Updates On Val's Latest Connections

 So...remember the other day when Val gave a lady alcoholic a dollar, just for asking?

Today I went by the gas station chicken store, intending to get some gas station chicken to have for lunch (and supper, and tomorrow's lunch) with my 44 oz Diet Coke. Sadly, the only things in the chicken warmer were some sad cardboard trays of wedge fries, and two thighs. I took the two thighs. It was only 12:15, by cracky! And Asian Guy Clerk (AGC) said they had already sold 4 trays of chicken. I think that's a lot, from his reaction.

Anyhoo...while I was waiting for the chicken gal to write up my ticket for the two thighs (two thighs are better than none), I asked AGC if that lady the other day ever got her whiskey.

"Did she get her whiskey? That lady I gave a dollar to, from my change?"

"Oh! We found her another bottle! She said, 'I feel so bad!'"

"That's okay. I figured she needed that dollar more than me."

"Yeah. Heh, heh. For alcohol!"

"She made no secret what it was for! I knew for sure it was going for whiskey."

AGC turned to ring up the next customer, who had walked up to the register as we had been chatting while I waited on my chicken. That guy had put a case of Natural Light on the counter. But it was after NOON now, and he didn't look lit, and he didn't ask me for a dollar. I hope he didn't take offense to our chatter.

Because we all know that Val cares about what random people buying cases of beer in convenience stores think of her.

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My internet has been working swell since a guy came out and fixed it on Thursday afternoon. Except for last night, when it quit for an hour. That was due to a heavy rain, I think, because it came back and has been working ever since.

The DISH technician said that our original DISH was out of alignment. I asked him if...perhaps...an ANIMAL might have done something to knock it all cattywompus. But Technician made a face that was probably like Kind Lady at the other end of the phone when I called DISH about the problem. Like I didn't know what I was talking about. When in fact I was talking about a HUMAN animal, like Crazy Dude, who I still think had something to do with my internet outage.

Uh huh. Hick went to court about Crazy Dude on Monday, internet was broken on Wednesday. I told Hick I bet Crazy Dude was up here using night vision and weedy branchy camouflage gear, with deer musk rubbed all over himself so the dogs wouldn't get too wound up. Hick gave me a look like the technician and the kind lady. Hey! It could happen!

Anyhoo...Technician said that we might have had a sketchy signal for a while now, and it just went away. Funny how it's been fine unless there's rain or snow. Never sketchy when the weather is fine. He also said that the satellites shift in the sky. So I guess the earth tilted on its axis Tuesday night when the dogs were barking. Or that the satellite just decided to take a left turn or alternate route.

Technician said he didn't need me for anything else until he was done, and that he'd meet me around front on the porch. I heard a bunch of thumping and bumping that sounded like he was running around the porch. But I knew he had pulled his van around to the side of the house by the DISH, because I TOLD him he could drive through and park in the yard. So maybe the dogs were after him. I did hear a couple of screams, but they were high-pitched. Then I heard some drilling. And some thump-thump-thumping.

Hick came home and got in Poolio, and said that we had a new DISH for the internet. I don't see it, myself. Hick said it is tilted a different way now, that he could tell from comparing its position while floating on two pool noodles. I told him that I had specifically told Kind Lady that I did NOT want a new DISH, nor the upgraded service that I can get with it. But that I HAD heard some drilling.

Well. Here's what I found out from Hick, inter-Backroads spy. HOS (Hick's Oldest Son) had come down to go for a swim with his 7-year-old son and teenage daughter and her friend. He SAW Technician putting on a new DISH. The thumping and screaming had been the kids running around the porch to the only entrance Hick made to the pool deck, and beating each other and the deck with the pool noodles.

I'll leave you with the original picture of the DISH with the electrical smoke haze, and the later one after the alleged installation of a new DISH.

Wednesday morning hazy DISH.

Thursday afternoon sunny DISH. I thought it was the same one, until my untrained eye took another gander at the porch-screwed part and the stem-like part and the knobby part.

Oh, and this morning at 9:30, I saw a DISH van going out the road in front of our house, like he'd made a house call up by Buddy's house. Maybe there IS some truth to that satellite shift theory. But now that I think about it...Buddy's wife was at the courthouse Monday with Hick for the case against Crazy Dude...