I Really Wish He Had Gas

Hey! Did you know that Lowe's does not carry giant springs? And that they will tell you over the phone, "Sure, we have one of those. Come on in and we'll show you." Hick is so easy to fool. I never trust what a retailer tells me over the phone. Sure they want you to come in. Once you're there, and find out they never heard of a giant spring, you're likely to buy something else so your 20-mile trip was not in vain.

Of course, I may be a bigger fool that Hick. Maybe he didn't really rush off to Lowe's after supper last night. Maybe he went to a class in nonstick-skillet-scratching at the technical school.

Today, Hick sent me on a mission to procure his giant spring. Here it is, in all its glory, on the floor mat of T-Hoe.

Lest you think that doesn't look like such a very big spring, allow me to direct your attention to the severed sections placed end-to-end by the garage door store technician.

That rusted-out industrial-strength Slinky is fatter than my forearm, and at least 18 inches long. I'm sure you will be surprised to find out that the garage door business did not have one in stock, either. But I outsmarted them! I didn't bother to call first. Heh, heh. Just walked in with The Pony carrying those two parts of the whole. The workers looked a bit frightened. They might have suspected a pipe bomb. Or some drill cores to be used as noggin-thumpers. As you might imagine, their days are filled with folks wandering in to spend thousands of dollars on fancy garage doors. Not to scavenge Frankenstein appendages for antiquated car-house portals.

Hick had assured me that the girl running the place was sharp as a whip. I think he might have mixed a metaphor there. He knows her dad, and said she should know right away what we needed. Well. The only girl I saw was on the phone with a customer. A dude walked out to greet us.

My first stab of apprehension came when he asked if our garage door had one spring, or two. What? How am I supposed to know that? I'm inside the vehicle when the door is opening and closing. We carried in two pieces, but it should have been one spring. We have two doors. And this was off one of them. I could not answer his riddle. Dude was a bit flustered. "I don't have gas! If I don't have one of these, I'll have to get gas. It will take a while. Let me check."

Dude set about measuring our spring. He took a metal thingy and hooked it in a crack and counted the rings. Then he asked that girl if they had any of the plastic things. She replied that they had ordered boxes full of them. Maybe he should look in the kitchen. Huh. Dude came back with a plastic ruler. He measured again. He went to call somebody and ask if he was measuring correctly. Then he said he would check the storeroom. Then he said he did not have any of these springs. And that he was out of gas! He needed gas! He would not have a spring for us until tomorrow. Could we wait?

I'm sure Dude did not mean wait there overnight. They had a little solarium with a child's play table and patio chairs with footstools. But I'm certain he meant could we come back the next day, and would our garage be able to wait for its spring. Like, was there anybody trapped inside that needed to be extracted within the next 24 hours. I asked about what time we could pick up our new spring tomorrow. You know. In the ballpark, not a time such as 9:38 a.m. And do you know what Dude said?

"I'll have to get gas!"

He wanted our phone number. I told him we might not be home. Just give me a general time. Like, perhaps, "After noon?" Dude said yes. After noon. I told him we might even call before we left home. You know. In case he had trouble getting gas.

I am secretly hoping that "getting gas" is a euphemism for consulting somebody with a lot of experience in making garage door springs.

Forks. They're All the Rage.

Pardon me while I take a moment from brushing the silky pink mane of my unicorn, while playing "Greensleeves" on an antique harp with my toes.

I am so mad that the top of my head is about to shoot into the stratosphere.

I'm like a cartoon quitting-time whistle. The pressure must be released. Each day, Hick finds a way to get under my skin. I'm sure he's taking valuable time away from poking venomous snakes with sticks, taunting bulls with red capes, and lobbing stones at hornets' nests. He would be much safer sticking to those pursuits.

Hick arrives home any time within a 90-minute window. It is hard to guess the time to have his supper ready. We rarely sit down to eat, what with Genius being gone most evenings, The Pony ready at a regular dinner time, me not having lunch until 2:00 and not ready for another meal, and Hick popping in at his convenience. Tonight I served Hick some baked fish, a grilled pepper-jack on Nutty Oat bread, some slaw (yes, my mother's favorite side dish), and a bowl of strawberries. Actually, I did not physically serve him. Which was the problem.

Hick got home before I had started his meal. In addition, he declared that he would be making a trip to Lowe's as soon as he was finished eating. So I popped the fish in the oven, slathered some I Can't Believe It's Not Butter on the bread, heated up the non-stick skillet, washed and beheaded the strawberries, and set out the slaw and pepper jack. I noticed that my skillet had a few new scratches. I've only had this one since Christmas. Like Lucky Ned Pepper told Rooster Cogburn about Mattie Ross when they left her at the camp with Tom Chaney, "She was in wonderful health when I last saw her." That was the night I cooked up some mushrooms and onions. Now my skillet had more grooves than the rumble strip on an interstate highway shoulder.

I called to Hick that his food was ready. Silly me. I should have plated it for him. I usually don't, because he sometimes wanders in to eat after goating and chickening all evening. This time, I was standing right there to see what transpired. Hick ignored the plate I had set out for him. He grabbed a different one. Then he whipped a fork out of the drawer, and before I realized what was happening, he jabbed it under the grilled cheese in the non-stick pan. A FORK! ON MY NON-STICK PAN! Oh, the Teflonity! Not only did he scrape it under the sandwich, but the sandwich started to bow in the middle. Who scoops a grilled cheese out of non-stick pan with a fork? That's some crazy behavior right there! The spatula was conveniently resting on the plate I had set out for him. No wonder he ignored it.

Okay, so it's a metal spatula. I know how to use it. I prefer my old blue plastic spatula, but I broke it over Tank the beagle during a 3:00 a.m. bout of barking. I didn't break it over the beagle. That would be not right, and bring PETA down on me. I don't believe in whacking animals unless they first pierce flesh. Hick has whacked our shepherd Ann with a dead chicken, which dissuaded her from killing, though he probably should have done it with the first corpse, not the fourth. I told him that idea of tying a dead chicken around her neck would only make her think, "Ooh! A chicken necklace! I need another one of these."

Let's see, where was I...Tank was baying at the neighbor's dog in the early morning hours, and, can you believe it, he would not stop when I told him, "SHUT UP!" and poked my finger in his face. Must be because he still has his baby-makers, because I can't imagine any other dog refusing to stop barking when faced with such a logical request. So...I had taken my favorite spatula out there, because I didn't have a rolled-up newspaper, print is dead, haven't you heard? When Tank had the audacity to snarl at me for getting in his face, like I was challenging him by looking straight into his eyes and waggling my finger, can you imagine that, then I slammed that spatula on the porch boards to get his attention and show my displeasure with his behavior. Funny how that didn't really stop his barking, but broke my favorite spatula! You'd think if they could send a man to the moon, they could make a plastic spatula able to withstand contact with Wolmanized lumber.

I know I did not scratch my own non-stick skillet with my metal spatula. I have a feeling a man who would scoop a grilled cheese with a fork would also scoop mushrooms-and-onions with a fork. He might as well have asked Freddy Krueger or Edward Scissorhands to grab a fistful and toss them onto his plate. Of course Hick denied any wrongdoing in the case of the gouged non-stick skillet. Short of nailing up a game camera on my kitchen cabinets to catch him in the act, I am powerless to prosecute him for the crime.

Writing is the BEST medicine. Forget that laughter crap. I'm feeling much better. That vein in my temple has quit throbbing.

I'm off to peruse the innernets to see if the local junior college has an evening class in spatula-wielding.

Crack, Crack, Cracking At My Cellar Door

Did you ever feel like your house threw a party, and didn't invite you? That's what The Pony and I have been going through all month. It has intensified while Genius is away at Missouri Boys State, where he was asked to donate ten days as part of the technology staff.

We have always had the phantom footsteps. Ha ha! The people on those ghost-hunting trips who hear footsteps and get all freaked out are just comical. We live with that 12/7/365. That's normal around the house that Hick built.

Here's a new one. The Pony says he hears noises from my office. Not the noises I have heard, like an empty soda can falling off the counter. Nor noises I have heard upstairs in the past, like stacks of magazines falling off the back of the couch onto carpet. No, the new manifestation observed by The Pony is the cracking open of a can of soda. That's how he describes it. It's only when he's downstairs alone, and I am upstairs. We both know there's no soda-openin' going on in my office. That space is reserved for my 44 oz. Diet Coke.

A few nights ago, The Pony went upstairs for his shower, then bed. No sooner had he gone up, after five minutes of solitude in my recliner in front of the big-screen TV, than I heard the distinctive sound of a soda opening in my office. It has happened once more since then. Or maybe it's a beer. But it's the sound of a can top flipping open.

The Pony also has another new sound. A light switch. I asked him, "What do you mean, a light switch?"

"Duh! A LIGHT SWITCH! Like this!" He trotted across the tile floor to the light switch between the end of the piano we inherited from my grandma and the door to Hick's workshop. He flipped that switch on, then off. It didn't click. They're the silent kind. It thumped. I've never heard that one myself. But The Pony says it happens a couple of times a night, while I'm in my office. In addition, he says he sees a white figure in the doorway of my dark office that he pretends is me. That's the right direction for where I hear my falling can noises.

The Pony has been closing his bedroom door at night. I attributed it to him growing up and wanting more privacy, or not wanting to hear Genius's TV or music late into the night. Genius is a night owl like me, while The Pony generally retires before 10:00. Even though Genius keeps his door closed since being chastised for opening his windows while the air conditioning runs, the sound comes through.

Last week, I woke up in my recliner around 3:00 a.m. I went upstairs, turned off the basement lights, and went to the front living room window to turn off my laptop that powers my internet. The only lights we leave on at night are the ones under the kitchen cabinets. They provide a dim, twilight kind of ambiance that keeps you from whacking your shin on the coffee table. As I turned to go back through the living room, I saw a white shape outside The Pony's bedroom door. It appeared to be standing. It was like an upright manatee. Kind of a long blob. When I looked directly at it, it was gone. I did not tell The Pony.

One day later, that boy was full of questions on the way to town. "Hey, Mom. What kind of things have you seen besides that headless man? And the sounds. What all have we heard? Didn't you hear magazines falling? Have you ever SEEN anything upstairs?"

I told him about the white blob. He rides behind me in T-Hoe. Weird, I know. But that's what he likes. So I couldn't see him nod at the revelation. But I felt it. "That's why I close my door at night. I kept seeing something out there. Was it looking in, or looking out? Because I feel like it's watching me."

"It seemed to be standing. Not looking in OR out. Standing guard, maybe. Like it was looking toward me in the living room. Only there were no eyes. It was just a perception on my part."

"Okay, then. It must be Grandpa looking out for me."

I haven't seen it again. But you'd think there was a rave going on in Genius's room right above our TV-watching area in the basement. He's been gone since Wednesday morning, and by 4:00 or 5:00 in the evening, we start hearing people walking in his room. It's more frequent after 10:30.

I don't know what's going on. But I'm getting used to it.

I Would Have Been Less Busy Chewing Down Trees, Piling Them Into a Dam, and Slapping Mud Over Them With My Big Flat Tail

Excuse me. This will be brief. I need to get some ointment for my nose. It has been rubbed raw by the grindstone this week.

I have frittered away my time with 14 blog posts, a photo submission for a final edit, two contest entries, and one anthology submission...plus one work-in-progress that I'd hoped would be done by now, which still needs refining. AND I sorted through a pile of papers on my kitchen counter! It's a wonder I'm not laid up in the hospital like a celebrity, suffering from exhaustion. Or dehydration. You know. Those euphemisms for being off your rocker. We all know that Val could not claim dehydration, what with her daily dose of 44 oz. Diet Coke.

I had planned on polishing that WIP tonight, but I promised The Pony I would look over a story he wants to submit to One Teen Story. He's gone to the auction with Hick right now, though I don't think it's so much a case of father-son bonding as it is a desire to see a schoolmate who was going to the auction with HIS father.

Now time is slipping away, and I have missed Redneck Island, and will have to DVR it later. You'd think I'd have MORE time during my summer vacation.

At Medi-Wait, You're Not Always Next in Line

Val has a new bee in her bonnet. An energetic, adolescent, venom-stuffed stinger-wielder that is buzzing to get out.

There I was, minding my own business, my Ps and Qs, my manners, adorned by my lovely, lace-trimmed, pastel-hued, ultra-feminine bonnet, waiting for my turn at the pharmacy. You might recall how my pharmacy recently changed hands. How it went from not quite a mom & pop establishment, perhaps more of an extended family business, to one of ten bazillion links in the largest pharmacy chain ever to dole out drugs to the masses. I'll call it Medi-Wait Pharmacy.

The poor put-upon workers were allowed to keep their jobs, but required to toil for the overlord and toe the line to the nth degree. They had to reorganize the front of the shop, placing aisles as close together as a the walkway between the seats of a school bus. Aisles that separate customers as they enter, like pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters in a coin-sorter, to funnel them to the counter like cattle on the way to slaughter. The PICK UP sign hangs over the left side of the counter, and the DROP OFF sign hangs over the right. In between signs are a couple of registers used for additional pickups.

The PICK UP clerks were all taken. Two had customers with lengthy explanations and snafus. The third was picking up medicine as fast as it was plopped on the inner-sanctum counter by the pharmacists, and calling for customers who had been waiting in-store for their meds. I was at the front end of the aisle, next in line.

I browsed for last-minute purchases as they intended. On my left was a bevy of beauty products labeled as airline size. Not for me. I am flying nowhere, except possibly into a rage in the near future, though currently unbeknownst to myself. On my right, various toothpicks, flosses, and dental probes. No thank you. Not an impulse purchase item for moi.

A man came in and stood behind me. I was the line, you see. The line waiting to pick up medicine. A couple of women came in, saw the situation, and declared, "Uh, yeah. That's not happening." They whooshed right back out the self-opening sliding doors. The man remained, second in line, kept in place by my buttocks, which closed off the aisle like a cork in a champagne bottle. Thank goodness that heavy-sighing, toe-tapping, dagger-staring dude did not have a saber on his sash. Probably because he was bereft of a sash. And only because it was being dry-cleaned.

I waited, if not patiently, at least captively. There was nowhere else to go. I listened to one guy trying to pick up meds who wanted to have the $60 mouthwash taken out of his order, because the woman he was picking it up for has mouth sores. Believe me, that's not a picture I wanted in my head. I was not trying to eavesdrop. It's a tiny store. The other man being serviced was hacking and coughing about it being a new prescription, and he could leave and get it later if need be, as long as it would be good around the 25th, when he usually came in to get his other refills. The utility clerk had pawned drugs off on two store-waiters, and turned to see if any other bags had been placed for disbursement by the pharmacists. Seeing none, she turned to call the next customer. Who we all know was Val Thevictorian. Next in line.

That guy behind me turned tail and ran back up the aisle, dashed around the end cap by the door, and scurried up the next cattle chute to arrive in front of the utility clerk's register. Hacker had just turned to leave. His clerk saw my mouth drop open. She turned to look at Rude Dude and rolled her eyes. "Did you see that?" Of course I did. Even Utility Clerk was nodding her head at me and about to put Rude Dude in his place. However, the EyeRoller motioned me to her prime counter real estate. "I'll help you. That right there is something that almost started a fight in here yesterday."

Yeah. I was about to unbonnet my bee.

Rude Dude was obviously a long-time sufferer of Little Man Syndrome. He was an indignant, snappish, entitled-acting fellow. The type who views the world as his public servant. He must have been somewhere in the middle of his 30th decade of life. This is what happens when children are raised to think they're the center of the universe, and rewarded with ribbons and trophies and certificates simply for being.

And this is one curmudgeon who begrudges them the oxygen they waste later in life.

Those Things Oughta Be Registered

Country living is fraught with danger. Forget the idyllic, peaceful setting, Greensleeves playing on a lute in the background, goats grazing on the front lawn, chickens scratching in the side yard, dogs lounging on the porch, cats draped boneless off the edge of the doghouse roof...cue the Psycho stabby music! Mother Nature will claw your eyes out if you're not ever-vigilant.

The Pony has the duty of checking on the animals during the day. We have a black hen that hatched one chick. Nothing went wrong. She was only sitting on one egg. It was not even her egg. Hens are like that. They're opportunists when they get all broody. I asked The Pony if he was sure it was not her egg. "Well, considering that she sat on the same spot for two weeks, and there was never an egg under her, I'd say she took this one from another hen."

Here they are in their little apartment, where they sleep. Even the baby looks wary of the momma's talons.

This poor hen is like Miss Prissy. Not in looks. In yearning. She had one other chick last summer, but it disappeared. It was not the one who perched on the edge of the water tub and drowned. This one vanished. Since we don't have chicken wire (what do you think we are, farmers or something?), the chicks weave in and out of the dog pen fence that makes up their open-doored pen. I'm sure something ate it.

This is the patio, outside the boudoir, where the little couple can get some sun, see and hear the other fowl all around them, and feel safe from predators or caregivers. Those feet were made for gougin'.

Now Miss Prissy is all overprotective of this one chick. Hick put them up in a little pen that used to be a rabbit hutch, until the chick is big enough to have the common sense to not wander off from its mother. They have to have fresh food and water each day. Hick cautioned The Pony, "Be careful when you reach into that hen's cage. She'll get you. I had to knock her back three times before I could give her food."

The Pony agreed. "I KNOW! I have to hold her back with a stick so I can get the water. She'll peck you!" He must have thought it was a form of torture when I sent him to take a picture while checking on their water at noon. All things considered, he did a decent job of snapping some photos without losing an arm.

You know how some babies play in their food? Fowl babies poop in their food.

A Lesson in Higher Learning

OK, time for some tough love. Those of you who slouched in looking for Living in a People-Watching Paradise II might as well sell your used textbook back to the bookstore. This class has been canceled, due to lack of interest. Don't go crying to the registrar for your refund. You fail to show up and snooze, you lose.

Oh, I'm sure there are several wiseacres among you irresponsible whippersnappers. Those who will say, "But Professor Val, we showed up and waited 15 minutes, then we left because you weren't here." That is NOT in the university bylaws. I was simply having difficulties with technology. My lesson was prepared. I thought I had published the syllabus. It certainly showed so from my side. But when I checked an hour later, there was no syllabus to be seen. Last semester's coursework was still displayed. And I was left with a list of six drafts, all the same, all unpublishable. A more-conspiracy-theory-oriented faculty member might even suspect that the Department of We Stick Our Collective Noses in Your Personal Business had infiltrated our faculty database.

Others may say that you slipped your assignment under the door of my office. Sure you did. The only one I received on time was from Mr. Chatterbox. Kudos, Mr. Chatterbox. You will get your credit. Since I am grading this class on the curve, you get the 'A'. Well done, sir.

To those of you who were grabbing a brew over at Delta House, Dean Wormer will be in contact. Giving your love a cherry with no stone, a chicken with no bone, and a story with no end is no way to go through life. And neither is fat, drunk, and stupid, according to Dean Wormer. Not that we had that talk personally, of course. Oh, and he would like me to inform you that whoever brought Mrs. Wormer home in a shopping cart and parked her on the front lawn will be subject to double-secret probation.

Any of you wishing to make amends and get back on track with your education may sign up for my new course in animal husbandry. It's enrolling now. A Thursday evening course that will include a lab on the first night. You might want to head over to the bookstore for your lab equipment. A pair of falconer's gloves is recommended. I think you can get them used.

I suggest you get a good night's sleep and show up tomorrow in your thinking cap. Be sure to thread the cable through your bicycle's frame when you lock it, or you're going to be riding a front tire back to the dorm.