Backroads Is a Small World After All

Imagine my surprise while waiting in line at the Gas Station Chicken Store this week, and seeing a familiar face taped to the sneeze guard. You can't actually imagine my surprise, because I was NOT surprised. Just pleased that I recognized a winner in the weekly gas contest.

When customers buy gas, they get red tickets, depending on how much they purchase. They look just like the tear-off tickets you get when you buy rides at a carnival. Or maybe for chances in a raffle. The customer tears off one ticket to put in a cardboard box, and keeps the other. Every Monday a ticket is drawn from the box. The winning number is posted. Customers can check their tickets as they come in through the week. If the prize is not claimed by Sunday, the contest starts over. They used to roll over the amount until a winner was found, but I'm not sure they still do that. It may just be a $30 prize every week now. Not actual cash, but $30 worth of gas.

Anyhoo... the winner was a former co-worker with The Pony. She recently retired.

Look! She's a cockeyed optimist! A really nice gal I used to cross paths with occasionally over in the School-Turn Casey's while she was stopped for lunch, and I was buying scratchers. Perhaps the background in her winner's pic can properly convey the claustrophobia I feel in the Gas Station Chicken Store. Only three aisles, no room to stand and wait your turn.

Anyhoo... I'm happy for her. I've never seen her in this store, but her husband is there every day buying diesel fuel. Maybe he's won too many times, or maybe he gives her his tickets to check. 

Some people don't want the red tickets, because they're just passing through. They offer them to others in line. I've turned down many a red ticket. I don't buy T-Hoe's gas there, because the gas pumps are old-fashioned, and sit on concrete islands that I can't clamber over on my way to the door.

It's a Matter of Take and Take

Our gravel road washes away a bit more with every rainstorm. Hick and Buddy's (formerly) Badly Blacktopped Hill can no longer allow water to sluice down its surface. The residents who dug up that blacktop because it was too bumpy probably did not realize they were creating a far worse scenario. Now each drop of water cannot cascade over the bumps as directed by its BFF gravity. Each drop must navigate that hill like a Plinko disk, bumping along each individual rock in the gravel road. 

Nature is all about efficiency. Those water droplets join together at the top of the hill, and cut a channel across the gravel road that runs into the ditch alongside. A ditch that grows deeper and wider with each rainstorm. Traversing this hill is now fraught with danger, should one encounter oncoming traffic. Nobody wants to get two tires off in that 12-18 inch ditch. 

Because Val is always prepared, she puts T-Hoe in automatic 4WD each time she goes up the driveway, lest she be forced off the road. Just in case. That came in handy last week, when a small gray SUV refused to move over while coming up that hill. What in the NOT-HEAVEN? Life is a game of give-and-take. The driver with the safest option should GIVE right-of-way to the other! Not play a game of chicken.

I had to steer T-Hoe into that deep ditch, because the small gray SUV would not move over, would not stop. Just kept coming! Would have collided with T-Hoe, had I not moved. That's poppycock! I'm older, T-Hoe is bigger, and I have more insurance. But I DON'T have time to wait to file a police report in 93-degree temperature.

Once that small gray SUV proceeded up the hill, I tried to steer T-Hoe out of that deep ditch. But no. I was hung up in a pile of gravel that some clueless roadsman had piled in an effort to steer the water into a creek. I gave T-Hoe a little gas. Nope! Spinning tires. I tried reverse. It worked! T-Hoe's 4WD backed me out of that ditch.

On the way home, I stopped to take pictures. They do not do that ditch justice.

You can't really appreciate the depth from this side of the road.

This is one of the wider points of that ditch.

This photo does not do justice to the pile of dirt scraped over in an attempt to divert water to the creek below. That might be my actual tire tracks from where I came out of the ditch onto the dirt pile, and then down into the next section of ditch.

Here's the thing. All that small gray SUV had to do was move over onto the grassy area.

I do it all the time to let other vehicles pass when they are coming down the hill. It's just grass, with some rocks jutting out. No damage if you slow down and creep along. No ditch. Easy to get back on the gravel once the other vehicle has passed. But NO! Other drivers are so darn entitled that they daren't move off the road!

They may as well be sitting upon their high motorized horses, snooty snoots foisted into the stratosphere to avoid the stench of the common people, while refraining from dipping one tread of their metal steed's tire onto a blade of grass.

The same for the bridge-crossers who MUST go first, ne'er a thought to waiting a turn, while I pause and allow passage, only to be denied the thank-you lifted finger. As if it might result in a chronic injury requiring surgery, rehab, a state-of-the-art brace, steroids, opioids, and a permanent disability diagnosis.

The world is their oyster, and if it so much as rolls a pearl their way, they will sigh heavily, so very put-upon, before asking Alexa to call a lawyer.

Depending On the Kindness of Hicksters

Hick got a phone call Thursday evening. I could not hear the specifics, but asked about it when he was done. It was his buddy, the one he did the sewer plumbing for with the infamous 45-degree angle. This Buddy has been in the hospital for almost two weeks. Hick is worried about him, and has visited a couple times.

"This Buddy needs a washing machine delivered. I said I'd do it on Friday."

"Is Old Buddy helping you?"

"No, his wife already paid for it."

"That has nothing to do with my question! At least say you didn't hear me, instead of just making something up."

"Oh. Well. What did you want to know? His wife is paying, and I said she could leave a message with Menards that I'll be the one picking it up."

"Okay. I just wanted to know if you had help. Can you load it by yourself? And unload it?"

"The guys at the store should load it. And the grandsons will be at the house when I get there to unload it."

"Won't Menards deliver the washer?"

"They probably would, but not in the time This Buddy wants it. They usually say 3-5 business days to deliver."

"Will he have a dolly? Can the grandsons get it inside without a dolly?"

"He probably has one, but the two of them should be able to do it."

"Will they know how to hook it up?"

"It's only an electric plug and two water hoses. I'm sure they will know what to do."

"You might want to make sure before you leave."

"Yeah. I will. This Buddy is worried about the $250 he owes me for something he bought. He's been sick, and not able to sell and make money. I told him I don't care about the money. I just want him to get well. He needs to stop worrying about that. It don't mean nothin' to me."

That's our Hick. He's really a good guy.

Val's Skill at Interpreting Hick is Sometimes Lacking

I've grown accustomed to Hick's language. After 36 years, I can basically figure out what he's trying to say. By that I mean I know what he's texting or leaving notes about. Not that I can understand what he's trying to convey when he speaks. That's something I have not yet mastered. But I DO know that when there's a note on the predecessors to FRIG II saying, "Gone to look for dear," that Hick is in the woods somewhere, not at a honky-tonk seeking companionship.

Thursday, I was stumped.

"Im going to Bill-Paying Town to get two freedoms for Bargain House"

Well. I suppose that's a good thing. Who wouldn't want two freedoms? For themselves, or a random flip house. Surely Hick would be improving our situation by picking up two freedoms. I didn't have time to text back. I knew where he was going. I could be pleasantly surprised later when I saw those freedoms.

Except I was dying to know what accoutrements lay in store for Bargain House. I had to call Hick anyway, once I was in town where my phone works, to remind him to check the mailbox. I knew there was no mail service on Juneteenth, but our mail has been getting here in the evenings, after Hick is home. So I wanted him to check for the previous day's mail while he was out. It has become his chore, as I'm saving the number of times my knees must hoist me in and out of T-Hoe.

Anyhoo... at the end of that call, I asked Hick what he was picking up.

"I'm trying to figure out WHAT you are picking up for Bargain House. You said you're getting two FREEDOMS!"

"I did? Heh, heh. I ain't gettin' no freedoms. I guess the phone did that. I was texting you and got a call from a gal I'm doing some house repairs for, and then another call from my buddy who said he knew somebody giving away stuff I might want, and turns out I knew who that lady was, so I called her to say to hold them for me. I'm getting two DOORS."

"I don't know how the phone could change doors to freedoms, but okay."

"I don't know either. I'm just picking up two free doors."

AHA! When he put it that way, I can see how it might happen. The Pony was stumped as well, when I relayed the tale the next morning. Stumped how autocorrect might turn doors to freedoms, until it came to the FREE part.

Every day with Hick is an adventure.

A Bit of an Inconvenience

Backroads is generally a safe area when you consider mayhem that happens in big cities. Well. Except for that time a headless body was found in a septic tank about a half mile from our house... I wrote about it at the time, on my supersecret blog. But aside from that, I don't dwell on possible danger when I leave home. Heh, heh! In retrospect, I might be safer AWAY from home!

Thursday was errand day, which found me over in Sis-Town at the Casey's, getting T-Hoe's gas. I was second in line at the counter. The guy ahead of me was a portly fellow, perhaps late 20s, with a shaved head. He set a case of beer on the counter. 

The clerk was a young guy, probably 21 at the oldest, with a nondescript haircut, black framed glasses, and a nice-guy nerdy demeanor. He pulled that case of beer off the counter, set it on the floor, and said, "Nope. You're banned from here. You need to leave."

!!!!!

Beer Guy was not happy. "I want to talk to a manager!"

"Okay. He's right over here." 

Clerk walked back to the kitchen. A guy in there in a red Casey's uniform shirt was making a pizza or something. Beer Guy went to that area and started arguing.

"YOU'RE the manager?"

"Yes I am."

"I want to see your badge."

"I don't have a badge. I'm one of the managers. My name is [REDACTED]. You can call here any time and ask if I'm a manger."

"I want to talk to you out here."

"I'm not coming out. You need to leave. You have been banned from this store."

"Oh, okay."

"You need to leave."

"That's what they always say. Why don't you make me?"

"Get out now, or I'll call the police."

"CALL THE POLICE THEN!"

"You need to go."

Meanwhile, my clerk in the kitchen was calling the police, I assume, because he was on his phone. He came back to the counter as Beer Guy went out the door hollering.

"Whew! That had my heard pounding! I'm sorry you had to see that."

"At first, I thought maybe you were joking him."

"No. He's been banned. Because he always makes a scene line that. I have a good eye for faces. I knew he shouldn't be in here."

That was a little more excitement than Val needed on her errand day. Though at no time did I consider leaving in the middle of the confrontation. First of all, I had already hobbled a long way from the gas pumps to pay for T-Hoe's gas. Secondly, it was something out-of-the-ordinary to report...

Hick Is Not the Keymaster

Hick went to Illinois again on Wednesday, to pick up merchandise for his SUS2.5 (Storage Unit Store 2.5). He finally found the scratchers he had bought there last month (and won on), which he couldn't find to take on his last trip. He took them this time, but FORGOT to cash them in! I guess the third time might be the charm.

Anyhoo... Hick sent me a text when he got back to Bill-Paying Town with his merch. I don't know exactly where Hick goes in Illinois, but it's an hour trip from here to the state line. So it takes two hours minimum just to get over there and back, plus Hick's time making his purchases, and stopping for lunch. He had planned to go by his SUS2.5 on the way home, to leave his new merchandise. 

"I just got to Bill-Paying Town to drop off my stuff but just realized I don't have keys to get in so I'll be home in a bit."

Let the record show that Bill-Paying Town, where Hick's SUS2.5 is located, is 30 minutes from home. Not really worth the time to pick up keys and go back, after being gone all day on this trip.

I resisted the urge to ask why Hick didn't just take off the front wall.

A Punishment for One of Hick's Good Deeds

I can't believe I forgot to tell you THIS. It's been a week since the closing on the Double Hovel flip house(s), and Hick has just been providing me with too much entertainment with his SUS2.5ing, and feud with the guy running a business on HIS LAND, and managing the senior apartments, and getting special treatment from the lunch gals, and clinging to his precious Beauty Shop memory while the seller moves in.

Anyhoo... way back on closing day, you may recall that I spied the good ol' boy buyer, and Hick gave him the keys to the Double Hovel right there on the parking lot of the title company. Such a nice thing to do, preventing him from going to a realtor's office to pick them up later.

The next day, Hick came home and sat down on the long couch. He shook his head. Sheepishly. It would have been the perfect GIF for a definition of sheepishly.

"I cain't believe what I done. I give that guy the keys to the flip house, but I forgot one of them opens my Storage Unit. So I cain't get into it. Not the main one I sell out of most, but the one next to it. The first one I fixed up. I have one more set of keys, so I'll take it down there tomorrow and try all of them. I ain't gonna ask that guy for the key back."

Well. You guessed it. None of the other keys worked. But don't you worry about Hick's business! Hick is a resourceful fellow.

"I took the front wall off, and pried off the door frame, and was able to get my hand in there to unlock the door. All I had to do was push out my pegboard. I put it back later, just using different holes to put the screws in to hold it up.

Anyway, I got the lock off, and took it over to Lowe's to get it re-keyed. Then I went back and put it on and fixed my building. Cost me about $7."

[That picture is from 2022, when Hick started building the front wall for his business. Of course it is prettier and painted now, but I can't find a picture of it.]

"Wait! Weren't you afraid somebody would break in while you were gone with the lock?"

"No. I pulled down the garage door part over the front. It locks."

[That is how the SUS2 looks when Hick isn't there doing business.]

"Wouldn't it have been easier just to buy a new doorknob?"

"No. It ain't a doorknob lock. It's a deadbolt lock. Lowe's re-keys them all the time. A new one would have been $15 or $20."

I'm sure you're all relieved that Hick suffered no loss of business due to his good deed, and that his world is once again secure. Breaking into his own store, and fixing the problem, took about an hour.