Maybe He Could Market Them as Book Covers for Gritty Crime Dramas

Genius sent us a few pictures the other day. You may recall that one of his hobbies is photography. "We had some heavy fog come through last week, and I took some pretty cool pictures." He sent nine, but I'm only sharing three of them today. My three favorites.

Geography and I are barely on speaking terms, but to me, this bridge definitely says, "Hello! I'm PITTSBURGH!"

This one makes me want to look over my shoulder every few steps. Just in case.

Here, I think of evidence tossed from a speeding car.

Genius has a photographer's eye. I have a conspiracy theorist's mind.

Liars, Dang Liars, and FedEx

Pony needs a new pair of pants. Well. Not any more. Barely.

The Pony's postal uniform pants cost an arm and a leg! Over $100 for one pair of pants. That's because they can only be ordered from approved vendors, using the yearly uniform allowance. I don't know for sure, but I think The Pony's amount is $500. Maybe a little less, since he's not brand-new any more. As you might surmise, The Pony can either go pantsless and have a coat to wear in the sub-zero temps. Or get a couple shirts and pairs of shorts to not expire from heat stroke in the summer. Or try to get one of everything over a few years, and do laundry every night. 

I don't know exactly what comprises The Pony's work wardrobe, but he had mentioned that he has two pairs of pants. I had seen online that some City Carriers supplement their uniforms with Ben Hogan golf pants and shorts from Walmart. The pants are the same style, and reasonable close in color, though more gray than blue. And they lack the stripe down the side. But still closer to the look of the uniform than random cargo pants or jeans. The shorts are remarkably similar in color, a denim heather, only lacking the stripes down the side.

Anyhoo... I told The Pony I'd get him a couple pairs of those pants, and a pair of shorts, to see if he liked them. He did. So on Tuesday, I ordered two more pairs of pants, and three of the shorts, at a grand total of $95 plus tax. That will give The Pony four of each. He doesn't work more than four days in a row. So it will help out with his budget and laundry.

I had no choice of shipping method. These items could not be delivered to our local store. FedEx was the shipping method. That's how the last ones came. A few days later than originally promised, but they got here with the stout red-headed young man who has made our FedEx delivery the last three times in a row. That's unusual. In the past, it's been a different driver every time.

Anyhoo... I thought nothing of it, because I was here during the scheduled delivery time between 10:50 and 1:50. I was sitting on the short couch, or in the kitchen tending some baked beans for supper.

At 1:27, I got an email that my package had been delivered at 1:18. Well. That was odd. I had heard nary a dog bark, nor a tread on the porch, nor a knock on the door. I went to get my package. 

NOTHING WAS THERE! I walked around the porch. Nothing by the front door, nothing by the back door, nothing on the side porch, nothing on the seat of Hick's lawnmower parked under the carport. I went back inside to read my email again. Delivered at 1:18. No signature necessary. Left at the front door. 

I called Hick.

"They probably left it down at that other lady's house again, like they kept doing with my breather parts. I'll check when I get home. I'll drive around the yard, then go ask her if she got a package that's not hers."

"Okay. Maybe you can put it on the Facebook out here to see if anybody else got it. The dogs are here. There's nothing in the yard except half a paper plate. I don't know where they got that."

My dogs eat their treats off the wood porch boards like a dog should! Not off paper plates like canine royalty.

I was NOT happy. Until this red-headed guy, FedEx has messed up more of our packages than they've delivered like they should.

This was my errand day. I was already running late, now that I'd wasted time looking for a package that was supposedly left at my front door by some invisible weightless person with a scent no dog could detect! I'd have to hurry to miss the after-school traffic. I was fuming all through my shower, and a bit cross with the dogs who gamboled so joyfully at my heels as I left. Shame on me. I had no evidence that they'd stolen my package.

Still fuming as I crept along at 5 mph to avoid a detour halfway to China in the giant pot holes that plague our mile of gravel road. As I neared the county blacktop road, something caught my eye:

It was my FRONT DOOR! Yeah. I'm being sarcastic. I would call that a MAILBOX. Not a front door. 

SOMEBODY at FedEx is a dirty, dirty liar! It's one thing to get lost and leave a package on the wrong front porch. It takes a true RUMPUSHOLE to stuff that package in a row of mailboxes on a county road a mile from the delivery address, and SAY IT WAS LEFT AT THE FRONT DOOR!

If it had been left at the wrong house out here, the resident would NOT have driven it out to the county road and stuffed it beside our mailbox. They would have driven it to our house, or called to say come and get it. This was pure lying laziness. FedEx is also the company that delivered a box containing The Pony's shoes last summer, and left it on top of the mailboxes. I'm pretty sure this was not done by our red-headed guy. After all, he's made it to our actual house three times this month. Must have been his day off.

Of course I sent a picture to The Pony. Who said, "Illlllegal!" Which it is, for anybody besides the USPS to put anything in or on a mailbox. Not that the USPS would do anything about it, unless it's a business stuffing their ads in a bunch of them. Then they get billed for postage.

FedEx LITERALLY broke our mailbox. Sure, it was falling apart and cracked before the stuffing. But not to that extent. See the splinter on top of EmBee? That wasn't there before. And her side walls were not split completely apart. Yeah. It's damaged more than it was before the stuffing. I wonder how many tries it took to jam that package in there.

Hope The Pony doesn't get splinters in his rumpus! I know I sure have a pain in mine.

Not Much of a Beauty Right Now

Hick has been working on the Beauty Shop half of the Double Hovel flip house. He was going to just leave it gutted, with the rotten floor torn out. That way a buyer could renovate it, or make it into a garage. But I suppose he was itching for something to do. Because after spending the first three weeks of January doing a paid job for one of his Senior Center cronies, he went back to working on flip house stuff. The main house is completed, ready to move in. 

Hick and Old Buddy started by tearing out the floor in the front part of the Beauty Shop:

As with all of Hick's photos, you either get an extreme closeup like this one, or a wide expanse of scenery with a tiny subject in the middle, like The Pony's college visit to the University of Oklahoma. Here is Old Buddy's lower half, standing between the floor joists that can be salvaged. This was last Wednesday, their first day of doing anything to the Beauty Shop, aside from hauling the contents to the dump a while back.

Yesterday, they tore out the floor in the back half of the Beauty Shop:

Again, an extreme closeup of a torn-out floor. Nothing to get your bearings. No view of it before, to show why it needed to be torn out.

I asked Hick for a picture of the whole building. Like a look in the front door. He finally sent me one, which I suppose is good enough:

They have already repaired the front room floor, and put down the sub-floor. This is going to be an efficiency apartment. The area where the trash cans are will be the living room. The kitchen will be along the left wall. The back area will be a bedroom and a bathroom.

So far, the only problem Hick has encountered is that the building settled about 3/4 inch in the back corner, and he has to jack up the floor. He said that's because it was a concrete slab foundation, and the builder didn't use rebar. 

Hick has already obtained a front door, which is metal, with a half-circle window at the top, and a 36-inch bathroom sink/countertop, for a total cost of $30, from one of his contractor friends. He is wishing he had bought the refrigerator another buddy offered him a few weeks ago.

Hopefully, Hick will take pictures of the progress, so I can share them. 

Hick has put the property on Facebook, and we've had several people interested. A couple never contacted Hick after a walk-through, and another offered less than we were willing to accept. They couldn't bargain with Hick, because they weren't approved for a higher loan amount. I'm not that concerned. This all happened the first week of January. Traditionally not an optimum time to sell a house.

Hick says that if the property hasn't had a legitimate offer by the time the Beauty Shop is done, we will rent it through a property manager. That way we don't have the headache of collecting the rent, and with a renter already in place, buyers looking for income property will be more interested. Sounds good to me, and our silent partner The Pony.

Yo Ho Ho and a Barbecue Pizza

Here it is Wednesday, and I haven't showed you Hick's "price" (unwon, of course) and meal at bar bingo LAST Wednesday. 

The grand prize was a little unusual. A basket of BOOZE, as Hick called it:

That prize would be a little pricey if bought at a store. Being a bar, they probably had a discount for bulk purchases. I pity the poor gal who was sitting at that table! Didn't leave her much room for her meal.

Hick slacked off on the fried food that evening:

He had a barbecue chicken pizza, and a brand-name beer. I'm guessing that's ranch dressing drizzled over the pizza. And also that Hick had more than one beer.

Don't worry about Hick wasting away from cutting out his two baskets of fried foods. Remember, he also ate lunch with The Pony at a Mexican restaurant on this day!

Another Tale of Unstable Val

Here now! Stop snickering and warming up your crazy temple twirly fingers! This is a story of PHYSICAL instability. 

We had a week of frozen rain, then melting, then actual rain. Our gravel roads are a mess. The repeated freezing at night and thawing during the day have created a myriad of pot holes. Some of them going halfway to China. The loads of rock from last summer are mere memories now, swallowed by the road bed. Funny how you have to blast out solid rock to put in a basement, your phone line rests in a shallow grave a few inches deep, yet the area where the roads run seem to never have heard of bedrock!

Anyhoo... driving T-Hoe along a mile of gravel mud road gets him filthy, even though I keep my speed to 10 mph to avoid a concussion from hitting my head on the roof if I am forced through a pot hole by oncoming traffic. I don't care so much if T-Hoe looks bad until a good rain and some subsequent fair weather. I DO care about getting mud all over my pants legs from the running board caked with an inch of that mud.

Hick had come out to help carry in groceries. I'd put them on the passenger seat, because when we get them out of T-Hoe's rear, high-spirited and poorly-trained Scarlett jumps up on the bumper with her front paws, and leans on me for petting. Not one of my favorite activities in this weather. She doesn't jump up with just the car door open, so that was my plan.

Anyhoo... Hick took all the bags but one. I said I could manage it, since it only held a clear plastic box of little chocolate donuts, and two half-loaves of Nutty Oat Bread. I looped it over my left arm, along with my purse, and held my metal water bottle as usual as I climbed out, using my right hand to steady myself on the open driver's door.

I don't step down from the running board. That requires too much knee-bending. I turn sideways, get both feet out on the running board, and then slither down to the ground. The height is just about right, my rumpus coming off the edge of the seat as my toes hit the ground.

However... when the running board is filthy muddy, I try to avoid dragging my pants legs over it. So I lean back, extend my legs more, and am a bit unbalanced (HEY! I warned you about that crazy temple twirly finger already!) when I hit the ground, leaning back a bit. Usually no big deal. I push myself upright with my left elbow against T-Hoe's side.

Well. Donuts and bread must be heavier than you would think! There I was, leaning back, and slowly tilting to my left, being betrayed by gravity, bread, and donuts! I thought I was going to fall over sideways on the concrete floor, wedged between T-Hoe and the garage wall. Where Scarlett would romp all over my face, probably, the object of her ADORATION already in the house.

I clawed at T-Hoe's open door with my right hand, finally getting a grip on the frame by the window. It was still behind my center of gravity. So it took a lot of effort to stop my slow fall, remain steady, and get my left foot over enough to balance.

If I was smarter, and less offended by a little mud, I might have just sat down on the edge of T-Hoe, at the bottom of the seat, above the running board, and rested for a minute before shifting my feet, and wallowing in that mud to stand up and proceed out of the garage.

You Can't Please Some of the People Any of the Time

Hick told me a story from the Senior Center last week. There's a guy Hick knows who decided to go there for the first time and try their lunch. The Guy is not an actual buddy of Hick. More of an acquaintance, whom he knows from auctions and flea markets. Every now and then he calls Hick about bargains to be found.

Hick has always tried to be nice to The Guy. Not overly-friendly, but civil. Taking time to chat when he calls, and share info about auctions or merchandise. One time The Guy got really upset with Hick, because he walked into Hick's Storage Unit Store while a bunch of cronies were in there talking to Hick. He greeted The Guy and went on with the discussion. Later The Guy called Hick and pretty much called him and his cronies rumpusholes for excluding him from the conversation. Hick said The Guy's just like that, self-centered, always the victim. But he doesn't dislike The Guy. He's just cautious what he says to him.

Anyhoo... The Guy had told Hick he was going to the Senior Center on a certain day for lunch. They were having Sloppy Joes, tater tots, broccoli, and some kind of cake for dessert. Hick mentioned it to the staff, just saying a new guy was coming, that he knew, and not to hold that against him.

The Guy came in and paid his $4 for lunch. It used to be $3, but prices have gone up. He sat down with his tray. Hick was up getting his own tray, and one for a lady at the next table. All at once, he heard The Guy yell, "THIS IS BULLSHIT!" and saw him storm out.

One of the ladies (who gives Hick special "pet" treatment) told him what happened. The Guy had sat down to eat his lunch, but he got a phone call. After the call, he asked to take his meal with him, saying he had to leave. He hadn't eaten anything yet. The gal brought him a styrofoam box like those they use for the meal deliveries. She said he could put his meal in there. The Guy argued that he wanted them to make him a new to-go box. He wasn't asking for double food. He thought they should make him the meal in the box, and he'd throw away the tray he already had. When the gal said they couldn't do that, he got mad and stormed out. Never ate or took any food, even though he had paid.

Hick told them that's just The Guy's nature. You never know when he's going to get mad about something.

A few days later, Hick found out that The Guy had called some federal office to complain about the Senior Center, saying how rude and hateful they were to him.

I'm sure Hick will get a different story from The Guy, whenever he decides to call Hick again. Also let the record show that The Guy had been banned from both flea markets, by two different owners, where Hick had his Storage Unit Stores, for accusing customers and sellers of doing things they didn't.

I don't understand why The Guy escalated the situation to that extent. He wasn't trying to get extra food, nor a refund, and didn't even take what he paid for.

Lunch and a Show: Part 2, A Show

Driving The Pony home from their Mexican lunch, Hick heard a contest on the radio. Of course he called in! He has won things before from this radio station, like a Thanksgiving turkey, and a flag. This time, the prize was two tickets to a music show over in Bill-Paying Town on Saturday night.

"I had been planning to go anyway. Then I heard the contest, so I called. I was caller number three, and won two tickets!"

The Pony said this is not his kind of music. The Veteran said his wife already had plans for them on Saturday night. HOS (Hick's Oldest Son) did not respond to Hick's text. Hick took his extra ticket to his SUS2 (Storage Unit Store 2) on Saturday, but nobody wanted to go. So he said he'd take it along with him, and offer it to somebody outside for free. Hick is many things, but not a ticket scalper!

He got there an hour early, and sent me a picture of the stage.

Hick said the "special guest" noted on the ticket was Nashville singer/songwriter Max T. Barnes. I thought the name sounded familiar. Looking it up, I discovered that he wrote a Vern Gosdin song, "Way Down Deep." That will mean nothing to you if you have never listened to old country music. I happen to have the CD, Vern Gosdin 10 Years of Greatest Hits. Not that I'm braggin'...

Anyhoo... Hick had a grand time at his free concert. Probably more so than if he'd paid.