A Val's work is never done. She's a mixer, she's a nixer, she's a legal tort fixer, she types her blog posts on the run.
Seriously. Hick springs work on me at the last minute, like it's my JOB or something! Tosses a wrench into my well-oiled machine, after a leisurely day of doing nothing, footloose and fancy free, the only chore looming on the horizon being Hick's supper. I was halfway done with that. I'd promised him spaghetti, so I mixed his sauce in the morning. Don't think it took a lot of effort. I use a canned sauce, and add hamburger, mushrooms, minced garlic, a packet of sugar free sweetener, and grind in some black pepper.
Yes, all I had to do was boil up some noodles, and pop frozen garlic toast into the oven. Then I could put away leftovers and clean up the mess. All told, it only took 45 minutes out of my evening. I sat down on the short couch to rest before making my own supper. I don't like spaghetti.
Well. First cat out of the bag, Hick said that HOS (Hick's Oldest Son) has a buddy in a little pickle, currently cooling his heels in the Crossbars Hilton, wanting his wife to sell some of his guns for cash. Even though I wasn't wearing shoes, I think my heels could have carved out ruts in the blacktop for forty feet, as I screeched on my brakes at that prospect.
"Surely you're not gonna buy those guns! What if they're stolen? What's the guy locked up for, anyway? If it's for theft, I'm pretty sure you don't wanna get involved in this."
"I don't know. I can get a picture of his wife's driver's license on my phone, to prove she sold them to me."
"All that proves is that you took a picture of her driver's license! Why don't they just pawn them, if they're legal?"
"Because I'll pay them more money. He might need the money to get out."
"That's HIS problem. I really don't think you should do this. I sounds shady."
"The guns are at his dad's house now. So the wife will have to get them from him. He's not gonna give them to her if they're not legal."
"Or he WILL, to get rid of evidence! So he doesn't get caught with them!"
"I don't know. First I'll see if she comes up with them."
Yeah. I'm a NIXER. Doing my best to put the kibosh on gun-running. Then Hick springs the latest chore on me.
"I've got the papers from the lawyer. He forgot to put the property description on the form This Guy has to sign. I'm not taking the papers back to him. I said you can write it in. You have good writing. Here's the form. Right there, between those paragraphs. Write in the description from THIS page."
"How in the world am I going to do that? And file it in court? I don't think so."
"Your writing is way better than mine. You don't want ME to write it."
"Can't I just type up the paragraph, print it, cut it out, and lay it in the space and make a new copy?" [Don't even suggest scanning it and inserting the description and then printing it. For me, that would be like recovering the original moon landing technology, and flying back there overnight.]
"Yeah. I guess you can. But it might be easier for you to just type that whole page over and put it in there."
"Well. I guess I can do that. When do you need it?"
"Tomorrow morning."
"It's already 7:30! I have other things to do, you know."
"I'm sure you can find the time. How long can it take?"
That's easy for him to say. I still had to make my own supper, clean up, eat it, type up two blog posts to publish the next day, and find the pack of paper I needed for my printer, since it ran out with the boys' letters Thursday night.
FYI, that little task took 43 minutes. Would have been less, but it took forever to figure out why I couldn't get the same spacing. I had the fonts figured out, and the size, and when to center and when to justify the left margin... but that darn spacing wouldn't decrease. It was on single space, but still too far apart. After much trial and error, I figured out that I was spacing after each paragraph, so each time I'd spaced to start a new line, to make my sentences begin and end with the same words as the original form... I was actually double-spacing between lines. Got it fixed! Now the rest of the night is mine! Such as it is, here in my lair at 11:19 p.m.
A Val's work is never done until Hick-given projects are complete.
What? You had me at spaghetti sauce. Sounds really good!
ReplyDeleteIt tasted pretty good when I sampled it, but not good enough for me to eat spaghetti.
DeleteI am taking in a pageant dress for our 6 year old kamper, Skye. Sounds simple, but after three tries and ripping out seams, I finally got it tight enough to stay up. Now, all that's left is replacing all the sequins that had to be removed in order to take the dress in. I would have preferred making the entire thing from the beginning. How do I manage to be volunteered for such …..HeWho.
ReplyDeleteI can easily imagine HeWho volunteering your services. You know, because he's sure you have plenty of time, and it makes him look good.
DeleteI am right there with you when it comes to techy stuff. I cannot scan and send a contract without Bill's help.
ReplyDeleteOh my I hope we don't read about Hick getting "burned" because of those guns.
Sadly, I think even Hick would know more about scanning than I do. He hasn't mentioned the bail-gun situation again, and I'm not going to bring it up.
DeleteThis all sounds shady to me. 'Course I am the epitome of clean, honest living, y'know. So since you don't like spaghetti, what did *you* have for supper.
ReplyDeleteMy shady-o-meter is red-lining on this one, too. I had tuna salad with a few Ritz crackers. Tuna, mayo,chopped egg, diced dill pickle and Vidalia onion. Next time, I'd leave out the onion so late at night.
DeleteIt bothers me more than it should, that Hick just hands you these things to do without even asking "could (would) you please..." and if the lawyer didn't write the description of the house, is it really necessary?
ReplyDeleteSo what did you have for supper? I was planning on spaghetti myself tonight, and noticed I only had two serves of ready-made sauce in the freezer, which means buying ingredients to make more on the weekend. Why can't the freezer just magically fill itself?
It bothers me that he said I didn't have to do it "right now," but he needed it the next morning. The description had to go in, or otherwise This Guy would be signing away his rights to ALL of his wife's property, not just the $5000 house.
DeleteI had tuna salad. I don't like the long noodles. I'd eat the sauce on hollow noodles that are easier to eat, but they're still not a favorite.
P.S. the guns deal smells more rotten than something in Denmark to me. I wouldn't be touching them even with a gold plated guarantee they were legal.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why this guy is locked up, and don't want to assume he's guilty without a fair trial, but I wonder if somebody who MIGHT be a criminal would go about obtaining his guns to the letter of the law.
DeleteI must confess...I stopped reading when I read your words: "I don't like spaghetti." WHAT?? I've never heard of anyone who doesn't like spaghetti. But please don't "unfriend" me. I still want to be freinds. :)
ReplyDeleteIt's something about the texture of the solid noodle. Plus being awkward to eat. If we were at the same table in a school cafeteria on spaghetti day, I'd shovel it off my tray onto yours, even without making you trade me anything!
DeleteYou should have been an attorney.
ReplyDeleteOoh! That is actually my second career choice. Maybe third. I always toyed with the idea of physical therapy, because my biology teaching background has provided me with knowledge of kinesiology. However, I have good attention to detail, and I LOVE to argue. Imagine getting paid to argue!
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