The Corpse in the Garage

Our garage it detached. As detached as the retina of that whiny rich dude who got hit in the eye by an olive choked up by Jennifer Love Hewitt at the bar in Heartbreakers. That's one of my favorite movies. If you've never seen it, and like a 2001 ribald comedy and/or Sigourney Weaver, Ray Liotta, and Gene Hackman, you should check it out.

Anyhoo... the weather here has gotten steamy again. I have trouble opening the people-door of the garage. It's just a green metal door with a window in the top half. You should be able to turn the doorknob and pull it open. But no. The wood frame swells up with the humidity. Hick insists on closing that door completely. As if the cars are going to escape. I simply push the door to until it sticks. Then the next day I can pull it open with a slight tug.

Hick keeps the dry dogfood in the garage. The bag is sealed in a big plastic trash can with a lid. I suppose he sometimes drops a nugget or two when dipping the food out to put in the feeder every morning.

Anyhoo... I tried to get in the garage on Friday afternoon. Hick had closed the door. It wouldn't open. I had to set down my purse on the side porch, and grab the handle with both hands. I was afraid that doorknob would come off and send me sprawling backwards onto the sidewalk. It took four tries before I got that door open. I might have dislocated a shoulder momentarily in the process. The dogs were watching with tilted heads.

I picked up my purse and stepped inside. Whoopsie! I almost stepped on something lying just across the threshold. 

A DEAD MOUSE!

He was on his side. Perhaps in a position that mice like to sleep. Yet he wasn't moving. Not a pointy-nosed nasty rat. A fluffy field mouse with big ears. Dead as a doornail. I have no idea what happened to him. He might have been stuck inside the garage, and started to bake from the inside out. It's over 90 degrees in there.

Disposing of dead mice is not part of my skill set. It's not something a VALedictorian needs cluttering up her gray matter. That is Hick's territory. The disposing, I mean. Not the cluttering. I'm sure he would gladly do it for his Harem. So he darn well better do it for me.

The mouse was still there when I got back home. No miraculous resurrection. I stepped over him, and sent Hick a text:

"Dead mouse inside the garage door."

Hick came into the kitchen a half hour later.

"Did you get my text?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Do you know what it said?"

"No. I didn't read it. Here. I'll read it now. Huh. I guess I'll go get it."

When he came back, I didn't ask what he did with the dead mouse. Probably took it by the tail, and flung it as far as he could into the yard, where the dogs would find it later. With a bigger carcass, like a possum, Hick takes it to the end of the driveway, and tosses it into the big sinkhole. Or once he just threw one over the barbed wire fence into the thicket of brush of our neighbor.

"WASH YOUR HANDS BEFORE YOU TOUCH ANYTHING!"

"Huh. I'm going to the bathroom anyway."

And with that, Hick picked up his partially-full bottle of Diet Mountain Dew by the lid, and walked through the kitchen. I did not check the bathroom sink to see if it was wet. I am regretting that I later picked up the TV remote without wiping it off.

Back to the Front Porch

Hick's Roof Guy and his crew got back to work on the Lap House porch and shingles on Monday. Hick sent me a picture on Tuesday. But you know Hick's picture style.

"Not finished yet but getting closer."

I was shocked that it wasn't Hick's usual panoramic view, with a tiny subject in the center of the photo. This was an extreme closeup. I suppose I'm looking at the underneath side of the boards that comprise the new front porch. I would imagine that up above, there is plywood decking, and possible shingles.

On Wednesday, I got another picture from Hick.

"Looks pretty good."

Yes. It looks good, though this angle makes either the house or porch look all cattywompus and warped. Hick says, "There's really not a good place to take a picture from." Well. If you count a wide street with no traffic, and a sidewalk across the corner, and an apartment parking lot across the street to be not good places.

The Pony and I drove by on Thursday, and it looks great! Of course we forgot to get a picture. Eventually, we'll have one. After all, Hick managed to get a picture of the front of the house when he first bought it.

Yes. That's Hick's USUAL picture style. So I zoomed in for you:

I think the porch has done wonders for the appearance of Lap House. Then again, you need a comparable full-frontal picture to compare it.

We'll work on that. At this point, a picture seems more likely to be squeezed out of Hick than any actuall work on this house!

18 Hours Without Internet!

While Hick was text-bragging about his phone being fixed, I was having my own issue. 

NO INTERNET!

Such a cruel blow from The Universe. The two main joys in my life (excluding family, of course) are my scratchers and my internet, with TV a close third. To have one ripped away was traumatic!

I had shut down around 11:30 on Tuesday night. Everything seemed normal. The only difference being that my ailing, anemic HIPPIE had been shutting down about every 10 minutes for the last hour. HIPPIE has these episodes. His battery is not charging and needs to be replaced, but The Pony says a new battery would cost as much as a new laptop these days. Besides, I have a new laptop, which The Pony got me a couple of Christmases ago. It's all set up, residing on the kitchen table behind HIPPIE. It has a bit smaller screen and keypad, and runs Windows 11 and Google Chrome. I keep resisting the change.

Anyhoo... on Wednesday at 11:30 a.m., I turned on HIPPIE. After the startup sequence, I noticed that my internet icon was a big empty globe. That means NO INTERNET! Tom Cullen himself could have understood that, though he would have called it M-O-O-N.

I figured it was just HIPPIE being cantankerous. I did a restart. Nope. I did a full shutdown and startup. Nope. I disconnected and connected. Nope. Sometimes HIPPIE gets all persnickety and locks me out of internet for an hour. Exactly 60 minutes. But that usually still shows the rainbow bars representing my wi-fi connection. I waited an hour, and tried again. Nope.

This was becoming annoying. I ripped out the mouse plug-in thingy, and jabbed it into my new computer (as yet to be named) and had to call The Pony for a password that had been set up and forgotten. The password got me in, but still no connection. So it wasn't just a HIPPIE issue.

I can't get down the 13 rail-less stairs to the basement where the DISH receiver for internet resides in Hick's workshop, and the wi-fi router sits on a desk at the bottom of those stairs. I called Hick and told him he'd need to re-set them both when he got home. This usually works to restore the internet.

Hick was here at 3:30. He did this chore, then went out to mow the front yard/field and elsewhere about the grounds. When I changed out of town clothes and sat down with my scratchers, I realized that my internet STILL was not working. I wasn't going to call Hick back in off his precious zero-turn mower to try again.

I had resigned myself to calling DISH to complain. I've had to do it before. The wait is usually 30 minutes or more. I get some exceedingly polite foreign gal who is almost impossible to understand. She wants a four digit code which I most often remember. She asks the problem, if I ran the troubleshooting, and what message I got, and what I've tried. So I wrote it down:

YOUR DNS SERVER MIGHT BE UNAVAILABLE

CONTACT YOUR NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR OR INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER

WINDOWS CAN'T FIND THE WELL KNOWN HOST www.microsoft.com USING DNS

By now it was 4:55. I figured a lot of people on the east coast and in the midwest would be off work, and calling about their DISH internet problems. I wanted time to get my issue resolved and fix Hick's supper and still watch Big Brother at 7:00. So I decided to have Hick go to the basement one more time to try again with the resets. Besides, Foreign Gal would ask me to try that, and ask what lights were showing on the receiver.

Hick came in at 5:15. I told him the internet still wasn't working, and asked if he'd do the resets again. He did. I didn't have much hope. I had one scratcher left to work on. When I finished and glanced up at HIPPIE's screen, 

THE INTERNET-CONNECTED WI-FI RAINBOW WAS SHOWING!

At 5:30, I had my internet back. I was able to join Blogland again. Hick's meat loaf and green beans were served. And I was in my OPC (Old People Chair) in time for Big Brother.

We're hoping to remain calamity-free for a couple weeks.

Telegraph, Telephone, Tell a Hick

Hick and I are not being treated well by The Universe. His phone went all wonky three days ago. He couldn't get it off SPEAKER. So EVERYBODY within hearing range (most of the population of Backroads) of his extra-loud volume could hear his business. Can't have that with incoming calls from Hick's Harem, heh, heh!

I took a look, because I'm such a techy, you know, and it seemed like he had the settings right. The Pony tried, and couldn't find anything amiss. Hick asked a total stranger (as opposed to an incomplete stranger) if he could help.

"I was in line at Lowe's, and this kid was behind me. I said, 'Do you think you can figure out what's wrong with my phone? I can't get it off SPEAKER.' And the kid said, 'Sure. I have that exact same phone.' He went into the settings, and tried to get it off, but nothing worked. So I'll have to take it to the phone store when I have time."

That time came on Tuesday, but according to Hick: "There was only one girl workin', and four people already waiting. So I just left. I'll go back tomorrow."

Which he did on Wednesday. I got a text at 1:04. "They fixed my phone."

I was having my own problems at the time, which is not a topic for today. When Hick came home, he told the story. Which was basically that he didn't know what got fixed.

"I got a guy who I think might have been the manager. He did a re-start. That didn't work. He said, 'I'm going to have to go a little deeper.' I don't know what he done, but now it works. I think maybe he said there was an update. But it's working now."

I am happy that worked out for Hick. We thought he might need a new phone [he does a lot of business with that phone, and you can't have people's names and SS numbers and personal info being broadcast during a call from the ATF]. Hick was hating the thought, because like me, he hates to learn anything new. And he didn't want to lose all his personal and business contacts that he has in the phone.

That said, I'd already mentioned to The Pony that Hick probably needed a re-start. He NEVER does one, and it's probably been a year since the last time. Looks like that wouldn't have fixed it, though. Maybe if he had been doing it at least once a month, that update would have come in on its own.

Hick Gets His Arrowheads

Remember when a guy tried to sell Hick some arrowheads for $500? Hick didn't take them. But Sunday, he got TWO collections of arrowheads. Framed, and in much better shape than the arrowheads the $500 guy had to offer.

Hick got more stuff along with this deal. And all for $250.

So much to see! We'll get to the arrowheads later. There are two framed collections. Also in this deal, Hick got the carved wooden Indian head. And the framed decals lying on the counter. They represent local law enforcement agencies. I'd say this was a pretty good deal! 

The other stuff in the picture he already had. Like all the pistols on the pegboard. They are OLD, and collector items. Hick says some of them will still shoot, but he wouldn't recommend it. These are not something a person would buy for protection and/or varmint-shooting. 

The little boat/shadow-box thingy holds fishing lures, and a reel that was dug up by one of Hick's buddies at a former town dump. The case on the right has some fishing lures, and also drug paraphernalia! That's how Hick described it. There's a grinder, and a pipe. I said I bet he didn't have many customers looking for that, and he said, "I just sold a grinder this morning!"

On the bottom shelf are some matches. I recognized the Marlboro logo. On the side shelf, there's a little blue cowboy. I asked Hick if that was plastic, and he said he thought it was metal, but didn't remember much about it. Below it is what looks like a little beer bottle, but Hick said that's salt and pepper shakers.

The attention-getter here is that giant "arrowhead" in the center. I said it looked like something used to cut up a big carcass. Hick said several of his regulars thought it was a hoe, or an axe. I'd think a hoe would have a different shape to be efficient. But I can imagine this scraping skin from flesh. It wouldn't seem to need those notches for a handle, though. It could just as well have the sharp sides, and a blunt end to grasp. Anyhoo... Hick said his asking price for just that giant tool is $350. He didn't mention what he'd charge for anything else.

A peek into Hick's SUS2.5 is always full of suprises.

Amazing Case

It once was lost, but now it's found. Hick has his pocketknife back! It's a miracle!

Of course he didn't tell me until two days later. He's lost that knife out of a hole in his pocket, and found it missing (heh, heh, I never understood that usage) on Friday after 4:00. Hick spends Fridays at his SUS2.5 from 6:30 a.m. until noon. Then he putters around and ends up at the weekly bull-shooting session before coming home around 5:00. He figured the knife was gone for good, though he said it wasn't a valuable knife. Just a common Case pocketknife.

Saturday morning, Hick was back at his SUS2.5 by 6:30 a.m. Lying on the concrete in front of the door was his knife! He figures it must have fallen out of the hole in his pocket as he was getting out the keys to lock up Friday at noon. How lucky that nobody was around to take that knife. And it was conveniently right where Hick would see it.

That pocketknife turned Hick from a loser into a finder!

Hick Takes a Loss

Hick came in Friday evening, grousing about how much dog food costs these days. It's not like our two mutts get the gourmet treatment. Just dry dog food, in a large bag, from Walmart. Pepper is still getting the puppy version, though he's 7 months old now. Maybe that's why he's twice the size of his four litter mates. I don't know why Hick is concerned with the price. You'd think the money was coming out of his own pocket, and not the household checking account.

I think Hick was voicing his displeasure with the dog food because he was really upset about something else, but wanted to act like THAT was not a big deal.

"I lost my pocketknife. I noticed it when I was leaving my buddy's shop (the weekly Friday afternoon bull-shooting session). I reached for my keys, but my knife was gone. I've got a hole in my pocket!"

"Oh. That's too bad."

"It was just a cheap knife. Not a good one."

As The Pony pointed out, upon hearing the news the next day, "Oh, no! It's the knife he always carries, and pulls out to cut off all sorts of things!"

Yes. That pocketknife was a part of Hick's life. I'm sure he will just select another one from his personal collection, or from his SUS2.5. He sells a lot of knives there. 

The lost pocketknife will be easy to replace, yet it's something that can't really be replaced.