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Crazy as Shithouse Rats, and Nightmares from the Service Lane (Part I)

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I was sort of mulling over in my head the weird people and bizarre incidents that I’ve experienced in 25 years in the automotive industry.  I’ve always been in what the dealers call the “fixed operations” part of it- parts and service as opposed to selling entire vehicles.  I’m more of a techie type than an emotional, “I wanna sell you stuff ” type- so I’m not going to be good on selling someone on the pretty blue paint job and all the bright, shiny chrome.  I can tell you what a timing belt is, though, and why you are in deep shit trouble if it breaks out in the middle of the freeway. (especially if you own an older Honda with an interference engine, but I digress.)

Generally I try not to use much automotive terminology here,  because most people have absolutely no clue what I’m talking about, unless they’re motorheads too.

Most people are not motorheads and don’t understand the terminology, and I’m not into long and drawn out explanations.  Anyone who drives should know a few basic things (yes, I’ve coordinated car care seminars and I’ve gone through the New Car Checklist with hundreds – salesmen are supposed to do that- but are often too busy ignorant to do so.)  One of the most tragic customers I’ve ever encountered was a college student who had bought an ’87 Tercel (which, admittedly, that year and model was one of the very few of Toyota’s four cylinder cars I would NOT recommend) and was in tears when I had to inform her that the engine was blown and not repairable (when there’s a connecting rod blown clean through the block, the only fix is to replace the entire engine.)  She looked up at me and in all wide-eyed seriousness said, “But I didn’t even put 30,000 miles on it.”  The poor girl had run this car for 15,000 miles without changing the oil, because she thought it was only necessary to change the oil every 30,000 miles.  What was left of the motor oil in this car was a clumpy, burnt-up, coagulated mess stuck to the bottom of the oil pan.  I’m surprised it ran as long as it did before it blew up.  Oh, and decimal places are important.  Just so you know, although most manufacturers have since gone from a 3,000 mile to a 5,000 mile maintenance interval.

I had another guy who contributed to a catastrophic failure on his own car by assuming that just because it’s red and it’s a fluid that it’s automatic transmission fluid.  Had he called me (and he was a good customer of mine) I would have told him that while the stuff that comes out of a Toyota cooling system is red, it’s NOT ATF, and putting ATF in your cooling system is a Very Bad Idea.   That mistake cost him about four grand.   Our tech had to flush his entire cooling system, replace the water pump, head gasket, and power wash just about everything in the entire engine and cooling system that comes in contact with coolant.   All because he was too cheap to pay us to do a $79.95 coolant drain and fill- and that would have included the Toyota Red coolant.  Penny wise (no, not the clown) and pound foolish, no?

This is red.  It goes in your Toyota’s  engine cooling system.

This is also red, but does NOT go in the engine cooling system.  Ever.

Certain vehicles are very prone to acquiring foreign objects in the air intake systems.  I loved the older Camrys, but so did vermin, especially in rural areas.  I don’t know how many air filters we discovered torn to hell and stuffed with dog food.  We also encountered a few blower fans (squirrel cages) that ended up being nesting areas for mice.

Mice and blower fans are not a very good combination.

I worked with a particularly obnoxious primadouche technician one time- well two times, at two different dealerships. Lucky me.  He was a gifted tech, and I would definitely trust him to work on my car, but he was a festering asshole of a human being.  He did have a very glaring weakness for one who works with heavy machinery and sharp things though. He could not stand the sight of blood.   He was working on an older Camry on which the customer complaint was “a rubbing sound when you turn on the blower motor.”  As he pulled the squirrel cage out, to his horror, was a nest of chopped up baby mice- which he dropped on the floor as he ran over to the nearest trash bucket and began projectile vomiting.

Always the inciteful person in the shop, (with my iron guts and the gleeful assumption that I’d found Mr. Primadouche’s Achilles heel,)  I wandered on over to see if he’s just being a pussy, or if I really needed to call the squad.   Being that it was the former rather than the latter, I picked up the squirrel cage, dismembered mouse parts and all, dumped it out in a trash bucket that wasn’t being puked in, and then proceeded to power wash the rest of the guts out in the wash bay.  When Mr. Primadouche was done blowing chunks, I calmly laid the squeaky clean squirrel cage on top of his workbench and went back to checking in my stock order.  The rest of the guys in the shop were rolling on the floor with laughter, that the “parts bitch” had- yet again- shown up Mr. Primadouche.

This was the same douchebag who tossed a Celica exhaust (yep, not just the muffler-this unit was complete from the cat back) across the shop at me because he was pissed that he got the wrong one.  He gave me the wrong information when he ordered it.  I know, I should have made him give me a VIN, and from that moment on, I did exactly that anytime he wanted me to special order anything for him or any of his buddies ever again.  I’m just glad he missed, because that son of a bitch would have left  a mark.

I got a little bit of revenge when he and the washboy were smoking their lunch one fine afternoon.  I never understood why he would sit in his truck and smoke the reefer at lunch when there was a highway patrol station next door, but these two would get high out there every day.  This truck looked like something that belonged in a Cheech and Chong movie.  It was a jacked up fugly old Dodge 4X4 that looked like it had narrowly survived the apocalypse.

The belt molding (where the bottom of the window meets the door frame) was just above my head.  So Cheech and Chong couldn’t see me (though I could clearly see that fine skunkweed smoke billowing out of the cowl panel) as I took a rubber hammer, banged on the driver’s side door, and at the top of my voice screamed, “POLICE!  OUT OF THE TRUCK NOW!!”   As I was running across the lot after the two had fallen out of the truck, I looked back and sort of felt bad because Primadouche had been so scared he wet his pants.

To be continued…

Everyone Has a Purpose, Apparently Mine Involves Graciously Accepting Others’ Shit

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Suffice to say I’m not in a terribly great mood today.  The pragmatic side of me says that Jerry was a bit overdue for a drunk-n-stupid episode- it’s been almost a week- so I should be happy with conveniently being out of town and missing the Monday Night drunk-n-stupid.  The only problem with that was I got the Wednesday Night make-up round complete with two of the three elements I hate about the drunk-n-stupids.  One, he started in about money, blissfully ignorant of how much I just plain pay out for his skank ass, and also blissfully ignorant that when you sell crap on E-Bay you have to pay a fee on it, and you have to pay to ship it.  Explaining anything involving money or expenses to him when he’s trashed is like nailing Jell-o to a tree.  I should have just nodded my head and agreed with him- because when he’s shitfaced (even more than when he’s sober) he thinks any crazy shit that pops up in his head is Gospel truth, but I was stupid and decided to set him straight on a few things.  Mistake.   

So I got the oat opera torture until midnight and an attempt at drunken groping that was not only futile but just plain disgusting.  The problem is the only time he even gets horny is when he’s shitfaced, and the only thing he can do about it is slobber all over me and wave his nasty cigarettes around and spill beer all over everything.  Blecch.  My standards admittedly are low, but that’s just plain nasty.  There are a few things that can put an old cougar off doing the wild thing with the quickness:

Cigarettes.  Even back in the day when I smoked, I had the common courtesy to wait until AFTER the deed was done to light up.  Now that I haven’t smoked for years, just smelling cig smoke is enough to make me gag- without waving the damn thing in my face, ashing all over the place, and getting way too close to putting burn holes in my sheets and my skin.

Few people are more passionate about their hatred of smoking than ex-smokers.  Believe it.

Being shitfaced.  Natty Lite is not good for the breath.  Especially when you’re belching up used Natties in my face.  Waving the half-full beer can around in my bed, and possibly even spilling some of that embalming fluid swill in my bed sheets while doing so, does not earn any points for charm either.  Go back to your own hole and be shitfaced by yourself.

If you drink your dinner, do the world a favor- sleep alone.

Country music.  Country music has to be the #1 anaphrodisiac for me, save for extreme body odor.  Being that I am nothing to look at, and am proportioned like a mutant troll I can’t be terribly picky.  But start playing that awful song about saving a horse and riding a cowboy and you might as well understand that you’re not getting any action from me until you turn that torture off. 

I may be poor and white and mostly self-educated, but my family tree does actually fork.

Needless to say, even though he hasn’t had a woody since Bill Clinton was president (and probably never will again), last night was not the time to try to resurrect the dead.  It was certainly not a good time to start in pawing and slobbering on me.

Normally his drunk-n-stupids are just part of life, but last night’s really got on my nerves.  Dad is in the intensive care up north awaiting bypass surgery on Monday.  I spent most of the day Tuesday with Mom while the Dr.s were trying to figure out what was going on with him and what to do.   Now that they know what’s going on and what they’re going to do, they’re pretty much just watching him and trying to get his sugar and sinus infection under control before then. I decided he can watch History Channel just fine in the meanwhile without me sitting around up there not getting anything done except exposing myself to exotic germs and various funky assed diseases- whilst sticking to the god-awful uncomfortable vinyl hospital chair. 

Even so, I’m worn out and freaking out at the prospects of Dad having to have open heart surgery and all that, so I don’t need a ditzy assed drunk keeping me awake and being an obnoxious little titty baby.  Granted, I know that Jerry is both a ditzy assed drunk and a titty baby- he is truly helpless -which is aggravating as hell to me.

Shit: one of the most common elements in the universe.  Stupidity is the other.

This is a guy that if one of the dogs gets a case of the shits and unloads on the floor (fortunately the girls are trained, and this does not happen often) the first thing he will announce when I come in the door is, “Somebody shit on the floor and you need to clean it up!”

Oh, how many times I have wanted to rub his nose in it.  I don’t expect him to get the rug cleaner out, but at least make an attempt.  Scrape it into a bag or something.  It’s just shit.  As long as you don’t eat it, it shouldn’t kill you.

I know he was raised by wolves, but come on.

Killing Me With Country Music, Bad Tats, and Civility is Dead

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I am not a fan of country music.  Ironically, many country musicians espouse political and social views that are similar to mine, and for that reason alone I’d like to show their art a little love, but there’s something about that music genre in general that makes me want to projectile vomit, cry, and drive my car off a bridge all at the same time.

I don’t know if my loathing is born out of being trained in classical voice- it might be hard for some to imagine, but I enjoy opera and have actually performed a few arias in my time.  The most important part of classical training isn’t so much about style as it is control- learn the control and you can adapt to any style.    I also enjoy rock and heavy metal (especially the more orchestral types of rock/metal) and have been known to (long time ago) cover everything from Rush to the Scorpions to Stevie Nicks and even some Led Zeppelin.  I have a broad vocal range so I can get away with pretty much any style I want.  I actually enjoy most music (except for rap, which is simply loud drug-induced glorification of cop-killing and sister-raping) including some country-related genres such as bluegrass (as long as they don’t sing) and blues and jazz.  I even find David Allan Coe hilarious, mostly because his music is gloriously politically incorrect and he will lampoon anything, but start in with the “achy, breaky heart” stuff and you lost me.

Unfortunately, Jerry adores the country music that I can tolerate the least- the really old time twangy, sad sap songs about dead dogs and Momma gettin’ drunk and Daddy beatin’ all the youngin’s.   He likes to crank it up when he’s wasted, which is usually at night when I’m at least attempting to get some sleep.   This is not the country music that is a bit less odious, the kind you can almost mistake for pop.  It’s the kind of music that if you play it backward you get your truck back, your old lady back, the train un-runs over Momma, and you end up with a fifth of Jack Daniel’s in the bargain.  I can’t stand it.  I’ve tried to make myself tolerate it, but the love’s just not there.  Maybe you have to get drunk to appreciate it.  The only way I can appreciate it is when it’s turned off.

Something about that “Achy, Breaky Heart” song makes my IQ drop just thinking about it.

When I worked in some of the rural dealerships I had a few techies who insisted on blaring that awful stuff out in the shop.  I responded by cutting the breaker to their power strips so their jamboxes wouldn’t work.   Once they figured that out, I came in early and re-tuned all their jamboxes to the classical station.  Classical music in general (but especially Mozart) is good for the analytical mind, and some of those six-fingered yokels could use a little help with that.  At least after my re-tuning the oat opera lovers decided that they would humor the old bitty and listen to the Oak Ridge Boys,  Hank Williams, and Boxcar Willie with headphones.

It seems that the only people group out there that is acceptable to lampoon these days is the Redneck Nation.  Perhaps my distaste of Waylon Jennings, et al is a way of distancing myself from my redneck heritage.  I have to admit though, that I’m not that far removed from the trailer park.  Poor white folks are poor white folks after all.  I may not care much for NASCAR, (stock car racing has to be the most inane “sport” ever) either, but at the end of the day, yeah, I still believe in God, the US Constitution, guns, and guts.  The alternatives to those aren’t panning out so well.

I also refuse to get tattooed.  I’ve played around with the thought of having eyeliner tattooed on but I don’t like the thought of someone getting that close to my eyeballs with a needle.  I have a lot of friends with tats, and as far as I’m concerned, to tat or not to tat is a personal decision.  I still envision those horrid monstrosities- really bad sailor’s tattoos- on my Grandpa’s forearms.  I can’t imagine they looked good when he had them done when he was 18 and in the Navy- in 1943.  In 2006, when he was in the assisted living center, right before he died, they were positively frightening.  I knew there was a reason why he wore long sleeved shirts, carefully buttoned at the wrists, even in high summer.  He was a railroad executive for many years after he had served in the Navy- and didn’t want anyone to know he had those horrid tats.    That would be my luck.  I would end up with something positively embarrassing and hideous, like my best friend in high school who had her boyfriend’s name (Ray) tattooed across her back in huge letters.  When she broke up with him, his name was still there, to remind God and everyone.  I suggested to her that she modify her back and add the letters BESTOS- and see if she can get paid to advertise brake pads.  That got me a punch in the arm.

I find it hard to imagine this dude ever finding gainful employment, unless he can wear a ski mask, or keep the bag on his head all day.

It used to be that people had some manners.  Not anymore.  I can play that game too, and in some ways I do.  The next time Jerry decides to drop a load when I’m brushing my teeth (we only have one bathroom- acck!) and neglects to flush and spray, so my toothpaste ends up tasting like “shit with a hint of mint,” I’m going to leave some dog bombs under the seat in his truck.  And I’ll set all the presets on the truck stereo from “Country Torture 105” to the classical station too, since he doesn’t know how to change them.

Country is to music like Homer Simpson in a muu-muu is to fashion.  Humorous and nauseating at the same time.

Dubious Distinctions, Freud Would Have a Field Day, and It’s Cougar Pool Time Again

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I have not set up the Cougar Pool again, but I have everything ready to go- chlorine, shock, a brand new floatie, and a new filter kit.  I do not swim – at least I don’t dare dunk my head- in unchlorinated water.  I learned the lesson long, long ago when I got a wicked as hell ear infection from swimming at one of the reservoirs.   I should be thankful the water in the reservoirs is chlorinated before it ends up coming through my faucet if it’s that filthy.  I might go to a public beach at the reservoir, and I may consider wading, but I sure as hell am not dunking my head.  Never again.  I like the Cougar Pool water to be crystal clear and Ph perfect.  That way if I do want to dunk my head- or if I fall off the floatie- it’s all cool.  I shouldn’t catch any diseases at least.

So as soon as I clean off the back patio and make sure Jerry hasn’t left anything sharp lying around, it will be ready to go. I should know that Central Ohio in May is generally still Monsoon Season, and that the temperature still hasn’t quite stabilized at Stygian Heat yet.  We don’t put in vegetable plants until those two weeks or so between May 15 and Memorial Day for that reason.  It can snow in May.  Jerry will be a busy little camper with planting next week, but this week it’s supposed to rain and temperatures will only be in the 70’s at best.

Highs at 80° and above (somewhat consistently) are required to use the Cougar Pool.  There’s no heater, so if temperatures dip into the 50s at night, that will be one frigid pool the next day even with the greenhouse effect of the sun and the pool cover.

Isabel is 5# of all black feline sweetness- when she’s not being evil, that is.

I have to wonder about some of my dreams lately.  I think that I’m going to have to close the bedroom door so I don’t wake up to Isabel chewing on my hair again.  I don’t know why she does that, but it’s highly annoying.  Generally Clara and/or Lilo, and all the cats are quite welcome on the bed.  Sheena doesn’t attempt to get on the beds because her bad hips do not allow her to jump high enough, which is fine with me, because she lacks the precise motor skills the other dogs have.

Maybe Sheena’s a total klutz because she has no hip sockets, and the ball portions of her femurs just sort of free-float.

Even if it’s not painful- and it probably is- such a condition can’t allow for terribly fluid movement, but Sheena is what Sheena is.  Sheena usually simply flops at the side of the bed and splays out on the floor, occasionally grunting and snoring, but she’s a sound sleeper.  Clara and Lilo both are attentive to every little noise, and sleep very lightly, but when Sheena’s out, she’s out.  The cats usually simply curl up and purr and sleep and don’t give me any trouble.  Usually when the cats get annoying at night, it’s because their food bowl is empty, but I had filled the cats’ food bowl and the water bowl before I went to bed.  So who knows what Isabel’s problem was last night, but I really don’t need to have dreams of assorted men-I-think-are-hot chewing on my hair.

I really don’t think (at least I hope not) that Neal Schon would really want to chew on my hair (ewwwww) and spy on me in the shower.  I really don’t think any man alive would really want to do either of those things, (and one that would want to do either of those things would scare the hell out of me,) but dreams are weird.  When the old man puts a bottle nipple on a Heineken so he can drink beer whilst horizontal, well, that’s scary too.  Fortunately that too was a dream.  Jerry would never dream of drinking anything more highbrow than Bud Light, he doesn’t like beer in the bottle anyway, and if he could remain horizontal whilst drinking beer, he’d never leave the bed.

I was thinking about it this morning and realized I have the most bizarre luck.  It’s not necessarily bad, it’s not necessarily good- but my life seems to be an ode to Murphy’s Law.

1.  If I am “lucky” enough to get the last of a highly sought item, it will either be broken, missing pieces, or entirely not the thing pictured on the box.  I really couldn’t use *and should have checked, shame on me* the “last” pair of  size 7 sandals, on the clearance rack that I really wanted, only to get home and discover that there was one 7 and one 9 in the box.   I may be ill-proportioned, and the instep on my right foot is slightly higher than the left, but both feet are generally happy in a size 7.  9 is way the fark too big even for my higher-instepped right foot.   Bastards.  But, I should have checked.

2. If I remember to bring the DS when I have something boring to do that potentially involves sitting and waiting, I get right in.  If I forget the DS, I will encounter every imaginable delay and will get to spend an eternity either immersed in the abyss of daytime TV or buried in vapid, aged, so-called women’s magazines.   I don’t really get into too many periodicals.  At least the Vet has some good ones- Dog Fancy, Cat Fancy, and various scientific and veterinary journals and such.  But I really can’t take Glamour, People, Good Housekeeping or any of those “parenting” magazines.   That crud makes me want to vomit.   The good gossip rags ended when they stopped printing the Weekly World News.   That was Great-Grandma’s favorite gossip paper, even though she subscribed to them all for the entertainment value, and for the hope that they would lampoon Ted Kennedy yet again.  She really despised Ted Kennedy. WWN is still available online, but you have to have Internet access, and most Dr.s offices and such do not have free wi-fi.  It is nice to know, however, that someone is keeping track of who has the World’s Biggest Butt.  That piece of knowledge could be important.

3. I probably have more medical anomalies than 99% of the population.  While this makes me really popular when I’m in a medical setting, it can make my healthcare become a real circus.  I have had medical students, nursing students, ophthalmology students, phlebotomy students, you name it, get to observe my bizarre body as a instructional exercise.  Usually I don’t mind, because hey, maybe something about my bizarreness might benefit the cause of science, but sometimes it’s a bit off-putting.  The medical student who freaked out at being shown my CT scan before I had sinus surgery was priceless.  He stood there next to my family Dr., wide eyed, simply saying, “OH MY GOD, how does this poor woman stay standing???”  Not very well, I assure you.  It was even more fun when I went to the cardiologist for an echocardiogram several years ago, and of course, it was his day for the medical students.  They glared  at my beating heart on the monitor (which was kind of cool to watch,) as the Dr. (who seemed as excited as a kid in a candy store,) informed them, “This is classic rheumatic heart disease.  You usually don’t get to see this outside of the third world,”  as he pointed out my two damaged heart valves.  Special.  He also said that I probably won’t need them replaced until I’m 75 or so.  If I live that long, that is.  This doctor obviously didn’t know that for all intents and purposes I did grow up in the third world.   Just like Deliverance, only without the benefit of mountains or banjos.

Now, class, don’t put ’em in the bed like this. They might snap their necks, and that would make us look bad.

I Am the Anti-Tan, Screwy Things in the Name of “Beauty,” and the Joy of Being Inciteful

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I’m no beauty queen, but this is SCARY.

All this hoo-hah about some very deranged woman who is accused of dragging her five year old into a tanning bed is really disturbing.  Tanning was trendy back in the ’80’s too, and back then the bulbs used in the beds would literally fry the hide off a person.  I don’t think today’s tanning beds use such intense bulbs, but it certainly can’t be healthy to voluntarily expose oneself to all that direct heat and radiation. Oh, and anyone who would drag a five year old into a tanning bed to be toasted like an English muffin should not be allowed to have custody of a kid.  Ever.  Then again, in a perfect world only certain people would be capable of breeding.  The fact that the fittest aren’t always the ones spawning sort of casts some doubts on Darwin’s theory.  The gene pool doesn’t really seem to be chlorinating itself.

Many of the girls I knew in high school went to those tanning beds like religion- and now they look like the California Raisins.  I am certainly no beauty and I am certainly not free of skin damage- most of mine is actually through burns, (especially one bad incident from taking a radiator cap off a bit too soon…) but I have more than enough stretch marks, and a plethora of assorted scars from everything from a horrid case of chicken pox to bug bites, to abrasions, to falling into the coffee table, and even one interesting scar from a claw mark given by a very frightened dog.  However, I don’t tan.  When my super white skin is exposed to the sun, the results are freckles, splotches and burns.   I have never even attempted tanning in a tanning bed in my life, and at 43 I don’t plan on starting it now.  I have seen the leathery, wrinkly visages of the tanned “beauties” of the ’80’s as they look today- and I don’t want to go there.  Ever.

In the summer I can barely leave the house without slathering on the Factor 50, and this is in Ohio, where there isn’t a whole lot of direct sunlight, and it is not exactly a tropical paradise.  Even so, I’ve been known to get sunburn in the car.  It does get hot in the summer here, but it seems hotter than it really is, because the humidity is usually somewhere around 100% most of the time.   I have been told that 88° in Columbus OH in high summer seems hotter than Phoenix AZ at 110°, but never having been to Phoenix, I really don’t know if this is true, at least not from my own experience. 

Throughout history women have done some pretty screwy things in the name of beauty.  Ancient Roman women used lead as face powder.  Chinese women bound their feet so they couldn’t walk.  Even today we color our hair, (I freely fess up to that one) pierce our ears (yeah I did that too) and pierce various other places (not really game for that) and get tattoos (I might consider getting eyeliner tattooed on, but that’s about it.)  I don’t know of any culture that regards excessive body hair on a woman to be attractive, so removing superfluous hair is a Big Deal too.  It’s one of my major battles- to avoid looking like Sasquatch at all costs.  As fast as the hair grows on my body in unauthorized places, remaining acceptably hairless requires constant vigilance.

I know I shouldn’t enjoy controversy as much as I do.  While part of me wants to hide out in the ivory tower, another part of me can be derisive and critical.  There is a fine line dividing healthy, rational debate and presenting the facts, versus rabid activism, and for my own sense of rationality and sanity I have to be careful not to cross it. 

As far as things political go, the easiest way for me to describe where I stand is, “just to the right of Reagan.”  I am more conservative (at least politically) than most, and I have my reasons, but my reasons should never keep me from listening (sometimes the “other side” is right) or from being so focused in my disagreement that I can’t see little bits of good in what I perceive to be an ocean of bad. 

Conservatism doesn’t mean closed-mindedness, (nor does it mean racism or bigotry) but it does mean keeping a bit of a skeptical eye- on both sides.  I may not like someone’s philosophy on certain things- and I am outspoken enough to say so- but at the end of the day my goal is to stay rational- and to remember that while some ideologies may be detrimental or even what I consider to be evil- other people have their reasons for holding them that may not be rooted in evil but because they came from different background and perspective than mine.

It’s going to be a long next few months for me, trying to remain somewhat civil, keeping from alienating dear friends who don’t have the same political outlook I do, and trying not to get caught up on rhetoric, even when I can base it on facts. There are few things that can ignite that tiny little emotional stub I have in place of a heart, but love of country is one of them.  I ran the streets at 11 years old- delighted that even at 11 years old I could volunteer- with campaign information for President Reagan.  So forgive me if I get caught up.  I need to remind myself that in the grand scheme of things, it will be what it will be, and I can only do so much to bring about the world I would like to see.  Besides, beyond a bit of snarky satire here and there, what else am I good for?

Well, I can think of a few things.  I know more about things automotive than anyone other than a technician or an engineer would ever want to know.  I have a broad vocabulary. I can spell and define words such as catamite, hemorrhoidal inflammation, impunity, and gynecomastic.  Even better, I can use all these words and phrases in a sentence:

When Maurice, the gynecomastic catamite, came home from his boyfriend’s party, where he was taken advantage of by the others with impunity, he was suffering from severe hemorrhoidal inflammation.

Even if one doesn’t already know the definitions of these words, it’s possible to figure all but one of them out from the context clues.

Drunken Tilling! Everyone Has a Double, and Here’s to the Mysteries of Life!

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Sometimes I am truly amazed and humbled by things I don’t understand. 

Especially how Jerry has managed to live 55 years and still has all of his fingers and toes.  Then again, since he only has ten of each, he may have lost some in the past.  It’s probably in poor taste for me to make a West Virginia joke, but it’s not uncommon in some parts of WV for entire families to have six or seven toes on each foot.  Maybe he had more genetic diversity in his family than in others, because I think he was born with the customary ten toes and ten fingers, which is a good thing.  I went to school with a guy who had six toes on each foot, and he also had a thing for eating boogers, paint and dead bugs.  I don’t think extra digits=extra intelligence, but I’m no geneticist, so there may not be any correlation between having too many toes and whether or not your mamma and your sister are the same woman.  (“Aunt Mom??”)

Anyway, back to more of Jerry’s drunken activities.  Last night’s drunken activity of the evening was tilling.  For those who are extremely urban and have never grown a garden, or observed someone grow a garden, tilling is what you have to do to break up the ground so you can put seeds or plants in it.  Our garden plot is somewhat large, which means manual tilling, with a shovel or hoe (also a digging tool, but not to be confused with “ho”) is not practical.  Tilling a large garden plot requires a roto-tiller, which is a funky thing that is powered by a lawnmower engine, but in the front of it there are vertical, rotating tines that dig up the ground (versus a horizontal blade like a lawnmower.) 

It would be in one’s best interest to be relatively sober when operating such a potentially dangerous machine, but Jerry was at least a 12 pack into it.  So he is traipsing through the mud with the tiller dragging him along.  His shoes ended up so caked with mud that I am surprised the dog shit he stepped in on the way in the house managed to stick to them, but of course, dog shit sticks to anything.  I could have killed him for tracking in dog shit (again) but in his defense I don’t think he could see it and I’d be surprised if he could have smelled it as shitfaced as he was.  I retrieved the shoes, tossed them on the back porch and of course, had to clean up the shit that got tracked all over the floor.

Just a quick passing observation.  Legend has it everyone has a double.  Even Obama.  I couldn’t stop laughing the other night when Jerry and I were watching “The Legend of Awesomest Maximus,” which is about the most corny spoof of Greek mythology I’ve ever seen in my life.  The movie was funny in a puerile, sophomoric way as most National Lampoon humor is- nothing highbrow here-but my uncontrollable, blow-iced-tea-out-my-nose laughter was caused by the uncanny resemblance shown here:

This is King Erotic, the evil king of Greece (from “The Legend of Awesomest Maximus”)

I think they look alike.  Too alike. Creepy.

 

Glow In the Dark Monstrosities, Medical Fun and Total Hemorrhoidal Takeover!

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If I see these things in someone’s yard, I’m reporting an alien invasion, because that’s what these bastards look like.

What would you have to be smoking to want these in your yard?  I found this ad while I was trolling through the newspaper coupons.  Some of the shit being hawked in those circulars is even worse than the “As Shown on TV” garbage.  At least the “Easy Feet” thing is useful for old and/or lazy people.  It does something.  It has a purpose, even if only to scrub some geezer’s bunions.  The meerkats only look strange and make your neighbors wonder if you’ve been getting in the cat’s catnip stash again.

Clean feets is happy feets!

I can ‘t think of any good reason to have glow-in-the-dark meerkats in my flowerbed.   Even though the mail order crap mixed in with the coupons was pretty nasty, there were some good coupons this week – especially the $2 off Nice-N-Easy and $2 off Venus razors coupons. Both items are things I will always have need for, and will definitely have need for before the coupons expire.  There were some coupons for Charmin too, which is nice.  Jerry goes through enough toilet paper to deforest the Amazon, but it’s amazing to find a man who uses toilet paper to begin with, so I try not to complain.   I occasionally buy the Charmin Basic if it’s on sale, even though Jerry complains that any TP other than Angel Soft aggravates his ‘roids.

Personally I think the ‘roids are taking over.  One day he’s going to go to the Dr. and I’ll get a call telling me that there’s nothing left but ‘roids.  Today has been one of those days where he has been nothing but a huge whiny pain in the ass and it’s almost funny.  It amazes me just how big a pussy he can be.  It really pisses him off when I’m doing something for me (like getting my scripts…) so I’m not readily available to kiss his ass.  Too damned bad.  It is possible to delay your beer drinking by an hour or two to drive your own happy ass over to your buddy’s so you two can shoot the shit.  Why do I have to take you over there and then sit around like a lump of shit (so you can have a ride without waiting for me to come and get you???) watching the two of you get drunk?

I had to go back to the Dr. today and as I suspected, my numbers were dismal but not quite as horrible as I’d imagined.  So I get my dosage on one of my blood pressure meds increased, my insulin increased, and my statin completely changed.  All of which are going to cost me more (which I knew was coming…) but they did give me some insulin pens which are so helpful when it costs me $215 for a script of 5 pens.    Then it’s back for more labs and fun in August.  Yay.  On the bright side the snots seem to be reasonably contained so hopefully my blood sugar and blood pressure will get back to some semblance of normal, now that I can actually sleep.  I just hope that increasing that one blood pressure med doesn’t put me to sleep in the middle of the day.

No, this is not me sleeping.  1.) I am a brunette, and 2.) I snore.  Loudly.  I wake myself up snoring.

I sort of had a sadistic idea for a video game for Jerry- one where the hemorrhoids invade (imagine the epic song “2112” by Rush -go to 20:30-) and when they (the ‘roid invaders of course) win the game ends with the end of “2112” where Alex Lifeson says in that funky voice:

“Attention, all planets of the Solar Federation!”

“Attention, all planets of the Solar Federation!”

“Attention, all planets of the Solar Federation!”

“We have assumed control!”

“We have assumed control!”

“We have assumed control!”

Yep, the ‘roids have taken over Uranus.

My sister (not the sadistic oldest one)  is a programmer.  She’s not really a gamer, as her specialty is writing software to control industrial robots, but I’ll still have to ask her if she can build me some kind of fun game like that.

Walk Briskly, and Wear Rubber-Soled Shoes (Life Lesson #1)

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In most things I’m all about practical application.  Having the dubious distinction of having lived and worked with hot-tempered people (and even having worked for a few people with white powder* problems) I have had to learn the art survival skill of subtlety.  This is not a skill that comes naturally.  By nature I am a very literal person, and unless I have a compelling reason to do otherwise, I say what I think.  Even so, I also have a very strong self-preservation instinct.  I learned this from my Dad, who didn’t have mental or chemical problems- but he did have a hot temper and a damned fine aim.  There are some people you just don’t piss off.  He falls into that category.  I got a refresher course on treading lightly when the psycho coke head from hell tried to throttle me in the service drive because our technician took it upon himself to complete some (free) warranty work on his car.

Of course self-preservation trumps most other instincts most of the time.  When I’m at work I do best if I am told what is expected of me and then I’m left alone to get it done.  I do not require micromanagement, and the more autonomy I have, the more I get done.  

I really don’t need any bullshit from the chemically impaired.  I learned very quickly how to spot when one of my former bosses had spent the night with a hooker, some cheap liquor and a LOT of toot-toot.  I learned to make myself very scarce and only respond when spoken to.  This was a guy who could go from being the greatest guy in the world one minute to the world’s biggest prick in 1.2 seconds.  This was the same guy who spent most days in the titty bar while I did his work and he conveniently took the credit (and the hefty bonus checks) for it.  I avoided him like the plague- but especially when he came in while riding the toot-toot train. 

If this dude confronted me when he was like that I would usually get stuck climbing around scrubbing down the tops of parts bins when I had more productive and profitable things that I should be doing, but this dude was anal like that.  I understand that you want your work area to be reasonably clean and organized, but the reality of any sort of automotive parts warehouse – especially a parts department in a dealership that’s right next to the mechanical shop- is that it is neither a surgical unit nor a kitchen and it isn’t going to be that clean.   I had a severe distaste for this kind of time-wasting for two reasons: one, you can scrub and Clorox it down one day and between the exhaust fumes and the techies (who aren’t exactly Mr. Clean) it’s going to be dirty again the next.  It’s an exercise in futility. 

The other reason I hated his little cleaning rants is his behavior reminded me of Mom when she used to go on the manic cleaning rampages.  Mom is bi-polar and when we were kids, unmedicated.  Although she exhibited a lot of the same bizarre behaviors as a coke head on a bender, Mom did not do coke, thank God.  Dad didn’t have that kind of cash, and Mom was far too näive to go trolling for drugs.  Hindsight being 20/20 I wish someone would have had some Valiums or Xanaxs handy when she got on a roll.   I shudder to imagine a bi-polar person in manic phase AND on coke.  Believe it or not the behavior of a bi-polar person in manic phase and of a coke head in full coke rage is remarkably similar.  I’ve had the bad fortune to be the target of both, and it’s taught me how to make myself scarce.

Blending into the wall can be a handy survival skill.  So can walking briskly and wearing rubber-soled shoes.  I find myself doing that a lot lately.  Do my job, flit about from here to there, as quickly and quietly as someone with dismal gross motor skills can, and go along my merry way.  I have to do a lot less explaining, a lot less chatting, and I get sidetracked a lot less if I can just plow right on through.

Thankfully I’ve not had to work for the cocaine addicted for many years.  It’s a bit stressful going to work not knowing if your boss is going to be:

1. At the titty bar/brothel.  This was the best place for him to be, because I didn’t have to deal with him, and since I had to do his job anyway, it was nice to be left alone to do it.  The only bad part was I felt guilty lying to his wife when she called.  I knew damned good and well he wasn’t “in a meeting,” but it was a lot less messy than telling her the truth.  She found out anyway where he’d been going- when she ended up with a rather nasty social disease. 

2. At work.  This was a crap shoot. When he wasn’t jacked up on coke, he was usually OK.  That was the time to corner him for the few things that he had to authorize, etc. although I pretty much could do everything he did- even though I didn’t get the recognition or the compensation for it.  Even if he was coked up he could be decent -unless he started getting paranoid or something (and that could be anything) pissed him off.  Then he could go from your best buddy to the guy who’s having a screaming tirade about dust bunnies behind the oil filters.

3. Sick.  It was really bad if this dude came to work “sick,” because here was a dude who could turn a hangnail into a Shakespearian tragedy.  And on top of being the world’s biggest coke head, this dude was the world’s biggest hypochondriac.  I swear he asked me to inspect bumps on his scalp and arms (ewwwwwwwww!!!) and creepiness like that.  Yeah, you hired me to inspect your zits and dandruff.  Acck.  I am NOT a doctor.  I am NOT any kind of health professional.  If you are in doubt, stay home, quarantine yourself, or just skip the middle man.  Call 911 and have them take your ass to the ER.  Ironically, he didn’t say anything to me about the symptoms of the social disease that he (and his now ex-wife) had to go get shots and such for.  Go figure.  I hope it fell off.

I have to say I was delighted when I was offered alternative employment far, far away from this dude.  However, the life lesson that the hot-heads, bi-polar, and chemically enhanced people in my life have taught me still stands.  It is better to lurk quietly in the shadows and avoid attention than to be singled out and browbeaten. 

*white powder=cocaine

Snot Wars! (Why I Shouldn’t Write Science Fiction) and More Observations of the Unwashed

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Americans are obsessed with hygiene.  For the most part that’s a good obsession unless you go overboard with it, as my friend Sheena (not my mentally challenged Husky mix, but another Sheena) points out.  There’s a difference between showering daily, brushing and flossing one’s teeth twice a day, using a good mouthwash, putting on clean clothes every morning, and going around huffing mothballs or picking strange people’s hair out of bathtub drains.  I don’t know where TLC finds the weirdos for the My Strange Addiction show.   Maybe back in the ’80’s  I should have gotten help for my Steve Perry obsession and my excessive use of Aquanet, but I think both of those addictions were pretty much considered normal back then.  We didn’t have all the interesting stuff to do back then.  Cable TV meant you had 13 channels.  Dad always sprang for HBO so we had movies too, but even TV wasn’t the 24/7 freak fest that is available today. No COPS, no World’s Dumbest, no pecker pump infomercials.   There was no Internet (at least not for the unwashed masses) back in 1986.  The only computers I’d ever used back then were highly unreliable, had less memory than most of today’s cell phones, there was no such thing as Windows, and the disc drive was a cassette tape.   Cell phones were only for the mega-rich, and even then they had almost no range- and were tethered to the inside of a car. 

Today I could see myself overloading on Chanel #5 for example, but that stuff smells good, and not having much of a sense of smell, I tend to load up a bit heavy on cologne if I’m not careful.  I still have a bit of the Steve Perry obsession, but even an old cougar has to have some sort of fantasy life.

I might have impossible dreams about an older guy who is likely not nearly as hot as he was back in 1981 or thereabouts, but I’m not as bad as Anna Nicole-

Love? or Money?  Ewww!

It’s one thing to have fantasies about a guy who’s 20 years older than me who was incredibly hot 30 years ago.  It’s quite another to suck face with a guy who’s 50 years older than me and who was never hot, but has a lot of cash.  Then again, I don’t know how much money it takes to make it acceptable to suck face with a pruny, toothless old dude.  I hope I never have to figure that one out.

I find it incredibly icky on the occasions I have to snake my own bathtub and/or bathroom sink drains.  I know it’s probably not terribly environmentally sound, but I’d rather run the DRANO through them before they get to the point where the only way the tub will drain is if I snake out gobs and gobs of unspeakable smelly hair tangled up in pasty goopy blecch- and then still have to run the DRANO through. There is nothing I would find addicting about either snaking the drains or running the DRANO through them, unless it would be the end result of actually having shower water and/or toothbrushing leavings make it down the drains.

I am at least reaching a point of detenté in the Snot Wars.  I found this really cool stuff called Sinus Plumber that pretty much does exactly what it says.   I am generally skeptical of anything that claims to be “all natural-” just because it’s all natural does not mean a product is either safe or effective.   I could put some all natural fire up my nose and I don’t think that would be either safe or effective.  I can think of a good number of all-natural lethal things- cyanide, arsenic, snake venom, shark bites, Ebola, the list goes on and on.  However, the Sinus Plumber stuff does work.  It does burn a slight bit, but it also leaves one with the refreshing scent of wintergreen- and a lot less snot. 

I also do the sinus rinse twice a day.  It isn’t fun but it does rinse out a lot of the snot and it does rinse out a lot of the things that I’m likely allergic to.

Then to add to the adventure, and to increase the possibility of some relief for my interminable snots, I’ve been taking the 24 hour generic Allegras (fexofenadine) which seem to be- after a couple of weeks of taking them every day- working better than the Claritin-Ds. 

I still have to sleep at about a 45° angle to keep from choking, but at least now I’m sleeping, which is an improvement.  My outlook is getting better with the more shut-eye I can muster. I think I’ve moved beyond wanting to throttle anyone today, or falling asleep at my desk, but it’s only 1:30.

I had to take Steve-o to the Walmart (not the Walmart of the infamous Quest for Pennzoil- this one is Marion)  to cash a check Saturday (long story) which meant that we had to go to the Customer Service Desk (Customer Torture Area is more like it.)  To be fair, this Walmart is less odious than most in that the team members speak English (at least the redneck dialect thereof) as a first language.  When we got to the desk the fan was running and the poor cashier had her turtleneck pulled up over her nose.

“Man, I’m not trying to be rude, but the guy in here before you really reeked!,” the poor girl mumbled through her shirt, “It’s so bad I can taste that nasty!”

He got his check cashed, and I wished her a better smelling rest of the day.

I really felt bad for her.  When I worked in rural Chevy dealerships we dealt with hog farmers (or should I call them pork producers?) who would come in to buy stuff for their trucks- whilst still knee deep in pig shit.  There are few things (that I can smell) that smell bad enough and strong enough to make me want to puke, but pig shit is one of them.   The only reason I can think of as to why they didn’t at least change their boots before going out in public is that being a hog farmer, one probably gets to the point where pig shit no longer smells.  Thankfully I kept a big old bottle of Lysol spray behind the counter and then as soon as they left I would douche the place thoroughly with it.  Maybe that’s where the idea to use Lysol cleaner for feminine hygiene came from.  I certainly hope not, but it wouldn’t surprise me. 

This should not be confused with

This!

I do know of a few people for whom the Lysol cleaner-as-body-wash might not be a bad idea though.  It does get the crusty shit off the linoleum floors pretty good.

 

 

I Love My Dogs (In a Totally Non-Creepy Way)

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It’s probably more stressful for me to take my dogs to the Vet than it is for them to go.  Clara doesn’t even notice when she gets shots.  Lilo can be fidgety but usually isn’t too weird about it as long as I hold her head against my chest so she can’t get snippy.  Both of the girls (Sheena is on a different schedule than the other two) were as good as dogs can be last night.

Granted both Clara and Lilo are edging up into “senior” territory which is a difficult reality for me to get through my head.  Clara is 9, Lilo is 8, almost 9.  I have had dogs live almost 16 years- Kayla would probably have lived even longer had we not decided to put her down when her DM (Degenerative Myelopathy) got so bad she was having trouble controlling her bowels and bladder.  That really sucked, especially for a dog whose healthy weight was about 90#.  I couldn’t carry her out, and eventually it got to the point where she didn’t know when she needed to go and then she’d  just let fly which was humiliating to her and difficult for us.  Kayla was otherwise healthy- except for the damned DM keeping her from being able to control her bathroom functions and use her rear legs.  Unfortunately dogs don’t die from DM- but if they are left to die a “natural death,” they die from the pneumonia and heart failure brought on by inactivity.

Because Clara and Lilo both are crossbreeds and not purebred GSDs, it’s unlikely they will get DM like Kayla and Heidi both did.  I am generally not a believer in “hybrid vigor,” but the likelihood of genetic disease is lower in mixed breed dogs.  Heidi had other issues besides DM, though nine years of very poor care before we got her didn’t help.  I doubt if I will ever have another purebred GSD for that reason- the American bloodlines are repositories for every wicked genetic disease under the sun- but who knows.  I love the protection breeds.

In this pic, Clara (top) was a thin and lanky two year old- Kayla (bottom) was a healthy and active 14 year old.   Kayla did wonders developing Clara’s confidence.

Lilo I know has hip dysplasia, but hers is mild, which is a workable condition for most dogs.  Lilo and Clara both have allergies that seem to get worse as they age. Lilo has seborrhea,  and Clara is prone to lick granulomas which are generally not life-threatening but are aesthetically unpleasant.    Sheena has severe hip dysplasia and she has completely destroyed her canine teeth and incisors from cage biting.  Both of these conditions  will probably cause issues as she ages.

Sheena does have issues, but she’s a sweet dog.

The sad truth of having dogs is that they age a lot faster than we do.  I love senior dogs as they are usually a lot more laid back than their younger counterparts and they are confident in their routines.  I was thrilled to take Heidi in at the age of 9- partially because we had just lost Kayla, but also because I enjoy senior dogs and their mellowness.  I was thankful that Heidi had a good three years with us, but it broke my heart to see her go at the relatively young age of  12.

Heidi was always grateful for everything.

I can take Clara anywhere.  She and I have an understanding which is hard to describe, but I know I have a deeper appreciation for her and her gentle, intuitive nature, especially after she was hit by a truck and almost killed two and a half years ago.

When Clara had the stitches- and the seroma- after she was hit by a truck, she had to wear t-shirts to keep from messing with it.  She was not amused.

Lilo is also very mellow and easy to handle, especially for a dreaded “Chow mix,” but that mellowness has taken years to cultivate.  Sheena (about 4 years old now) is not as confident or as obedient as the other two are now.  But Clara had a lot of “puppiness” to her when I got her as a thin and somewhat spooked two year old, and Lilo had her special little “Chowtude” and didn’t want to trust anyone when she first came to us.  Kayla scared her, and Clara just wanted to kick her ass.

Lilo is strange in one regard- she actually enjoys wearing clothes.

Perhaps it’s a bit twisted that I hold my dogs in higher esteem than most people, but at the end of the day- there they are.