Hick Gets Even-er Than Steven

Well. It's not supposed to work this way, you know. Hick should not be getting even with Val, especially when HE'S the one who started it!

All I did was tell him how to find his tool. You know. His conversion tool for changing euros to U.S. dollars. I did him a favor, really. It's not MY job to turn in an expense account after a business trip to France. AND I even called the credit card automated line and wrote down all the charges. Can I help it if they listed them in dollars, and also listed about 10 Internal Debit Adjustments, in several clumps, making it impossible to tie the IDAs with a specific charge? Let me answer for you: NO, I CANNOT!

Can you believe Hick was less than thrilled that he had to type in that information and write it down himself? I know, right? He had everything he needed. Just a matter of finger movements, really. For his job. Which pays him twice what Val's job pays her!

This morning Hick was a little whiny. He's worse than Puppy Jack sometimes, I swear. He said he was going to town for a haircut. That's right after I asked him what he was trying to do with his beard. The sides stuck out all willy-nilly, making him look like Mr. Bumble in the PBS version of Oliver Twist:

With a different hat, of course. So Hick tells me he's going to get a haircut, and I say, "Okay. I'll see you in four or five hours." Depending on whether there was a fistfight between middle-aged men on the parking lot this time, or not.

Let the record show that I had already washed a sink of dishes. I was making a shopping list for Save A Lot, so Hick can prepare a Mother's Day meal for us on Sunday. And I may or may not have watched couple episodes of Flip or Flop, switching over to The Pioneer Woman and Ridiculousness and Dogs 101 during commercials.

Anyhoo...Hick returned after less than two hours. "The barber shop was closed!"

"Then where have you been for two hours?"

"Well...I went to get some sand for my sidewalk bricks."

Let the record further show that Hick is now tearing out the SIDE sidewalk between the garage and the house, to put back just like before, same as he did with the front sidewalk. Not sure where he went to get sand that took him two hours. The Florida coast, maybe, if he declared a moratorium on his sweaving, and drove in a straight line.

Hick went back outside for a couple more hours. Then I saw him carrying Puppy Jack to his hutch with his hand under Jack's belly, and that poor pup held out to the side like an apple offered to a horse. Hick came back in the house.

"Why were you carrying Jack like that? You need to hold him close. He's a puppy!"

"Jack is fine. He likes to be carried like that. I had to put him up. I've got things to do."

"Like what?"

"Well...uh...I'm going to get a baby goat. Barry (the mini pony, already named when we got him) is lonely."

"HAH! You've planned on this for at least a month! Don't think I don't know! HOS (Hick's oldest son) told us when he drove us home after bringing your car for the airport. 'Dad is getting their little goat, too, as soon as he gets back from the trip. It's a cute little thing. It follows their little boy around the yard. They like it, but they can't keep it.' So don't act like you're doing Barry a favor. You planned this behind my back, and you know it. I don't want any more goats. The last ones ate the bark off the trees, and destroyed my lilac bush that I waited 7 years to bloom!"

"Oh, well. I'm going to get my goat."

Yeah. Because he already got mine. Anyhoo...I got ready to go to town. By now it was 12:15. I don't get in too much of a hurry these days. When I went to grab my purse, I saw a check in it for over $4000. That's right. Hick's expense check for France.

Funny how it wasn't there last night. And it wasn't there when I got up and washed the dishes. And it wasn't there when I made breakfast. And it wasn't there when Hick came back from the not-barbershop. Funny how the bank closes at noon on Saturday, and if I had only known Hick had that check, I could have left earlier to deposit it.

Now I have to go to the bank after school Monday, when we will most certainly have our First Monday meeting, since it was canceled last week because the meeting-giver was absent.

Sometimes, I think Hick is not only a spy, but also an evil genius.