Thursday, December 8, 2016

I Complained Because My Window Was Held Up by Two Doorstops, and Then I Met a Woman Whose Window Was Held Up by Blue Duct Tape

And that woman was ME!!!

Yeah. Seems like only 12 days ago I complained that Hick had shoved two three wooden doorstops in T-Hoe's rear passenger window to hold it closed.


Wednesday I got in T-Hoe to go meet my favorite gambling aunt for lunch, and found that I had to deal with THIS:


Yeah. That's my car door. Riding along as a back-seat passenger! Unbeknownst to ME, until I climbed in and turned around to back out of the garage. Turned around, because my back-up beepers don't work. Oh, I would have noticed, even if I didn't turn around. The rattle would have piqued my curiosity.

Oh, how I longed for those 11 days of driving around with three wooden doorstops holding up my window! Because now I was tooling around three towns in a Hoosiermobile with blue duct tape holding up the rear window. Even cardboard and silver duct tape covering the passenger window on the $1000 Caravan was not as jarring.

But that's not all!!! Enough, yes. But ALL, no.

Hick had taken T-Hoe to work to have the job done at a place he knows up there. He had said they might need to order a part, in which case they would fix the window so it wouldn't fall down in the meantime. I'm pretty sure Hick said he went to school with this lady whose husband runs the shop. I'm starting to think the husband went to school with Hick, too. And learned how to hold up a window from the same trade school teacher.

Anyhoo...Hick had returned T-Hoe to the garage and parked him a bit farther forward that I do. Meaning that the driver's door rested against a framing 2 x 4 in the wall, and did not reach maximum openage. A hardship for Val to bend her cantankerous knee to get in.

THEN, once I got out on the road and tried to look behind me, I noticed that the passenger side mirror gave me a view of the overcast sky. How Hick drives like that is BEYOOOOOND me. Of course, it could explain the sweaving...

When a song came on the radio that I did not care for, Hick's THIRD STRIKE caused a roar from this crowd of one. I clicked T-Hoe's steering-wheel station-changer with my finger, and could only get the same six stations. Over and over. And over. And over. It would go through the six stations and then start again with the same six.

I could not get my channels to come up. It's not like I memorize the numbers on Sirius XM for my stations. They are readily available with the tap of a finger. Without even taking my eyes off the road. Until NOW!

I called Hick, to ask what he did with the radio.

"I didn't do nothin' to the radio. I just listened to my stations."

"Now MY stations are gone! I can't get to them! No matter how I try."

"All you have to do is go to HOME."

"There IS NO HOME!"

"Yes there is. Right there beside the stations. A little house button."

"No. Nothing like that. I've tried everything I can. Now I can't listen to the radio."

"It's there. You're just not seeing it."

"Nope. You messed it up. I'm driving. Bye."

Then I ended the call, which probably Hick would call hanging up on him. Once I parked to wait for Auntie Gambler, I fiddled and faddled and somehow found my stations! All I remember is it involved the MENU button and something that popped up on the radio screen, and poking some flat buttons under there, and then clicking on the steering wheel again. WHEW! I hate to pay for something I can't use.

I sent Hick a text:

"I accidentally figured out my radio, so DON'T TOUCH IT tomorrow! You must have been thinking about how you messed up my ACADIA radio with the HOME button."

Yeah. I found out the day he took T-Hoe for fixin' that he had lost my A-Cad stations. I'll try the HOME button before I get out on the road. I can't do it in the garage, though. Ever since we got the metal roof, Sirius XM won't work in the garage. I'm hoping that Hick will bring home a working-windowed T-Hoe.

I kind of wish I had stopped by my sister the ex-mayor's wife's house and taken her for a ride in my jalopy.



19 comments:

  1. Um, it's a pretty shade of blue?

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    Replies
    1. Absolutely one of the nicest colors duct tape offers!!

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    2. I agree. If you gotta have a window held up by duct tape, this shade of blue is the way to go!

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  2. The radio stations and the drivers seat set position is why Mrs. C won't let me drive her car.

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    1. I agree with her. Even though T-Hoe has those two settings, 1 and 2, that you can use to ALLEGEDLY return the seat and mirrors to those positions...my seat never goes all the way back, and my mirror looks up at the sky.

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  3. I think that rear window looks real sporty. Duct tape rules.

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    1. I'm going to make that look happen! Stand aside, Gretchen Wieners, because FETCH is SO 2004.

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  4. It looks much nicer than I pictured.

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    1. That makes me worry about WHAT you pictured!

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  5. Very neatly done, maybe Hick would like to come and mask up those 96 edges on the cabinet I'm (still) painting so I don't have to scrape off all the paint I've got on the glass when I'm finished?

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    1. Um, NO! You don't want Hick as your detail man. He's the one who installed every outlet and switch plate in this house at an angle. Don't get me started on the faucets, where half of them have the hot water coming out of what you would expect to be the cold water side.

      The repair shop put that tape on the window. HICK used the wooden doorstops.

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  6. Val--Okay. All I could focus in on is the blacked-out license plate.

    How did you do that? (I'd like to know how to black out myself in group photos.)

    Although probably it's needless to ask. Probably I lack the tech skills to do such wizardry...

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    1. I know, right? That is the most AMAZING thing! I did it by accident. I was trying to find a way to resize my photo. Crop it to leave out the plate. But since Genius upgraded my computer a while back, I don't have that Picture Manager ability any more.

      So...I was fiddling around, and opted to open the picture in Paint. I still couldn't crop, but clicked on that pencil thingy, and SCRIBBLED out my license plate!!!

      I only hope I can remember how to do that again.

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    2. Half the plates in Jersey have the background yellow color scratched out. I think it makes the stop light camera inaccurate. It annoys me, I think they should be ticketed for defacing the license plate.

      Really ticks me off...maybe because I've been hit with two tickets for running a light.

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    3. I never heard of that. I guess you don't have any yellow-license-plate-color-scratching scissors...

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  7. Hoosier mobile, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. You are a riot.

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    1. Now when you see a Hoosiermobile drive by, you will think of me!

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  8. The blacked out license plate caught my eye before the tape did, as well. It made it look like someone had stolen your plate with a propane torch! HeWho had the decency to leave the door panels he removed in his beloved Barn Of Hoarding.

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    Replies
    1. Glad to hear that you didn't have to drive your door panels around like passengers! Nobody got our plate, but where I used to teach, there was a rash of sticker-stealing when people renewed their plates.

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