Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Eight UPS Deliverypersons Upended

Ah...we're up to the 8th Day of Hickness already! Doesn't hurt that Val rolled the first six out piecemeal, without branding them in the collection. Yesterday's Day could have been called "Seven Vals Bedeviled," (because Val was beside herself six times, with fear of Hick's activities during his upcoming retirement). However, yesterday's post was so chock full of title possibilities that it was richer than Richie Rich at Fort Knox eating blog buddy Sioux's fudge! Yesterday has passed, though, so let's get on with today.

Hick has been spiffing up the ol' homestead for the holidays. Actually, all that requires is setting out a string of light-up mini-Santas along the front fence. The fence I do not like. The fence that is an embarrassment to fencedom. The fence that is neither pretty nor rustic. The fence that forces Val to travel around her elbow to get to her thumb if she wants to venture into the front yard to see what her fleabags are currently dismembering/chewing on/destroying. Yes, just a string of mini-Santas taken down from the garage rafters and stretched along the fence and plugged in.

The lights that outline the homestead's roof line are left in place all year, you know, clipped onto the soffits. That's how we do out here where civilization can't hear you scream, "I'm a hillbilly!" All they need for lighting is to flip a light switch by the garage door. Oh, and there are six giant plastic Christmas tree ornaments that Hick used to hang on the cedar tree by the garage. The cedar tree he had cut down without Val's permission or even knowledge in order to build his too-narrow carport. So now he hangs those giant ornaments on the edge of the carport roof. I suppose there's a certain symmetry in that.

You'd think that with so little production needed to decorate the ol' homestead for Christmas that Hick would at least pay attention to detail with the one task that needed doing. He's the man, after all, who screwed a red plastic milk crate onto the cedar siding next to the green front door so the UPS deliverypersons would have a receptacle to hold left packages. I wish I knew what I said to him that discouraged the installation of such a drop box this year, but alas, I cannot.

Nor can I make Hick understand that the power source for his row of light-up mini-Santas is not up to code. It's a good thing he has not yet held the grand opening of Hick's Shackytown Theme Park. OSHA would hand Hick his own butt on a platter.


Yes, this is the handiwork of the man in charge of setting up a saw blade manufacturing plant in an old Red Cross warehouse. The man the company sends overseas to inspect machines and train people at their foreign factories.

Last Thursday, I was expecting a package of high-dollar electronic equipment that is a present for The Pony. I had to be away from the ol' homestead for a few hours to lunch with my best ol' ex-teaching buddy Mabel. I could imagine the arrival of this package while I was gone, and the tripping of the UPS deliveryperson, and the resultant juggling of the high-dollar electronic equipment, and the disappointment on Christmas morning when the shattered shards were unwrapped. Oh, yeah. And the hospital bills of the upended UPS deliveryperson for treatment of 3rd-degree skin-chapping from the licks of Puppy Jack and my Sweet, Sweet Juno as that deliveryperson lay there unconscious from the head-knock received by her noggin on Hick's torn up and put back exactly the same way brick sidewalk.

I unplugged the light-up mini-Santas that day. I coiled the green wire around the fence post. I did not, however, move that industrial-style electrical outlet that is plugged in on the side porch with its own black cord thick as a man's pinky finger stretched across the boards for anyone walking around the porch to stumble over.

Good thing I did, too, because right after I returned home, the UPS deliveryperson put that package on the front porch, leaning right up against the wall by the door, where that red milk crate used to hang. She knocked twice, and by the time I got the door open, she had already scampered past the site where she might have met an untimely interlude.

Hick. Never disappoints when it comes to sparking a blog post.

14 comments:

  1. Before long Hickwood will be more famous than Dollywood.

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    1. Now, if he can only develop a dinner show with horses and riders called The Backroads Stampede, we can double our profit. It wouldn't hurt if he could write a couple million songs, either. He wouldn't even have to sing them, just grow fat off the royalties. Not that Dolly is fat, of course.

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  2. I wanted to duct tape our wire down on the sidewalk to make it safe for walking. Mrs. C insisted we hang it from the roof across and around a tree to avoid tripping. If Saquille O'neil is working for UPS he might get clothes hung.

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    1. Once again, Mrs. C protects you from your good ideas. I'd say you are more likely to have UPS delivery people with feet than a UPS delivery person who is Shaquille O'Neal.

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  3. Hick and Dolly could start up a combined park.

    (What would the park be called?)

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  4. I could show you more interesting wiring if I were brave enough to enter the barn of many horrors! Makes me want to know if Hick's shacks are wired for power .....

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    1. He was just talking about that LAST NIGHT! He's going to run electricity to them from the whatchamacallit that sticks up out of the front yard, where the 5th wheel camper my mom gave us used to be parked.

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  5. Would Dickwood be inappropriate?

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    1. Well...for WHAT?

      Oh. You mean as a name for Dolly and Hick's theme park. It's better than Dick's Woodytown, I suppose.

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  6. Please, readers, it's Shackytown. Val, seems like Hick needs Tom Sawyer there to get that fence painted (or white-washed).

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    1. That fence definitely needs work. However, you can't expect Hick to give up a brass door knob, a dead rat (and a string to swing it), a dog collar, and a kitten with one eye...he's a collector, you know.

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  7. My guy taped the holiday lights to the carport post. Tape has been flapping in the breeze for a week.

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    1. TAPE! That was Hick's suggestions for putting up a sign about package deliveries, and I vetoed that motion forthwith!

      I'm getting ahead of myself. It will be a future story. Maybe a Day of Hickness. Maybe not.

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