spot before moving over into traffic at highway speed, you never know what they might need a little extra help with.

Of course, there's always the other extreme -- some move all over the place like drunks, some won't move over at all. Sure enough, I ended up behind two of 'em, side-by-side just like a parking lot. When we came under Highway 11, they were still side-by-side, and I saw my chance, so I went for it...

I'm not crazy, I didn't do anything any more dangerous than staying parking-lot-close-side-by-side at highway speed, and I didn't get anywhere close to any other cars. I've only did it once before, in a "Service Loaner" Ford Escort way back when the SHO still had factory warranty -- and it took everything that little car had to pull it off, I made it, but there was no more car left...

On Southbound 75, where the Highway 11 ramp comes on from the left, there are two extra lanes for a short distance. It's a generous bit of merging area compared to most in the Tulsa area even though it's crazy to send 'em on in the passing lane to begin with.

There were several car-lengths between the two cars side-by-side and the next car ahead of them on to the South, and there was nothing coming down the ramp from Highway 11, so I decided to go for it. Not eating my dinner, not talking on my phone, not fixin' my hair -- just belted into my comfy seat with both hands on my well-worn leather wheel, I hit the blinker and pressed my toes down just as soon as I could pull to the left into that short bit of spare passing lane. The pedal didn't touch the floor, and I never felt like I'd used up all the car had; it just dropped a gear, wound up, dropped another gear, and took off, just as quick and easy as ya please, right blinker on, moving back over, and making the pass with room to spare. For a car that somebody gave up on and sold to a salvage yard, it sure is sweet that way. The person in the car blocking the passing lane may not have even realized I didn't come from Highway 11.

In that moment, with that ol' 4.6 opened up to a smooth roar, I forgot everything I'd been grumbling under my breath about all day and it was all just gone and I didn't have a nasty attitude to worry about anymore. It's a good thing too, 'cause my Wednesday Night group probably has more important things to worry about than what kind of rotten grumpy day I had.

It's a lot like what I love about The Twenty -- when the roar hits me, there's nothing else on my mind, nothing else to bother me, nothing. Nothing else.

Now, just as soon as this weather levels out...

_\,,/

Maybe those new pills are pretty good...

I had my "yearly" Dr. Appointment a couple weeks ago, and as appointments go, it went quite well. I got another different Dr., as is common practice with the "Clinic" that my insurance company let me pick. She was great, and the student she had with her was alright too -- So, I certainly hope that since the "Clinic" is affiliated with a University, that this Doctor is a Professor and not a high-level student who's about to graduate; that's how much I liked her in that one appointment, and it's not just because I got to skip the, ahem, smear this time.

I freaked out a little bit when my lab results came back -- My cholesterol is just a teensy bit (20 points) high, my triglycerides are a good bit high. When I talked to the new Dr. on the phone, she said she was pretty sure it was a genetic thing and not solely from what I eat, and she said all the right things to calm me down about it too. I had to go back for a liver function test (praying) so I can start a prescription to lower 'em and avoid the risk of problems for the next fifty or sixty years. That's what she said... And I could just kiss her for not tellin' me it's all because of my fat ass.

The thing that really made me love this new Dr. was that she didn't doubt me when I told her I had started taking "the pill" to level-out my hormones but I was not active, and she listened without making faces when I told her that I wasn't as able to fight the urge to be a psycho during the white pill week.

So, I got switched. She gave me the big long pill pack, the one that has three months of pink pills for every one week of white pills. I have two friends who have mentioned taking this variety of pill; one mentioned that it "keeps the crazy to a minimum," and the other is uncommonly happy with the decreased number of white pills -- and hey, I like both of those options! This morning I took my third hot pink pill outta that pack; last night, I got an, uhm, urge while watching a nature show about fig wasps. Getting my urges back to a little higher frequency is kinda nice too, and I have noooo problem takin' care of 'em myself... (Okay, I'll stop before I get into T-M-I territory.)

Today, I took one of those phone calls without lashing out too, so maybe I'll be able to laugh 'em off more like I used to.

Alone on the counter, I switched my lovely morsel of Red Velvet Cake to my left hand so my right hand would be free to look up parts with the ten-key, I picked up a phone and stuck it between my shoulder and my left ear to answer as I hit F9 to clear the computer screen. An older dude on the other end asked for one of the guys.

I told him that guy was out on the yard.

He asked for the other guy.

I told him that guy was running a fork lift.

He was quiet.

I tried to sound friendly, "Is there somethin' I could help ya with?"

Now, this is one of those places where "proving myself" is like a river to wade across...

He says he needs a six-hole fifteen-inch Chevy wheel.

This is a Ford yard, but I'm already ankle-deep in that river of proving myself, I'm wading across, dammit... I ask what year it is.

His end is silent.

I ask what year it is.

His end is silent.

I hold my right hand up with a "2" and ask what year it is.

His end is silent.

I ask what year it is, making my right hand into a "3" and taking a nibble of cake from my left hand.

His end is still silent, save for a bit of labored breathing.

I'm pretty sure y'all can figure out where this is going. As my right hand turned into a "5," I decided to ask one more time even though I'd just about made up my mind we didn't have any mystery wheels... They're different for different years of trucks, even if it is a six-lug, it could be a metric or SAE, it could have a different offset, it could have a different size of center hole depending on whether the truck is two or four wheel drive.

After the sixth time I asked what year the truck was, he finally said "Ooooouuuuhhhhh, I dunno, somethin' around a '71..."

I tell him we don't have anything anywhere near that old around here, and we've handled mostly Ford parts for several years.

After a brief pause, he says, "Would it be better if I just came over there to talk to one of the guys?"

I was nice, and even though I forgot all about that "river of proving myself," I was nice.

I was nice.

I didn't say "Oh, fuck you very much" until I'd already hung up the phone.

Some sick little part of me hopes I'm still alone on the counter when he shows up.

Heh heh heh...

Could ya hand me a pin, please?

So, after lots and lots of listing all of the possibly entertaining/satisfying responses for that guy on the phone yesterday, the first phone I answered this morning was an oh-so-familiar voice that said the exact same thing in the exact same tone.

He wanted to talk to anybody but me.

I almost managed to hold it back. Almost.

But I lashed out. I went batshit on him, and asked him if he remembered what he was doing eight, ten, twelve years ago, 'cause I was workin' here, workin' here, workin' here. When he tried to tell me it was "about something I didn't know anything about," I told him I'd been here long enough to know what the hell was goin' on and if I was the only one on the counter, I'd just have to be the only one there was to talk to.

Maybe he could hear my inner child... Not the one who loves Knight Rider and Hotwheels and Matchbox Cars; the older one, the frustrated junior-high one who could've been a School Shooter way back before School Shootings were all over the news.

There was something strangely satisfying that I could hear in his voice as he tried frantically to smooth things over; he called me "honey" and "baby" several times, and that almost pissed me right off until I realized it wasn't the same guy who pissed me off yesterday.

Whups. They really sounded a lot alike.

My inner junior high kid put her gun back in her backpack and tried not to cry...

When he finally gave in and asked me that question he thought I wouldn't know anything about, I was able to give a perfectly reasonable, professional, realistic, totally truthful answer.

"Yes, I saw the truck you worked on for us, and yes, you sent back the wrong key with it when we picked it up."

I resisted the temptation to say "See there? I know my shit..."

Here in the real world, I do not own any small guns that might fit inside any sort of backpack.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go find a pin so I can stick the almost-empty pill pack on my shirt to be sure the whole world can see just why I'm crazy this week.

Actual Conversations.

Girl on phone: "I need doors with manual windows for a 96 Mazda MPV."

Me: "We don't have any Mazdas here, we handle Ford parts."

Girl on phone: "Oh, it wasn't a 95 Mazda, it was a 92 Buick Century."

--

Well shit. Next time, maybe I'll think quicker and see if I can sell 'em a dishwasher.

Actual phone conversation.

Caller: "You got a steering column for a 93 Chevy Truck?"

Me: "Is it column-shift or floor-shift?"

Caller: "Yeah."

Me: "Does it have the gearshift on the column?"

Caller: "It's a steering column, I need a steering column."

Me: "Mmm-hmm, does it have the gearshift on the column?"

Caller: "Uuuhhh, no, it's an automatic....uuh....yeah...uhh...column shift."

Heh. Damn, I didn't even get to use the ol' "Does it go PRNDLL or 12345R?" or maybe "That handle that you shift gears with, does it stick out of the floor, or out of the side of the steering column?"

A joke from way back.

Thursday, our printer started making odd noises and trying to scoot itself across the counter, so after quite a bit of blowing, brushing, pecking, thumping, and dropping, we gave in and decided to replace it.

Friday night after dinner, I went shoppin'. I got a new printer that was just almost the same as the dead one for about three bucks less than a new ink cartridge, so I was a satisfied customer. I know that most folks wouldn't take kindly to shoppin' for work at nine-something on a Friday night, but this is a family business, which means that if something isn't going right at work and it might come anywhere close to being my fault, well, I'm gonna hear about it at the dinner table or on the weekends or on the phone at night. Since I'm right at home with the concept of comparison shopping and totally unafraid to pick things up and place them in my shoppin' basket, I knew I could fix the problem.

Saturday morning, I drove back into Sperry for "Knitting Buddies" at the library (which was lovely), then had lunch (yum!) with my Librarian and several ladies from the group (also lovely), and then came here to get the new printer going.

Getting the new printer working really seemed like no problem, and after I'd printed a couple pages with it, I figured it was ready to go, so I turned everything off and went on about my day.

Here's my sign, I'm stupid. I just thought that since the old one had been turned ON 24-7 ever since it came outta the box, that might have contributed to it's early demise, so I turned the new one OFF for the weekend.

When I got here this morning, HoMeSkOoL dAd said it "wouldn't print and wouldn't do anything."

--

I remember a joke from a book by Larry Wilde from way back...

(this is a paraphrase from memory, not to be a quote of any sort)

So this Polak carries a chainsaw into a chainsaw store, and demands a refund. He's sweaty and tired and angry, and he says, "You sell me this saw yesterday, you say it cut down forty trees an hour, I been in the woods all day and ain't made it through the first tree yet! This saw's defective, I want my money back!"

So the salesman takes the saw and says, "Here, lemme have a look," he pulls the rope and the chainsaw roars to life.

The Polak jumps, wide-eyed, "What the hell was that noise?"

--

When I asked "Did ya turn it on?" I was met with a blank stare.

"I never had to turn the old one on..."

So, while I'm in here e-mailing back and forth with Scott and trying to get this monthly close-out to print on the new printer instead of the now-disconnected old printer without disappearing into the ether, HoMeSkOoL dAd and the kids are apparently out on the yard, having built a ramp, trying to "jump" cars.

I shopped on my own weekend time and brought in the new printer to replace the dead one. My Mom was notably short-tempered and preemptively nasty with me about this on the phone last night, so I was trying to get here a little early this morning in hopes of helping alleviate that nastiness. Apparently, it's my fault that somebody didn't know that the damn thing had to be TURNED ON in order to print. Apparently, it's my fault that the publishing company who makes this software did not leave us any sort of provision for re-printing documents in the event of a printer malfunction. It must be my fault that the PC has grown slower and slower with all that p@rn that SOMEBODY loves so much, since "that cable internet thing" is "supposed to make it faster." Since it's taken as "nasty" on my part if I try to explain that faster internet does not automatically make a sluggish PC speed up, that's probably my fault too. I usually get here at 9:00, today I was here about ten minutes early. The printer window shows he tried to print the close-out at 8:47, a whole three minutes before I got here ten minutes early. I'm sure that'll my fault as well. I might've been comin' through the door just as he clicked "print" if I hadn't had to wait behind that street sweeper just as I came into town, so it's probably my fault that the County decided to clean up all that sand from the ice storm too.

I guess what bugs me most is that even though I know that I am neither God nor Bill Gates and therefore cannot will the PC to function, I may be the only one who knows this. The documents that I have printed on the new printer since I got here are fine, but that means nothing if the document that SOMEBODY else tried to print isn't here. What? You think there's a chance SOMEBODY other than me screwed up before I got here? Oooooh, Nooooooooo, there's no way that could happen!

Is it 5:00 yet?

Quick one for Friday afternoon.

So, I'm standin' here workin' the counter and bein' real thankful for the fantastic new heater that's keepin' my lower half super-toasty when I hear an unfamiliar voice yelling out in the shop.

"Heyyyyyyyy! Hey-ey-heyyyy!"

What the...

So, I head toward the door that connects the lobby to the shop, and see someone I don't know.

What the hell?

If you're looking at the outside of an automotive-related business (that you or your family does not own), and you see a person-size walk-in door with an "OPEN" sign on it next to a ten-feet-wide, twenty-feet-tall truck-size garage door that says "NO ADMITTANCE," which one would you want to walk in through?

Is it just me, or does it seem a little invasive to just go walkin' in through that truck-size door just 'cause it happens to be open? Is it just me, or does it seem like there might be some odd chance of getting run over by a truck or fork lift driven by someone who didn't realize you were there 'cause hey, they usually don't let just anybody in there?

I used to joke about people callin' someplace like CompUSA when their dishwasher quit... Now I realize, it's not a joke, it's completely real and totally serious, they probably are. Some of them may even be putting their garbage out in front of Bus Stop signs and wondering where the hell that Garbage Truck is and why the trash is still there.

So, Mr. Walk-In comes through the door that separates the Lobby from the Shop, and asks about something for a Chevy Cavalier. When I tell him we handle Ford parts, he looks me right in the eyes and says "Oh, Ford parts..." pauses for a second, and right about the time I notice the apron, he asks "So how'bout a Dodge Caravan?"

I'm not bullshitting.

After he made his way out (back through the damn shop and through that "NO ADMITTANCE" door), I got to thinkin' about the apron...

Apparently he was from that scary little restaurant whose kitchen screen door faces our far South gate.

So... If I were to walk right over there and blunder through that screen door into that restaurant kitchen and say something like "Y'all got any sausage? Can I get a pizza?" I wonder what would happen...

I'm betting it wouldn't be "We don't make pizza here." They'd probably just chase my ass outta there.

Maybe CompUSA has some pizza!

Heh heh...

Is this crazy, or is it just me?

A few months ago, a body shop called us up and ordered a tailgate for a Chevy Truck.

Amazingly enough, we had one. It was black, and it was really nice, and it had all it's parts, the handle, the latches, the inside panel, the trim, and everything. It was so nice, looked like it had been oh-so-carefully lifted very gently from the back of a really nice truck, probably wrapped in a blanket and laid carefully into the back of a minivan or something like that. It was that niiiiii-iiiii-iiiice.

We delivered it, sans blanket and minivan, but nonetheless, a nice, shiny, black tailgate.

A few weeks later, the body shop calls back. They don't need it anymore. They ask for a refund. They ask us to come pick it up.

When we get there, it's been totally taken apart. The metal shell has been sanded down to the primer and sprayed white around the edges and all of the other removable parts are gone. When we call back, it takes 'em forever to root through their stuff and find all the pieces and send 'em back here.

Even though the tailgate we got back was far, far from the quality of the tailgate we sent to 'em, they don't take kindly to the thought of paying a restocking fee.

Grrrr...

Now, fast-forward, it's several months later. The same body shop calls, now they specifically ask for a black tailgate for a Chevy truck.

"Well, I've got that one that was black when y'all got it the last time..."

--

"If we couldn't laugh, we'd just all go insane."

--

_\,,/ More later.

Disjointed Much?

Yup.

--

Yesterday, I watched a dad coerce a ten year old into shaking the unholy hell out of a nearly-full bottle of Mountain Dew that had been left momentarily unattended by another adult. "Stop, stop, stop!! Put it down, here he comes!!!" So, apparently, this dad is raising a douchebag.

--

After work, I stopped by WM (sorry, figured I'd better Go0gle-proof that) on my way home to pick up some prescriptions and a teeny bit of Christmas stuff just 'cause I did not venture out into the Black Friday madness at all. I found a reasonably decent parking space and as I pulled in, I noticed a blue four-door Corvair parked in the row in front of mine. I've read a few articles, but I niether love or hate the Corvair, I could take it or leave it. Essentially, I love cars, and any car that old that's still on the road under it's own power deserves a second look.

As I was lookin' the Corvair over and thinkin' it looked pretty slick for it's age, I noticed a Saturn in the next aisle over behind it with the brake lights and back-up lights on. A lady walked by pushing a shopping cart, and there was a little girl following her a couple steps behind. I'm not good at guessing ages, but I'd say she was right around somewhere in between old enough to know better and big enough to know not to do that shit. She was head & shoulders taller than the decklid of the Saturn, and as she walked behind the car, she ducked down and stopped to hide right in the center. I watched the woman turn around and giggle a bit as the kid ducked down behind the car a second time.

I'm not anybody's mom, but if you think watching your kid duck down behind a car that has back-up lights on is funny in any way, you're raising a Darwin Award Winner.

--

My Birthday landed on Thanksgiving this year, and unlike the last time I celebrated the two together, I was not essentially alone and I did not get called an "alcoholic." We had a truly fascinating time that included Clay being handed a card and told "Happy Birthday, Hun," 'cause ya know, he looks a lot like me with that beard and everything. Heh. Later, we got a big laugh out of a brand new question, "Is he a Mennonite?"

Anyhow, wherever he had to drive that damn horse & buggy to, he did a great job birthday shoppin' -- I've waited for that CD since Junior High, and the moment that album appeared on a CD, he grabbed it.

With this birthday also arrived my first time receiving yarn as a gift! It's white and very soft with just a teensy bit of shine to it, and it'll surely turn out somethin' warm & fuzzy.

--

I got myself a nifty new purse via that popular auction site that rhymes with me-hay too. (sorry, more Go0gle-proofing there) Of course, if I said that out loud, I'd catch hell for it, so I told the folks it was also a gift from Clay -- which wasn't really a stretch since it matches the wristlet he got me a couple Christmases ago. I'm still gettin' used to it, but I really like it, I waited a long time to get my hands on a Dooney Tulip, I found a good deal, so I grabbed it. I guess that's a pattern with me... Make of it what you will.

--

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention... I put the second full tank of gas in the Excursion the Tuesday before Thanksgiving so I could do the math. Ten point seven miles a gallon, but at least I got to fill it up for a buck-fifty a gallon.

--

I should also say hello to the friendly blonde-haired family, also in a silver SUV, who were waiting behind me at the pump that night. I salute you, even though you're probably not reading this, I appreciate your warm friendliness.

When I saw the other car pull up behind me to wait, I was standing just in front of the hose, leaning against the quarter with my hands in the pockets of my favorite jeans. The pump was somewhere near thirty gallons (yeah, *gasp,* but I'm glad I knew to expect it, the tank holds 44) and I figured it was close to stopping. Since I was on the opposite side of the hose, further away from the pump, I decided I'd step over the hose so I could be on the other side when it finished.

Dumb idea. Why the hell didn't I just wait for it to stop and then put it back in the pump? Why didn't I think of the fact that if I just grabbed it from where I was standing, there would be no need for stepping over once it was back on the hanger? Am I stupid or somethin'?

So, with my hands still in my pockets, I took a quick look at the numbers on the pump, which was still running, and I put my left foot over the hose. Hands still in pockets, I put my left foot on the ground on the other side of the hose successfully. Somewhere around that time, everything went to shit. My right foot wasn't wantin' to clear the hose, the hose wasn't about to dislodge from the truck, and the more I tried, the more it hung there, so I ended up down on all-fours, or at least three out of four.

Even though I had that "s-l-o-w-m-o-t-i-o-n" feeling, I still have no idea how I got my hands out of my pockets fast enough to put 'em out and keep from bustin' my face into the concrete. I also had no idea my self-imposed reflex of guarding my left knee was powerful enough to turn me around and make the right knee, the one that had been above knee-high off the ground and tangled in the hose, hit the ground first, but apparently it did. The first thing I could see was my hands and my hair touching that nasty concrete and all I could think of was the people watching from the other car. I got up fast and I knew I'd better take control of the situation and diffuse the awkwardness myself 'cause I really did not want to deal with who-knows-how-many strangers leanin' over me askin' if I was alright.

Back on my feet, shake my hair back, little wave, big smile, "That was graceful, wasn't it?"

"Huh?" the blonde-haired guy in the silver SUV asks, "Oh, I thought you had somethin' wrong with your truck..."

They didn't see a thing. They thought I was lookin' under the back of the Excursion. All they saw was me gettin' up, so if I'd done that "cat method" and let on like "I meant to do that!" nobody would've suspected a thing... Until the security camera video turned up on some website...

--

I guess it has been a while since I posted... We went to see "Zack & Miri Make a Porno" (finally), and I thought it was a great film... I laughed and I cried -- yeah, there's naked people and porno-movie-making in it, but the love story, oh my my, I never saw anything hot about Seth Rogen until he put his hand up into the back of Elizabeth Banks' hair. I was so stunned I cried, and I loved it.

--

As if I haven't mentioned these before, I just answered a phone for a caller who asked for a '96 Dodge Fuel Pump, and when I told him we handle Ford parts, there was a long pause, then he said "Oh, well how'bout a transmission for a '91 Honda Accord?"

--

Maybe I really could write a book someday...

--

More later. _\,,/

Slow?

I can't even count how many different stories I've read about cell phones in public; like the one about the guy in the bathroom who was on his phone and got mad 'cause the guy in the next stall was talking to him every time he tried to talk on the phone.

"How ya doin'?"

"Good, how'bout you?"

"Shit, I gotta call you back, some jerk in the next stall won't shut up."

Saturday afternoon as I was headed into the ladies' room at Hobby Lobby, My Mom called. I answered and headed on in there -- since there wasn't anybody else in there, I figured it'd be no big deal to just hold the phone on my shoulder and keep talking. I told Mom where I was and what I was doing just to be sure there wouldn't be any awkwardness.

Somebody else came in. Things got a bit awkward.

I didn't want to be that weird person talking on the phone in the next stall, so I was hoping Mom would just keep talking and I could just keep listening quietly as I rushed to zip my jeans and wash my hands.

Mom was saying what she wanted to say and it was working out pretty good 'til the noise from the paper towel dispenser came across the phone. Mom stopped telling her story and asked "What the hell was that noise?"

"Oh, I was gettin' paper towels."

So, now I'm that weird person talking to herself out by the sinks.

Maybe it would've been less odd if I'd just kept talking for no real reason and just sat there in the stall a while longer 'til the other person was finished and left. "Who called you from Oklahoma CIty? Well yeah, that is odd..." Heh.

I didn't really want to deal with making eye-contact with the person who heard me talking to myself about paper towels, so I dried my hands super-fast and hurried my weirdness back out to the model car aisle where I could be easily seen with a phone, as well as another human being, and just talk without worrying about it.

Fast forward to today, Monday afternoon...

I have a couple on the other side of the counter who are on their third trip here today and claim that the truck is "leakin' outta that silver thing in front of the radiator." Mmmm-kay, well, the grille is silver and in front of the radiator, but does not contain any substance that might leak out. I determine that it's the AC Condenser, they say yes, I ask the important questions to determine that it's an '89 Ford Truck, and I send somebody out to get one off the shelf. "He'll be right back," I say.

While they're waiting for him to bring that condenser down the ladder and back into the lobby, the phone rings.

The phones on the counter look like this:



(I know, my notebook is lookin' kinda raggedy, but...)

So, with only the three of us in the room, there's a ringing sound, and there's me, lifting that big, obvious receiver to my ear.

The caller says he talked to someone a couple weeks ago about an axle for an S-10 Blazer. I know it wasn't me, but since I'm the only one on the counter, I figure I'd better puzzle it out and see what I can find...

With the big ol' phone held up to my left ear, and a computer keyboard underneath my right hand, I ask "What year was it?"

The caller replies "2000." The female half of the couple also replies, "1989."

As I my right hand flips away at the ten-key portion of an older PC keyboard, I try to remember the four-digit code for S-10 Blazer. Silently, in my own head, I'm struggling with 54, 56, 65, 64, oh, there it is, 2-3-5-6, and as I manage to punch it in, I say, into the phone, "And it's an S-10 Blazer, let's see..."

The caller replies, "Yup, S-10 Blazer." From across the counter I hear a nearly frustrated voice say "No, it's a Ford Truck!"

The couple left without the condenser, because that "wasn't it." They needed "the other thing in front of the radiator, the one that had transmission fluid running out if it." Well, then that's not the condenser, that's the transmission cooler.

I'm just glad they're not sittin' here givin' me the heebie-jeebies anymore.

The guy with the S-10 Blazer is picking up the axle tomorrow, I'll have to ask him if he could hear anything in the background when we talked on the phone. Heh heh...

Sometimes it's a bitch, but sometimes it's hilarious!

More later... _\,,/

Actual phone conversations.

The caller says he's lookin' for a Chevy Truck rearend.

I tell him we handle Ford parts and don't have any of 'em around here.

He's quiet. He coughs. He breathes into the phone.

So I say it again.

"Oh, I thought you said you were gonna go get somebody."

Yeah. Week of Mondays.

About that beeping sound.

Okay, okay, that beeping sound is me backin' up. Don't worry, I'm doin' it more carefully than that drunk on that fork lift.

A faithful reader... No, wait, the most faithful reader I have, the only one who gets to see me naked, has informed me that there's a little more information out there than I suspected on this whole wax thing from my last post. I considered just deleting the post, but I figured this was a better way to go.

Clay did the homework, and found that "in a pinch," a candle apparently will work in order to "wax a rail to grind on."

So, I'm backin' off a little bit.

But not completely. I still maintain that the tiny little sloped patch of parking lot just Northwest of where I park my car is not "a rail to grind on" -- it's about a three inch rise over about an eighteen inch run, it is not a rail or a curb.

I also still maintain that the oxy/acetylene torch is a fairly specialized industrial tool, and not something for some tool to be using to melt candles into a hubcap with.

While I'm on that topic, I also maintain that a sand blasting cabinet is also a fairly specialized industrial tool, and probably not something for some tool to be letting a kid sand blast the paint off of that toy car that came with the Sonic "Wacky Pack."

The fork lift is back in park, now I'm goin' to bed.

More later... _\,,/

Same vs. Different vs. Same.

Friday night while channel-surfing, Clay landed on MTV, a channel I really haven't watched in a long, long time -- so long I'm not even sure what number it is. Lately if I have the remote, I'm usually either on 249 (Comedy Central) or 810 (XM's X-Country), or flipping through the "guide" looking for something that doesn't involve screaming brides or mysterious illnesses. I also love "The Travel Channel," but I don't know where it is either, I just have to flip 'til I stumble onto it. Maybe I should take notes...

MTV, through the magic of re-runs, was showing the exact same episode of "Jackass" that first caught my eye that afternoon in 2000 or 2001, the episode with the shopping carts. Or is there more than one with the shopping carts?? Anyhow... I vividly remember ploppin' in the living room of the little white house up on Yukon Avenue for a rare moment alone in front of the TV with the cable remote. My channel-surfing came to a stop when I saw those guys shoving each other's carts over curbs and into bushes. "I'm Johnny Knoxville, welcome to Jackass!" (Huh-oh, what it that was Gooogle-bait?)

I'm that chick who's been seen more than once ooh-ing-and-aaahh-ing over Matchbox cars -- I am not ashamed to tell ya that "my inner child" is a spoiled little eight-year-old boy, or, well, a mini-van load of spoiled little eight-year-olds, there might be a girl or two in there, but they're so tomboy they fit right in playin' with the boys. I ain't afraid to tell ya there's a kid in me who thinks it might be huge fun to go sailin' down and enormous hill in (or on) whatever I can find that has wheels on it -- but there's also junior-high kid who crashed a couple bikes, the highschooler with the boogered-up knee, and the nineteen-year-old me who took a pretty good hit to the head and knows that pain is not cool...

I guess I'm just over that edge of knowing that "Hey, there's no way to steer or control a shopping cart, so I ain't doin' that!" but I can certainly get a kick out of watching other people do it!

It's stupid, it's pointless, it's semi-dangerous, but let's face it -- it's hilarious!

I can't say I'm a serious "fan" of the show, but if I'm flippin' through channels and that's what I land on, I'll usually stay. I saw the movie twice in the dollar theater and I bought the DVD out of a clearance bin. I have watched, I have laughed...

Some of the things I've seen on "Jackass" have brought me to the questions that are on my mind today.

Today is a HoMeSkOoL dAy, and the younger kid is, through the magic of re-runs, doin' some of the same nutty stuff his older brother did a while back. I still have some unanswered questions.

In all my viewings of the crazy stuff we see on "Jackass," I have seen lots of "famous" dudes playin' with skateboards, but I've yet to see any of 'em using any skateboard wax.

Wax comes in many, many different forms, produced for many, many different uses, and candles are only the beginning. The wax that melts off candles won't yank the hair off of your legs, the wax that makes a car shiny won't burn to smell like strawberries.

The strange phenomena in the air here lately is not only due to the workings of "kid logic," it's because their dad isn't interested in the difference either.

In all the times I've seen people riding skateboards, I have not ever seen anybody rubbing candles into concrete. Nobody but the HoMeSkOoLeRz, that is, who have made greazy spots on the concrete bumpers, curbs, and anywhere there's a bit of a slope in the parking lot. That big red pillar candle out of the bathroom is completely gone, turned into a brown gooey mess on the concrete.

Surely I'm not nuts... Surely the wax goes on the board, and not on the concrete, right? Surely it's not the same wax that's used for birthday candles, right?

Surely?

Well, then I guess your guess is as good as mine when it comes to figuring out why a ten-year-old was able to persuade his forty-some-year old dad to light up an oxy/acetylene torch in order to melt dozens of broken pieces of candles and Crayolas into a hubcap.

Say a little prayer that the folks at OSHA are busy catching drunks on forklifts, please.

Now, if you'll pardon me, I've got phones to answer...

20.762068

The last few days have been rough as hell, I guess it started about a week ago, got worse on Monday and just stayed bad 'til last night. There have been times I've had that feeling that "It's me," like I'm just taking things wrong, mountains from molehills, whatever; other times, it feels like I'm stuck in the middle of a shitty situation that's not my fault.

There for a while, I wondered if I really was staying away from writing because I didn't want it to be way too many posts in a row that were just bitch-bitch-bitch.

Monday, and possibly before, I really felt like it was from me, in me, and all mine, and I could feel myself getting irritated about things that really shouldn't have that much of an effect on me. Tuesday (and yesterday) there was that damn Jeep wheel that we'd ordered a week before that hadn't showed up yet -- I got my ass chewed for "dropping the ball" on that one, 'cause ya know, I'm workin' that damn yard in South Texas that didn't see the order and never shipped the wheel. Oh, yeah, that was totally my fault, seeing as how we pay to use a computer system so that I don't have to drive to South Texas and stand there in somebody's face saying "JeepWheelJeepWheelJeepWheel" until they finally notice me and go pull a Jeep wheel off of a shelf. Yeah, totally my fault that that guy didn't see his computer screen.

Yesterday I'd pretty much decided I wasn't going to Tulsa because there was no way my attitude was anywhere near the right place for it, but I didn't want to go home either. I didn't say a word about it, but I had planned to go to Owasso (for good gas), grab something to eat, and then just go sit in the park and knit 'til I felt like going home. My Mom apparently noticed the mood I'd been in and called me about 4:45. Due to Mom's marketing skills, I went home for spaghetti and fried okra with the folks; amazingly enough, some credit was taken for the pissy-mood-situation, and lemme tell ya, that's rare.

After dinner, I alternated between knitting and napping, and then decided I go on out and put gas in my car instead of worrying about there not being any places to get any gas between home and work. In the interest of "saving gas" to be sure I didn't run out before I could get there, I turned off the compressor and rolled down the windows, and it was nice. I'll be honest, I'm usually not a big fan of rollin' the windows down -- if I can't take the whole top off, I'd rather just use the AC. The Mark 8 isn't so bad with the windows down, I don't feel like I'm gettin' blown to death and fixin' to lose both contact lenses, but it seems to cool itself out alright -- of course, we're talkin' about eighty degrees here, not a hundred and thirteen like it was a couple weeks ago.

The Big Car got 20.762068 miles per gallon on that tank of gas that I bought last week in Owasso, where they have the banner that says "100% Real Gas, No Ethanol," and I'd say that's pretty good for somethin' that big, that heavy, and that V-8 Powered.

I drove back home as the sun was setting, and I left the compressor off and the windows down just 'cause the evening air felt so good. I have no idea if it's because I managed to let go of something, or because something finally let go of me, but I felt like a fog had lifted last night, I felt much better.

This morning when I got to work, I found that the second yard had also backed out on me on that damn Jeep Wheel. I had to order it a third time from a third yard and pay fifteen dollars more for it this time, but it'll be alright 'cause nobody's bitchin' at me about it anymore.

Thankfulness? Check.

Like the song says, "Feels so good, feelin' good again."

More later... _\,,/

Actual Phone Call...

A phone rings, I answer, the caller asks for a crankshaft sensor for an Oldsmobile Alero.

I tell him we deal with Ford/Lincoln/Mercury and we've never had any Aleros around here.

He says "Oh, so you only handle Ford Lincoln Mercury, Oooohhhh, okay..." There's a very slight pause, and then he says, "Do you have a hood for a 99 Dodge Durango?"

Now I'm the one who's puzzled. "No, we handle Ford parts." Maybe I should've said it slower.

I'm betting he's the same guy who waited in line in front of The Apple Store for two hours holding that broken agitator out of his washing machine and wondering why everybody around there was lookin' at him funny.