The Usual Admiration Society

It's not enough for Hick to break his own arm while patting himself on the back. No siree, Bob! Hick might be a flamboyant self-congratulator, spinning his Pop-Arm seven ways to Sunday in auto-admiration... but he still needs affirmation from others. Namely, from Val.

It must be a genetic trait. One that Val's chromosomes do not contain. (After all, Val spent 28 years of employment, silently toiling, sitting by mute while her Arch Nemesis was given credit for student testing successes, even though Arch Nemesis vehemently declined the accolades, pointing out Val as the true mentor of the young geniuses, who had only been under Arch Nemesis's tutelage a mere month before the standardized test, learning material which was not even on that test.) Genius, though, inherited Hick's praise neediness. Even as a toddler, Genius required an audience for whatever he was doing.

Anyhoo... remember back when I had a problem with T-Hoe's running light? I'm sure you do. Better than Hick! I believe the first time I mentioned it was December 12th. Could have been before, but I'm pretty sure Hick himself became aware of the problem on NOVEMBER 28th. That's when he drove T-Hoe, when we had an appointment with our financial advisor who makes me lose the will to live every time I'm trapped in his office, listening to him and Hick shoot the bull for an hour. As Hick parked T-Hoe in the garage when we got home, he noticed the dark side on the front garage wall, and got out to declare that running light kaput.

So... I've been driving T-Hoe all willy-nilly across the county, with a burnt-out running light. I even stopped to let a POLICE CAR back out of a parking space in front of the food pantry last week. Which of course I mentioned to Hick:

"I really hope you are ready to put in my running light. I stopped to let a cop back out of a parking space at the food pantry down by the river. After I left the bank, he was sitting over at the old Casey's. Probably waiting for me, so he could pull me over for having a burnt-out running light, and search T-Hoe for weed, and make me balance on one leg and walk heel-to-toe on a line, and tilt my head back with my arms out and touch my nose with my eyes closed. The only thing I could pass would be not having weed in T-Hoe! Good thing I gave him the slip!"

"You're too dramatic. I have your light."

"Yeah. You've had it over a month! It's been a year since you saw the light was burned out!"

"It hasn't been a YEAR! You always exaggerate!"

"Was it, or was it not, 2018 when you saw that the light was out?"

"It was..."

"And this is 2019. So it was LAST YEAR when the light burned out, and you STILL haven't fixed it."

"I'll fix it. I've been busy."

Give me a break! I don't know what could be more important than keeping one's wife out of jail for being too dizzy and cripply to pass a sobriety test when stopped for having a running light out!

Anyhoo... on Tuesday, JANUARY 8th, Hick announced that he had put the new light in T-Hoe, and completed another task that had been on his assignment list since December 30th.

"Okay. It only took you A YEAR! What have you done that you don't want me to find out about? There must be something, for you to all at once put in T-Hoe's light, AND fix my sink plug!" [another story for another day]

"Nooo... I just remembered, and got it done. I can't believe you didn't thank me for cleaning T-Hoe's dash and door panels!"

"Oh. You cleaned them?"

"How could you not notice?"

"Well, obviously the cleanliness of T-Hoe's dash and door panels is not important to me, or I'd have been keeping them clean."

"You didn't even thank me."

"Well, I'm glad you finally got around to fixing that light after a year..."