Tommy's Day Out

Here's a little update on the Tommy situation.

Tommy called our house over the weekend, to see if Hick could give him a ride to Walmart and the grocery store. Hick was carousing around Goodwill at the time, but I gave him the message. He called Tommy and made arrangements to take him on Sunday afternoon, making sure Tommy knows that Hick doesn't mind to take him, but it has to fit into Hick's schedule.

On the way, Hick stopped for gas at the local Casey's. Tommy went in with him, and bought a local paper and a St. Louis Post Dispatch, and a candy bar. They continued to Walmart, and Tommy decided that he could just get everything there, and they could drop the grocery store stop.

Hick said he waited out in the car while Tommy shopped, but that he was in there almost an hour, and Hick had to go to the bathroom, so he went inside, and waited up front on a bench for Tommy to come out. Tommy apologized for taking so long.

"I was looking for the work gloves. I couldn't find them until right at the end. I've been cutting a path through my trees, and I needed some gloves."

"Don't buy work gloves, Tommy. I have a bunch of work gloves that I brought home from work. I'll give you some. Don't spend your money on them."

[Let the record show that it's not like Hick is scamming leather work gloves and profiting from them on the black market. They're white cotton work gloves, like you might use for light gardening, which come in a bundle. Hick uses them while pulling nails out of old wooden pallets or shipping crates, and cleaning up fallen tree limbs, etc. While I would normally look askance at workplace theft, I figure all those 2:00 a.m. calls from the workplace alarm company, and the resulting trips 40 miles to work to meet with the police who responded to the alarm, kind of balance out Hick's sticky fingers. It's not like he gets paid by the hour or is compensated for such aggravation. He's earned a few pairs of cotton work gloves here and there over the past 23 years. And there are other personnel on the call list, who live closer, who don't pick up.]

"I don't know what to do with all those limbs I've been trimming. They're just in a pile for now."

"Don't worry about the brush. I'll bring my tractor over and get it."

"A man called and offered to cut my trees if he could keep the wood, in exchange for giving me a truck. But he said there was somebody else's name on the title, so I said no."

"That's a good thing, Tommy. You don't want to get messed up with a bad title."

"I would like to get a car sometime."

This is where I think maybe Hick was mistaken in the facts he told me previously. Seems like Tommy has had a driver's license before, and has driven when his mom had a vehicle, even though she never drove. He also said that one time he worked in fast food.

Hick says that sometime, he's going to go over and ask Tommy if he wants to ride to Goodwill. Whether to shop or just get out for a while, it doesn't matter.

Anyhoo...Hick asked Tommy if he ever saw my cat, Snuggles. Tommy said she used to come around, and then she didn't anymore. He also said that he'd been looking at old photo albums, and had a picture of him and his mom with the neighbor girls one Christmas, when they brought over some cookies.

Guess who's on the Chex Mix list now.