Where There's Smoke, There's a Woodshed

I hope Hick doesn't have definite plans on his calendar for the coming weeks. Because Val has booked him for a trip to the woodshed! Oh, this may come as no surprise to you, but it will definitely be a surprise for Hick. Who has no idea that "doing me a favor" can lead to such a journey.

A couple weeks ago, I bought batteries. I don't remember what I'd needed them for, perhaps my downstairs TV remote. It takes AAA or AA. I don't remember until I have the cover off the battery compartment. I also use little batteries in my vibrator. MY HEAD VIBRATOR, people! Sheesh! It's a little contraption from Walmart that may possibly be used for other purposes by other folks needing other relief...but I use mine when I get a cold, or a sinus headache, to vibrate the gunk out of my sinuses.

Anyhoo...I distinctly remember going to the battery drawer, and finding battery packages, with only a single battery inside. Or perhaps two. So I put batteries on my shopping list. Last week, I was looking for batteries again, and they weren't in the drawer. I was SURE that I'd bought batteries. Maybe the checker hadn't given me the bag! Or maybe it was sitting around, me not wanting to put everything away that day after carrying in groceries. I found a bag that had a calculator in it. Surely the one I would have put batteries in, if I'd been the checker. But no batteries. So I bought more, on the next trip to town.

I even remember telling Hick, "I got batteries. They're not the best, but they're at least Eveready, and not the foreign brand from the Dollar Store that my mom used to get. I didn't see the Duracell on the aisle I was walking on. I swear, they have a big display up front, but I didn't go down that far. That's where I bought them last time. I thought."

Anyhoo...I came home from town on one of our snowy days this week, and Hick was roaming the house. I hate it when he's loose like that. No good ever comes of it. One time a few years back, I returned home to find that he'd painted one of the living room walls a contrasting color.

Anyhoo...I heard the exhaust fan running down in the NASCAR bathroom next to my dark basement lair. Yet when I hollered to ask Hick what he was doing, he answered me from over by the pool table.

"Why is the bathroom fan running?"

"I was putting a battery in the clock."

"Well, I guess you need to go turn off the light. Because the fan is still running."

"In a minute. I'm putting batteries in all the clocks."

"Did they stop?"

"No."

"Then why are you putting batteries in them NOW?"

"So they won't stop."

"The clock in my office ran for two years on one battery! WHY are you changing them all?"

"That's what I do with the smoke detectors."

"You're SUPPOSED to do that with SMOKE DETECTORS! You don't want them to go dead. But this one in the basement has been chirping so long that it quit chirping! After I TOLD you two weeks ago that it needed a battery."

"Well. I was sick. They take 9-volt batteries, I think. Better get several. The one in our bedroom's been dead for a while."

"I didn't hear it chirping."

"Oh, it's been laying on the dresser. I took it apart to stop the chirping."

"Are you using those new batteries I just bought for the clocks?" Let the record show that we have 10 clocks. At least.

"Yeah."

"WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT? Now I'll have to get more batteries, so we'll have some in the house when we DO need them! Wait a minute...did you use those other batteries from the drawer on your junk store stuff?"

"Yeah."

Good thing Hick's pants didn't burst into flame during one of his less-than-truthful episodes of gaslighting Val.

Batteries are not cheap, people! And according to Hick, he is raking in a couple hundred or more per weekend at his Storage Unit Store. I do NOT think that our household budget should be subsidizing Hick's business! Besides, he bought me a soda at Orb K the other day, with a dollar that I gave him, and he WASN'T GOING TO GIVE BACK MY 6 CENTS IN CHANGE until I asked for it!

I guess I'm going to have to stash those batteries somewhere that the Hick won't look.