A Day Without a MomVenture is Like a Day Without Sunshine

We did pretty much of nothing yesterday on the 4th. Hick grilled some pork steaks and hot dogs on Gassy-G. They were succulent, the pork steak, anyway, because I have not tried a hot dog yet. I must admit Hick is a world champion griller.

I took my mom a pork steak and a couple of hot dogs today. I don't know if it's a driveway thing, or if she was in a hurry to get out, but when I called and offered her my leftovers, Mom asked if she could meet me in town. She had to put one of her checks in the bank, and then she was going in Dollar Tree, to spend her money, I guess. Of course, being Mom, she had an adventure. We'll get to that later, after today's complaint.

Mom wanted to meet on the parking lot of Dollar Tree. There's also a CeilingRed's pharmacy on that parking lot, and a beauty shop supply store, and some kind of auto parts establishment. So you would imagine a few of the parking spots to be filled at 10:00 on a Saturday morning. However...you would not expect almost all of the parking spots to be filled by pickup trucks pulling trailers loaded with Jeeps. BUT THEY WERE. I could almost not make the turn in off the street because of how one was parked, and I could barely see Mom's Blazer in the middle of their circle. Not one, not two, not three, but FOUR trucks hauling four trailers loaded with more than four Jeeps, because two of them had double Jeeps. That's ridiculous. It's not good for business. Why can't they meet on the Walmart parking lot like sensible people? I guess that's the price we pay for having an off-road area at the Backroads state park.

Once I found her, Mom got right into telling me about today's weirdo. I know I inherited this weirdo-magnet gene from her.

"I pulled up to the drive-thru, because it's Saturday, and the lobby isn't open. While I was waiting, I saw an old man standing at the drive-thru where they service people who have businesses. He had gotten out of a truck that was parked in the bank parking lot. I was trying to listen in. He wanted to cash a check, but he didn't have any ID. The girl kept telling him that they could not cash his check. You know. She's the one who gave me a hard time about cashing my check that I've cashed there for over ten years. But it wasn't because of my ID. She told him that if the main lady was there, and recognized him, she might have been able to cash it, but because of bank policy, the people working there today couldn't do it. I felt sorry for him. He kept saying, 'But what am I going to do for money? I need to cash this check.' Wouldn't you think that since he drove that truck, he should have a driver's license?"

"Yes! He was probably a scammer. Don't feel sorry for him."

"Well, I wanted to tell him, 'I think there are places where you can go and get checks cashed, besides banks.' But then he would have known I was listening, and he might have been embarrassed."

"Yes, there are check-cashing places. There's one right over there, between Little Caesar's and Terrible Cuts. That guy was scamming. He probably walked to the business drive-thru thinking they wouldn't know he drove a truck there. Maybe he had a check that he stole out of a mailbox. Remember that ring that was taking mail from boxes with the red flag up, and getting checks out of utility bills, and marking out the utility and writing in their name? And banks were CASHING THEM! That teller should have called the police. If she had seen him get out of the truck, she could say, 'I'd like to report a man driving without a license.' Yeah. She could have caught him."

"Surely he knew that he needed his driver's license on him if he was driving. And he didn't have ANY ID."

"That's what they do when they don't want to be caught scamming. Stop feeling sorry for him."

I'm glad she didn't offer him money. That was unlikely, though, because Mom is pretty tight with her finances. It must be because she's a child of the Great Depression, and had to go with only one shoe that time her brothers threw one of hers out the car window.

Come to think of it, Mom did not even offer me five dollars today, even though I gave her a pork steak, two hot dogs, three buns, and two brown bananas.

The Five Dollar Daughter needs to try harder. I'm taking Mom to get some minor surgery on Monday, and if she feels okay, later in the week I'm taking her to see that new Melissa McCarthy movie. I'll be worthy of a fin again in no time.