Always the Businessman

Hick sent me a text Sunday evening, saying he was running a little late, and just closing up his SUS2.5 (Storage Unit Store 2.5). When he got home, I heard the rest of the story.

"I was carrying my stuff inside, ready to leave, when this lady pulled up. She said she wanted all three of my deer heads. They're $50 apiece. So that was $150. I got them for her, and was ready to lock up, when I seen a truck pull onto the lot. I went and turned on my light to show that I was open. It was a young guy who bought a bunch of ammo for $110, and a red light laser sight for $50. He had a gal with him, and a couple of kids. They bought a $15 copper dog. So I made $325 in about ten minutes."

I don't know why that lady wanted the three mounted heads. Maybe she's getting Christmas gifts early. Or maybe she's in cahoots with hunters who don't have good aim. They'd better not use a red light laser sight, either. It's not legal for deer hunting.

That's our Hick. He's not going to miss a sale! He's been especially busy lately, because deer season is imminent. If only he was motivated at the same level for finishing two flip houses.

The Weekendly Harem Report

We almost made it through the weekend without Harem interference. ALMOST!

Sunday night, Hick and I were watching football. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs the Bears in Chicago. We are Buccaneers fans because of quarterback Baker Mayfield. He was helming the Sooners while The Pony was at OU. Hick and HOS (Hick's Oldest Son) went (8-hour drive) to a game. It was WILD! I was even a Cleveland Browns fan when Baker (we're on a first-name basis, you know) played there after being the #1 draft pick.

Anyhoo... shortly before 8:00, Hick took a bathroom break during a commercial. He leaves his phone on the charger by the bathroom sink. When he returned to the living room, he said:

"That crazy drinkin' woman sent me a text. She wants her door lock changed. Says it is 'of the utmost importance.'"

"Does she think you're gonna rush over there tonight to fix it? What did you tell her?"

"I ain't told her nothin'. I suspect she gave her boyfriend a key, and now she wants her lock changed. She'll have to pay. It'll cost her $100 to change it."

"Sounds like maybe she should make a call of utmost importance to 911, if she has a problem like that. Don't you have chains on the doors?"

"No, but that's her other option. I'll tell her she can get the lock changed for $100, or I can put a chain on her door."

Hick also added that it might be time for this chunk of his Harem to find a new place to live. The police WERE called last weekend. I think she's the one who did the calling.

Do You Know the Muffin, Val?

We've finally had a bout of "seasonal" weather. Below freezing Saturday night! Daytime temps in the fifties on Friday and Saturday. I've been waiting SO LONG for this change. The Easter hambone has been burning a hole in FRIG II's freezer, waiting for a delicious pot of ham and beans. 

Of course no pot of ham and beans is complete without CORN MUFFINS! I suppose cornbread would do, but everybody here has always liked the muffin form. Good thing I didn't say muffin SHAPE, because they would be sorely disappointed.

Oh, they look muffin-y enough, if you excuse that one lying on top. But the Truth in Blogging Law requires me to show the other view.

They're ALL like that! I baked conehead muffins! I don't know how this happened. I've been making corn muffins for years. 

I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel. I use the basic box mix, JIFFY. I follow the instructions to the letter. I make two boxes at once. So that requires 2 eggs, and 2/3 cup of milk. I used the same trusty bowl. Did not over-stir. Let the batter sit for four minutes before filling the muffin tin, which I had treated with PAM non-stick spray. EXACTLY the same as I always make the corn muffins. Same oven. Same temperature. Same time.

But my muffins came out cone-headed!

Oh, well. Genius and The Pony aren't here anymore to criticize my muffin prowess. Hick doesn't care. They eat just the same. The flavor was good. The only drawback I see is for Hick, who cuts his muffins in half, and butters both sides. 

Hmm. After that last sentence, I recall how I told Hick, carrying his plate to the living room: 

"The butter slid off your muffin. Do you want this knife before I put it in the sink?"

"No. I'll use my spoon."

No wonder Hick's butter done slid off his muffin!

Finishing the Week With Laundry

This will round out Hick's work this week on Cheap House. I guess he is trying to appease me by sending pictures every afternoon (Monday-Thursday) to prove he has actually been working on Cheap House. I'm surprised he can tear himself away from the attention of his Harem. The pictures usually show up at lunch time. I was a bit suspicious of these two, because they came in at 9:57 and 9:59. Lunch doesn't open until 10:30. I guess Hick was slacking off on his Thursday "Friday."

"Just a little drywall"

I had to ask which room this was supposed to be. "The laundry room is where orange ladder is. The other is doorway going into bedroom."

That still doesn't let me picture which part of the laundry room. I don't know what's to the left. Obviously an outside wall with the blue insulation. But I don't think the laundry room will be this big. Maybe. I think the water heater will go in there, too. Not sure about the HVAC that we haven't yet contracted for the $9000 estimate. Or HAVE we???

Here's the hallway to the front door. And a view into a front bedroom. I'm not sure where the drywall was put up. The ceiling part looks older. Perhaps the wall on the left, where there appears to be a thermostat. For what? The old furnace, maybe. But this new drywall might just be the little end of the hall wall. Oh, and there's another ladder. I guess Hick and Old Buddy have His & His ladders, heh, heh.

From the looks of that stack of drywall, Hick must have had this (secret) plan for a while. It's been a couple months since I paid the Lowe's bill for drywall. I had assumed (you know what that makes me!) that it was for Lap House, because Hick had hired that $1000 guy to build a couple walls.

Anyhoo... I don't know how much more work will get done, or how soon. I have to wait on the evidence pictures.

In Case You Were Waiting for the Other 3 Walls to Drop

Perhaps "drop" is not the word I should have used. But if you were wondering about the other three walls of the Cheap House living room, Hick has also put up drywall on them. You know, as a courtesy to any flipper who might want to buy it to make sure we have so much invested that keeping it to finish would be the best plan.

That's the wall facing the neighbor with the two reticulated pythons, who Hick saw in the yard, "walking" one of them.

Here's the interior wall. It's opposite the back door. I think the laundry room is on the other side of it.

This is part of the wall to the left, as you walk in the back door. With Old Buddy doing shadow puppets, it seems. The kitchen is on the other side of this wall.

This is the whole wall that divides the living room and kitchen. The archway goes into the kitchen. You can see the entry to a front bedroom through here, with Hick's tools in the front hall.

Of course as I write this, it's Friday. So no more work going on here (or at Lap House) until Monday. It's a never-ending project. I shouldn't complain, because Hick is doing all the work. But HE'S the one who wanted two flips at once. So I think he should be working on them, and not on all his side jobs.

A Thief, or a Lucky Val?

Wednesday, I got lottery tickets out of the machine at 10Box. I had $35 worth of winners that I scanned in to pay. I had selected a $10 Crossword ticket (my favorite), and assorted $5 tickets.

These new machines don't dispense tickets one at a time as you select them. It puts them in a "cart," until you are ready to go to the "checkout." Then you scan in winners, or put in cash, or a combination. Once enough credits are in to cover your cart, the machine starts dropping the tickets down into a tray at the bottom.

I always pick up my tickets as they come out, and count in my head to make sure I have them all. Sometimes one will get stuck and not fall into the tray. Then I have to reach my hand up inside the tray area and knock it loose.

Indeed, my $10 Crossword was stuck. It was the first selection I had made, and thus the last to be dispensed. I reached up above the tray, and my Crossword fell down. Along with a $5 Bingo ticket. Huh. That was odd. Did I miscount as I was picking up my tickets? I know I had selected a Bingo ticket. Maybe I got confused, and had selected it again.

Anyhoo... I had groceries, and my cart might have been discouraging other lottery players, so I figured I'd sort my tickets when I got back to T-Hoe. I always write initials on the back, so I know where they came from. Going through my tickets, I saw that I DID have two Bingo tickets. And everything added up to $40, not the $35 that I had used in credit. 

I could only surmise that there had been a previous buyer's Bingo ticket caught up in the machine, and that when I knocked my Crossword loose, it also freed the Bingo. Even stranger, the two Bingo tickets were not consecutive. There was a 017, and a 019. Obviously, the 019 was the one I had selected.

Ticket turnover is slow in the 10Box machines. I'm there several times a week. In fact, on Monday I had bought Bingo 015 from that machine. It was on my kitchen table, waiting until Thursday when I give my favorite clerk at the Gas Station Chicken Store a "tip" of a couple tickets. There was no way of knowing when this "extra" Bingo 017 had been purchased. It could have been after me on Monday afternoon, or before me that very day. Nobody was at the lottery machines while I was checking out.

In the past, if there was a ticket lying in the tray, I'd call out to the person who was there ahead of me, to see if it was theirs. Once I took it to a cashier, who said they had no way of knowing whose it was. So I just put it back in the tray and left it, in case that person might come back looking for it. This was different, because I hadn't seen it in the tray, and had assumed it was mine until I had it in T-Hoe already. I wasn't going to walk back inside. The employees were not going to scan three days of surveillance footage, even if they had it, trying to see which person selected a Bingo ticket and didn't take it. I doubt their camera would be so accurate.

Well. I guess this was just a case of finders-keepers.

Once home, I scratched my tickets. My Bingo 019 was a loser. 

But the Bingo 017 was a winner.

FOR $200!

I won $100 on Card 7, with one line across. And $50 on Card 6, with one line across. Then $20 on Card 4, with one line across.

Card 2 had the four corners, which won $20. And Card 1 had a single line with the STAR multiplier, for 2 X $5 which is $10. 

I can't help feeling guilty. But I don't know of any other way I could have dealt with that ticket. The only option would have been to walk back inside and lay it in the tray of that lottery machine. Where no doubt the next person would take it. 

This was really exciting to scratch. Even more so, because this ticket was FREE, and it won $200. I wish I could have given it to the real owner, even if it might have turned out to be a loser. That's the right thing to do, but there was no way to accomplish that good deed. I guess I'll just resign myself to being a thief. Though a $200-richer thief.

Seems Like Hick is Overruling the Triumvirate

The pictures Hick sent me from Cheap House on Tuesday make it pretty clear that he has made a SOLO decision to fix up that supposed-to-be quick-flip completely before putting it on the market. I never wanted this house, and The Pony only agreed to the purchase thinking it was a flipper flip. Now we are both resigned to riding out the mission the tyrant has undertaken!

I will put the pictures in order, because the way Hick sent them were not logical.

That's the inside back wall of the living room. Where the back porch was torn off, and a new roofline added. It's a "before" picture for Hick's work on Tuesday.

This is the spray-foam insulation that Hick ordered 24 cans of, which covers 480 square feet. Cost us $423.39, which was supposedly a good deal. It came with the spray gun, safety goggles, gloves, and a white suit that reminded me of a hazmat suit. I guess Hick left the door open for ventilation. Surely not to show off the back yard, where it appears he has a burn pile for odds and ends.

Here is the same wall, now covered with drywall. Or gypsum board, I guess some people call it. He's trimmed out the receptacle access, and fit the drywall to the shape of the wall. Funny how Hick can get a lot done in three hours, WHEN he's actually at the house working.

We'll see how long his enthusiasm keeps him at Cheap House. I have a feeling he will grow complacent, and switch back to Lap House within a week or two.