Things That Go CLANK in the Late Morning

Perhaps I've mentioned that I'm not an early riser. By the time I get up, all the worms have been taken. Not that I want to catch any, or even wrestle them away from an industrious early-bird. I'm in no hurry to get my day started.

Monday, I was up at nearly the crack of dawn: 8:50 a.m. By 10:20, I was willing to stop watching Stripes right in the middle, to take my shower. I was feeling especially bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, out of bed so early. I bagged up the bathroom trash, and even cleaned the toilet.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Hick has been neglecting to put a new light bulb in the ceiling light/fan by the toilet and shower, just so I can't actually SEE what excretions he might have left on or around the toilet. It seems odd that this light has been out at least two months. Hick is well aware. The fan part still works, but not the light. The six big Showgirls-makeup-mirror-suitable bulbs over the sink light most of the bathroom. But when the frosted glass shower doors are closed, it's a little dim in there.

There I was, in the twilight of my shower at 10:30 a.m., going about my personal cleanliness routine, when I heard a CLANK!

"What in the NOT-HEAVEN? I wasn't even moving! I was just breathing in the mist to open up my sinuses. How can something fall? WHAT fell?"

I ran through the possibilities in my mind. I have a tube of conditioner that I rest on top of the very '80s gold metal trim of the sliding shower doors. Hick has a toothbrush, toothpaste, and razor balanced on the end by the wall. Huh. That's it! Sounded like a razor falling off the door frame.

I turned slowly, careful of where I put my feet. Don't want to step on a razor when you take an aspirin every night to keep your blood thin! I got turned around, but didn't see a razor on the floor of the shower. I know the light was dim, but I couldn't find ANYTHING on the floor of the shower. The regular items were still perched atop the door frame.

When I opened the shower doors to get out, I saw the culprit. The toilet brush, a goose-neck-bent kind, had slipped off the edge of the toilet. I had balanced it there to drip dry after the scrubbing. Still, I don't know what made it fall. It was steady when I left it, and had been hanging on there for at least 10 minutes. At the time it fell, I wasn't moving at all in the shower.

Sometimes I hear stuff in the bathroom while I'm along in the house, trying to sleep. Like water will start running, then stop. As if suddenly dripping out of the shower nozzle.

Oh, yeah. Those two lower strings lights on my Christmas tree (still up!)... went off again two Sundays ago. Have stayed off. But another strand lit up really bright, in the middle of the tree, last week. And Saturday night, I heard Hick walking around upstairs over my lair (in the doorway of the bedroom and master bathroom), and about five minutes later he called me.

He was 20 miles away, just leaving an auction.

Hick and Val Continue Their Gun Battle

When I ascended from my dark basement lair to make supper for Hick on Saturday evening, he was kicked back in the La-Z-Boy, waving a stack of money at me.

"Oh. Are you giving me that?"

"NO. It's what I made today."

"How much?"

"Four hundred and twenty-one dollars."

"That's good. Now I don't have to pay you back anything out of my lottery winnings."

"Well. I didn't say THAT. We owe me a lot more than that." 

"I mean we don't have to pay you back until after the camper sells."

"Maybe. I sold two guns today."

"I always told you that you had too much money wrapped up in those guns. What'd you make, forty dollars profit on them?"

"No. I sold a .22 shotgun / 410 rifle combo. It was a Rossi. Not real common. I made thirty dollars profit on it. And another shotgun, for five dollars over what I paid for it."

"Ha ha ha! You didn't EVEN make a forty dollar profit, then!"

"Yeah. But I got rid of them. I'd had the one for over a year."

"THAT'S WHAT I WAS TELLING YOU! Too much money tied up in the guns!"

"Well. Now I've got my money back."

Sheesh! If only I could have found a way to make him think of that himself before now.

A Stunning Development at Hick's Storage Unit Store

Hick started out telling me how good his business was at the Storage Unit Store on Saturday. Then, almost as an afterthought, related the following story.

"I was standing outside talking to prospective customers when I heard a POP! Like a gun! I went inside, and some guy was telling this other guy, 'You know, bud, you just wasted a $50 cartridge!' Come to find out, this guy, probably in his early twenties, had been looking at the taser I got from backcreek neighbor Bev. HE SHOT IT!

He was lucky. The thing went right past the leg of his wife, and almost hit the other guy standing there. The wife started getting on him. Not exactly telling him he was stupid, but she might as well have. You could tell that she was not happy with him. He said, 'You stay here! I'll go down to the ATM and get some money.' So he was trying to do the right thing. I don't know what he was thinking when he shot that off!

Anyway, Shooter came back with $80. He tried to hand it to me. He said, 'Sorry. Here's for your trouble.' I didn't take the $80. But that taser is no good without a cartridge. I'll have to replace it to sell the taser. I'm asking $250 for it. They're $750 new. I could have just taken the $80 and give him the gun, but I'd be losing money. I took $60. The cartridge will cost me $55. I can't believe people! He's lucky he didn't hit his wife or that guy. Then they REALLY wouldn't have been happy!

I don't have nothin' in that gun. Bev gave it to me. But still, it's mine to sell."

"Well, now you can tell people, 'I know it works. Some idiot SHOT IT while looking at it."

"I knew it worked. Bev used it. Well, her husband used it. ON HER! She wanted him to, so she could see how it felt."

"Wow! Did it make her go limp and fall down? Did she start shaking?"

"I don't know, but she didn't fall down, because she was sitting in a chair. She said she couldn't move, though."

"They shot it IN THE HOUSE?"

"Yeah. I don't know why they do things like that."

I think Hick might need to put that taser up, to protect himself and others from stupidity. Put it in a case or something. So they have to ask to look at it. I wonder if somebody could sue him for having it where people can grab it. I'm pretty sure I know Hick's answer: "All our stuff is in a trust. You can't sue a trust."

My answer is, "Better safe than sorry." Even if Hick isn't really sorry.

That's the Way the COIN Clanks

For two cents, I'd tell you about the coins I added to my Future Pennyillionaire collection this week. Oh, wait! I AM telling you! About the TWO CENTS I found.

SUNDAY, May 19, got the week off to a good start when I stepped out of T-Hoe at Country Mart. Alas, the week did not live up to its initial promise...

Yeah, you might need a little help with this one. To be fair, the sun was making a glare on my phone, and I wasn't even sure if I had the penny in frame. I did, though. There in the middle, like the third point of a flat sideways triangle using those two white spots above and below that big crack. Heh, heh. I said big crack!

It was a year 2000, heads up. Kind of dirty, but still shiny enough to get my attention.
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FRIDAY, May 24, was problematic. I pulled onto the parking lot of The Gas Station Chicken Store, weaving through all manner of gas-getters and bad parkers. I guess people were getting an early start on the holiday weekend. I figured there would be a crowd in the tiny story, not conducive to penny-picturing. I threw caution to the wind, and left my phone in T-Hoe. As I turned to close the door, I almost reached in to snatch that phone off the console, and put it in my pocket. But I didn't. It's not like I've been finding 39 pennies a week any more.

You know what happened, right? Yes, in the tradition of cookies crumbling, and balls bouncing, Even Steven taught me the lesson: That's How the Coin Clanks. I take that phone in every store, every day, just in case I see a coin. But the ONE TIME the phone was in the car, I found a penny! Right by the door, on my way out. Of course I picked it up and put it in my shirt pocket.

Once I reunited with my phone in T-Hoe, I posed Old Abe on the air conditioner vent. Just to prove he happened.

There's Hick's pharmacy, CeilingReds, in the background, across the moat.

Gotta give 2017 Abe his close-up. He, too, was looking up at me when I bent down to liberate him from the tile.

Because I'm such a Pollyanna, a rainbows and unicorn kind of Val, an eternal optimist... I'm looking at the bright side. I may have only found two pennies this week, but that's TWICE as many as I found last week!
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2019 Running Total
Penny   # 61, 62.
Dime   still at 8.
Nickel  still at 7.
Quarter  still at 1.

2018 TOTALS
Penny  131
Dime  17
Nickel  6
Quarter  1

2017 TOTALS (Started in March, 2017)
Penny  78
Dime   6
Nickel  0
Quarter  0
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Your Cheatin' Mart

Hick finally won something on a scratch-off ticket! I know. He almost needed smelling salts as well. It was just one number that matched. The very first one. He expected to win $5, but it was $20. That's really good for him. Of course, I kind of rained on his parade when I showed him my $15 winner and $50 winner for the same day.

Anyhoo...Hick wanted me to cash in his ticket and get him four more. I agreed. I was heading to Walmart the next day anyway. After shopping, since it was nearby, I decided to go in the Casey's that took over the Waterside Mart at the corner where we used to turn to drive to school.

I was wanting to save part of my winnings. I figured I didn't want to cash in the $50 and the $20 winners there, and buy Hick's tickets, because they'd probably give me back a fifty dollar bill from under the money tray. I don't like fifties. So I cashed in the $50 and the $15 winners, bought Hick's four tickets, and was due $45 in change. In my head, I imagined this would take the form of two twenties, which I'd stash away, and a five.

The clerk was shunted off to the other register by a higher-up, possibly a manager. She scanned the winners, announced, "That's sixty-five dollars," and started tearing off the four tickets I selected for Hick. When she went to the register, she changed her mind, and stepped back to the one she'd started at. Didn't matter to me. I was standing between them, by the ticket display. A register's a register.

Clerk rang up the four tickets, looked at the receipt she'd printed for my winners, and lifted the money drawer. She took out a stack of fives, and started rapid-counting them like a bank teller. She stuttered there for a minute, and counted again. Then handed me the stack of fives: "Here ya go. Forty-five dollars."

I took my (Hick's) tickets in one hand, and the stack of fives in the other. There was a lady customer behind me, and I folded over the fives, stuck them in my shirt pocket, and headed back to T-Hoe. Well. That didn't go as planned. So much for getting my two twenties and a five. I started T-Hoe toward The Gas Station Chicken Store for my 44 oz Diet Coke, and to cash in the $20 winner to get some tickets of my own.

Once on the parking lot of The Gas Station Chicken Store, I counted out correct change, and put a $1 bill in my pocket for magical elixir payment. I took out the stack of fives, which were taking up considerable room in that pocket. I straightened them all to face the same way, and counted them up, planning to set aside 8 of them.

WAIT A MINUTE! ALL I HAD WERE 8 FIVE-DOLLAR BILLS!

There should have been 9, you know. I was due back $45, and the clerk had even said so as she handed me that stack of rapidly-counted fives.

What in the NOT-HEAVEN! No way would she believe me if I drove all the way back (okay, just about 3 miles) to Casey's (formerly Waterside Mart) to tell her of my short-changing. Dang it! Why didn't I count it right there at the counter before putting it in my pocket? It's even CALLED a COUNTER, by cracky!

Of all the bone-headed moves made by Val that she has later regretted, not counting those fives is near the top of the list. Which might tell you something about the number and severity of Val's boneheaded moves. They don't happen often. Not regrettable ones, anyway.

No, I don't think that clerk deliberately scammed me out of five dollars. I guess they might have noticed the register being $5 over at the end of the shift, but maybe not. There was more than one person working out of that register.

I guess $5 is cheap enough tuition for the School of Hard Knocks to teach Val this valuable lesson: always count your change before leaving the counter.

Common Sense and the Future Chemical Engineer

The Pony is spending the summer in Norman, Oklahoma. He's been doing research in a lab on the OU campus. He's majoring in chemical engineering, you know. Last week, he sent me a picture.

"Research is expensive. A 15 ML bottle of the particles is 500 dollars."

"Wow! If you break it, do you buy it?"

"Nope. But I'm not going to break it."

"Oh, the picture just loaded. It's plastic."

"Yes, but the stuff inside is 500 dollars. 1 micrometer spheres. It's kind of irritating that it's a dripper bottle. We have to guesstimate how much 150 microliters is from drops."

"Can I share that picture? To prove it happened? Probably cropped."

"It's probably fine. Nothing confidential. AFAIK." [I assume that means as far as I know]

"It's not like I can give details of what you're doing. That's like our old dog Grizzly telling someone how to fly a 747."

"Here's the tray of the solution. Overnight, it should dry into a film with embedded particles distributed throughout. Which I'll then try to make into ellipsoids. (IE, from 1 micrometer spheres, to 2 micrometers by .5, at their longest and widest points. Think a football.) Like, a hundredth of what was in that bottle turned the same amount of water cloudy, like diluted milk. Which is also, in fact, a colloidal system. The solution here is actually cloudy. The picture didn't translate well."

"So it only took $5 worth to turn it cloudy?"

"Essentially. Meaning that it takes very little of these nanoparticles to make visible changes in things."

"Good thing! Because they're so expensive!"

The Pony also alerted me on Monday around noon that campus had called off classes all day, due to tornado forecasts.

"Keep an eye on the weather. Go to your shelter. You don't want to be on the third floor in a tornado!"

"I'll go if it gets bad enough. I'll try not to sit in the hot tub during a tornado, and softball-size hail. The meteorology students stand on the roof of the weather center and watch the sky."

Later that afternoon, after watching reports on TV, I sent a text to see if he was okay.

"Not even rain here. Perfectly fine outside."

Wednesday afternoon, I got a text at 3:38.

"Another tornado watch!"

"Stay vigilant, so you don't get locked out of the shelter like that Simpsons episode."

"It takes 20 minutes to clean up and cool down my lab trials. We had a total of 7 minutes from when they sent out the tornado watch text to the announced time to get out of the building."

"So you can't get to a shelter on time?"

"It's just frustrating. I was, technically, 7 minutes late in leaving the building after the 3:30 deadline."

"So where are you riding out the storm?"

"I'm walking home. It's not expected to really hit until 4:30 at the earliest."

"Gosh! Get to your apartment shelter! Is it too late for that?"

"No. It's just a watch. You've raised a true midwesterner. I don't mind walking in weather. It's not even bad."

That's the last I heard from him. I'm sure he's okay. Pretty sure...

Hick, the Silver-Tongued Salesman

Hick finally had good weather for a Saturday at his Storage Unit Store. He's a pretty crafty salesman.

"I took some shoes up there to sell. They don't sell real well, even though they're new in the box. You're lucky to get $10 out of a pair of shoes. I had a pair of woman's sandals, size 11. I seen this girl walk by a couple times. She had really big feet. So the next time she came by, I said, 'I've got just what you need. Come in and have a look.' She tried them on and walked around. She loved them shoes! She went to get her dad, and showed him, and asked if she could have them.

I told the guy, 'For $8, they're yours!' He said, 'I only like her $6 worth, though!' The girl looked sad, so I said, 'Okay, $6, sold!' He paid for them, and she was thrilled. 'DAD! The box says they're $40 shoes!' Then the guy says, 'Now I have to get something for your brothers. Do you have anything for boys? There's three of 'em.' I showed him some binoculars I've had for a while, marked $15 each. He offered me $12 for one. Then he said, 'If I take them all, can I get them for $10?'

'Mister, you can have all three pairs of binoculars for $30.' He took them. Then the girl says, 'Dad! You spent $10 on the boys, and only $6 on me!' He just laughed. I said, 'How old are you, about 14?' And the girl said, 'I'm 11.' She really had big feet."

I'm surprised Hick didn't flat out say to her, "You've got big feet!" A couple years ago, we saw a relative, and the first thing out of Hick's mouth was, "You got FAT!" He wasn't trying to sell anything then, though.