Frequently, my mom likes to buy new things and to make room for them (or to have an excuse to buy new stuff), she’ll give her slightly-used stuff to either my brother or I. I always take her up on it, because this stuff is usually barely two years old, good as new — she’s just tired of it. On this trip, it was two barely used rocking chairs that are upholstered in a blue color quite complimentary to my couch. Matching chairs! Imagine that. So I threw them in the back of The Colorado, covered in plastic of course, since it was supposed to rain all the way home.
She also gave my brother and his wife an old Queen size bed, boxspring and frame. This would not fit in his Kia Sportage, but the chairs would. So we swapped cargo.
We figured the beds, wrapped in giant zipper-locked plastic bags, would get there just fine. They were too big to fit in and shut the tailgate, so we tied them in good and tight, and took off for Omaha, 170 miles away. I’ve never been so content to drive the speed limit for that long a stretch in my entire life.
Almost halfway, between Carroll and Denison on highway 30, I get a call from The Kia, who’s following my truck to keep an eye on the cargo. Apparently, the bag has ripped, and pieces of it are shearing off, leaving the mattress exposed to the elements. Nice. When Janell calls, however, she neglects to tell me exactly how much of the mattress is exposed…
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As I was driving into the office today, rocking along to Nazareth’s “Hair of the Dog”, I realized since I left town last Wednesday, a lot has happened. Lets get all up-ons and gets up to speed shall we?
Incidentally, is there a better way to start a Monday than singing along to Nazareth and getting to the chorus just as the car next to you looks over to see you screaming “Now you’re messin’ with a…Son Of a Bitch!”? If there is, I have yet to see it.
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While gathering information for our new construction supplies catalog here at the office, I noticed one of our tape suppliers had redesigned their website, and are using the above image on their main page. What exactly its trying to say sparked quite a discussion in the breakroom, even among non-designers. I don’t know how long we argued over this, but I think it was about 15 minutes because “Texas Justice” was half-over when we started, and I walked out as the show finished…
The copy reads “Our Tape Is Smart”, on an image of a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses with masking tape affixed to one arm holding it in place.
This is fierce.
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Funny story. I’m in the breakroom, and this guy walks in humming to himself. Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, shush, do-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo…
and I took the cue and sang “Under Pressure!” Only problem was, he was actually trying to be Vanilla Ice, and launched into his rap simultaneously. “Alright, stop, collaborate and listen!”
Completely bizarre.
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Last night, I went out to wash up The Colorado after getting home from volleyball. I took a bag of trash out and put it in the truck bed, intending to throw it one of the giant construction dumpsters that line my neighborhood on every lot still under construction. See, I didn’t do this the last time I left town and missed garbage day, and came back from Pittsburgh to find the grossest smelling garage EVER. Smart, I was.
Problem is, I got to singing with the radio (What, it was Heart’s “Crazy On You”, and I was trying to play air acoustic guitar AND sing AND drive all at once!) and spaced off dropping off that trash bag. I get to the car wash, and run the truck through. No thought of the bag at all. I get to the dryers, and something catches my eye, something moving violently in the rear view mirror. I look back and my first thought is, holy crap, how did the touchless car wash destroy the sand bags in the truck bed? Cos all I saw was a bag flapping around. Then I remembered.
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It consternates me to no end that even now, today, if I’m in the right frame of mind (or maybe the wrong frame of mind? I don’t know frames.) all it takes to get me to buy something I don’t need is for one of the following two things to happen.
Fortunately these wrong, or right moods (I’m confused, you pick one.) don’t come along very often, but when they do, oh boy. Those two things that can bring The King Of All That Is Good and Awesome and stuff to bust out the Almighty and Powerful Wallet are:
1. Pitch it in such a ridiculously hilarious manner that I almost have to buy it, because damn, that was funny;
2. The salesperson is a ridiculously hot chick.
Today over my lunch hour, both happened at once. Aside from my brain nearly ‘splode-ing from overload, which from the spelling of that word you can see I have yet to completely recover from, I walked away with a $6 bottle of ball cap waterproof spray that I got a deal on and paid just $3 for.
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