Another Thanksgiving passed already. And with its passing came today, what’s come to be known as “Black Friday.” Although years past were laden with reports of Black Friday madness in the form of actual riots; this year seems calm by comparison. However, just to be sure the “magic” wasn’t lost, I went to Google to see if there were any fresh reports of crazy Black Friday fighting. Of course I wasn’t disappointed; but at least these incidents are fewer now.

Can’t help but wonder if the previous Black Fridays were a total set up. These days, Black Friday deals have been going on for what seems like weeks. So were we all used as stooges by the retailers initially? Maybe… but one could argue that’s still the case today.

Anyway, my Beautiful Girlfriend and our Beautiful Friend Mike’s Beautiful Girlfriend took a sojourn into Black Friday Land today. Sounds like they had fun hanging out together and saving a few bucks on stuff. Sounds like they didn’t have so much fun standing in lines waiting to get stuff; but hey, it’s all part of the Black Friday Fun.

I guess…

I celebrated Black Friday by going to the grocery store. Needed to pick up a few things for this Sunday’s 3^rd Thanksgiving Dinner that my Honey Pie and I are fortunate enough to enjoy. The difference with this one is that I have to cook… which reminds me, I need to get the pies out of the oven!! Be right back…

OK… back now.

I make our Sunday After Thanksgiving Dinner modeled after my Mom’s recipes. Well, kinda. Her stuffing was simply the very best on the planet, and I’ve managed to make a pretty good rendition of her recipe that never existed; as far as I know. I used to watch her make stuffing, stale bread chopped up and mixed with milk, eggs, parsley flakes, celery, onions, and salt and pepper. She never used a recipe, but would toil over the mix and add this or that to the huge bowl to make the smell and consistency the way she wanted. Some was for the cavity of the turkey, some was for “stuffin’ muffins;” where she’d spoon in big dollops of stuffing into paper muffin cups all arranged in the muffin pans. Not only did these serve to fend off us hungry kids, the stuffing was always immensely delicious.

Anyway, there will be stuffin’ muffins, mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli, squash, and of course the turkey. Pies are made ahead of time, and I make the punkin pie with grey hubbard squash instead of pumpkin because the flavor is so much more wonderful. And of course it will be served with homemade whipped cream. Pie making happened after the sun went down, which is happening all too quickly these days.

During the day I enjoyed the company of a wheelbarrow and a wood pile. I’ll probably be a wood slave for the rest of my adult life, or at least as long as I’m able to do it. Saves us money; gives me exercise, and the warmth that burning logs gives your bones is much more wonderful than natural gas or propane. Often I can’t help but think of the old adage, “how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” And very quickly afterward I smile as I recall hearing my sister’s answer from when she was very young: “woodchuck woodchuck woody woody woodchuck, woodchuck would chuck wood.”

Sounds good to me… and being a “woodchuck” makes much more sense to me than any of that Black Friday nonsense.

I wonder if our pets love turkey as much as we do…

Seems very early to me, but according to the Giant Electronic Media Universe (GEMU), the Holiday Season has begun, and Christmas is just around the corner. And you know what that means, right? YES!! The GEMU wants you to spend money! Well, I have something I’d like to vonkulate that I believe is much more important than money. It’s a Holiday Letter For You, Whom I May Not Know But Love Anyway (even if maybe I don’t like you).  So without further ado, here is my first (but probably not the last) Holiday Hello To All Who Care To Receive It:

Hello Jingle Hair,

If you are reading this letter, please remember the following 3 reasons why I think that you, personally, the reader of this is just plain wonderful:

1) You are a special person.

R) You never called me on the phone to shame me after I sold all my compost to the Jelly Consortium, and

6) You have never put a swordfish in my car.

Therefore, I must urge you to receive the following heartfelt Season’s Greeting.  If you don’t enjoy and have a Happy Merry and Joyful Wonderful, I will squash. I’m telling you now and you can believe me later, you must have a nice Holiday and be with those who love you. Offer them soda and nice candy. Or celery with a nice fried radish gravy. Maybe you could go the extra mile and provide a plate on which to put the soda gravy and the fried radish candy. Whatever you end up doing, smile gently and belch often. This is the mark of a happy person.

Enjoy Christmas. Even if you are a Buddhist or like to sing about Harry Kirschner in the airport, please have a wonderful Christmas Time. That’s because Christmas is a time of great joy, regardless of who your Holy Mackerel is. I mean really, Santa has become pretty much nondenominational when you think about it. Please remember, though, that Christmas should be celebrated each and every day of your living life of being alive. That is my professional opinion. We must be nice to everyone we meet, especially kakaheads. Kakaheads are sad inside. Some of them are sad on the outside also, and may even have a bad odor. Love them anyway. The Big Holy Remarkable makes no junk. If you don’t believe me, well too darn bad.

Try to put resentments and grudges in the garbage before they begin to cause soul rot. Yes, that’s right, stuff those grudges in the trash, walk away, and don’t go digging them back out of there. Some folks think it’s a good idea to hold grudges. Some go as far as to hold a grudge for years even!! Well, as its name implies, a grudge is truly an unpleasant thing. I mean, its name doesn’t even sound pleasant, now does it?? “Grudge.” I just said it out loud for a test. Sounds like some one is having difficulty while sitting on the potty or something. “Grudge. Oooommppfff. Grrruuuddgge.” Yup, that’s just plain gross.

Took me a while to learn, but I no longer can hold a grudge for very long. Holding anything for even a few hours makes your hands sweaty at the very least. Sweaty things can be kind of disgusting after a while, so if you must hold a grudge for any length of time, please try to pause to wash it occasionally. You might find that after washing your grudges, they become so clean they won’t be very grudgey anymore. Then maybe you can let go of them. Put them down. Let them outside. Suggest maybe they play in traffic. Set them free, ya know???

I hear some folks say, “yesterday of several years ago, I was wronged and had much anguish.  Now I am sad that yesterday was so bad.  Everyone must hear me on this matter and pay attention to my misfortune.”  To these folks I say to you all now: yesterday has already oozed through the colander of life. You cannot rebuild it. The dirt fell off the yesterday wagon many flingles ago, and nothing anyone can do will bring yesterday back. Forgive those who wronged you and move along, lest you lose your place in the dessert line of happiness.

Some other folks say, “oh Holy Wah, tomorrow is gonna be horrible.  I just can’t imagine how horrible it will be.  I am pretty sure that since yesterday was gocky, tomorrow will be at least as bad, maybe even worse.  It could maybe be better but I sure doubt it.”  Well, I have never been able to smell anything from tomorrow yet, but God knows I’ve tried. When I was much younger than I am today, I was told that during a camping trip I sat up in my sleeping bag in the wee hours of the night and happily announced, “good morning everybody, it’s tomorrow now!!” Upon uttering this, I’m told, I snuggled back into my sleeping bag and zonked until the sun woke us all up. I had no recollection of this event. So even though I thought I smelled tomorrow, it was a dream. I think. One thing I’m sure of: tomorrow is not a given. No one can be absolutely sure it will come. We sure hope it will, but we can’t prove that it will be there. That being said, there’s no way in fooja-looga we can tell what’s gonna happen on the day after today.

So the point is this: today is a gift. That’s why it’s called “The Present.” Isn’t that nice and wizzly?? We get a new present each and every day. Very cool, because no matter how much money we have or don’t have, we still get at least one present every day. We can learn from the past, but we can’t change it. We all hope tomorrow comes, but that’s not a for-sure type thing. So, today is what matters. What we do with any given moment can change the past for the better, one moment at a time. We would all do well if we tried to fill each moment available to us with love. Sure, we are human and will fall short of such a lofty ideal, but it doesn’t hurt to try. Progress, not perfection, ya know? Unfortunately though, I’ve noticed that some people say that they care about folks, but go out of their way to stir up trouble. Sometimes they respond with love for awhile and then go back to the same-old same-old. Too bad for them. They are the lonely ones. We must pray for them, and help them if possible.

Then again, some of the lonely ones want nothing to do with changing their sadness. Then I am reminded of the words of Duane, the great philosopher (well OK, he’s a friend), who once told me: “Do not try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.” So what in the world does all this spewing and Duane the philosophering have to do with a Holiday Season Remarkable Hello?? Well, ok, I’ll stop with the floofing and bonkling. Just please go forth and be happy, jingly and cronkulous. Please don’t make your holiday crapulent, however. Too much crapulence is a very crapulent thing. And remember that it’s always better to be you than for you to be me, and that although you can number things 1 through 8, eight is actually a word. You can pick unripe radishes and they will still be red. Squid don’t require drivers licenses. Grapefruit are not really grape fruit. Well, ok, they’re fruit, but if they made grapes that tasted like the citrus stuff, well wine would be much different now wouldn’t it??

Have a great Holiday World. I’m going to sleep in a lot. That will be nice.

Jingle dee dee,

Ken

a.k.a. Monkey Head Jones

Maybe during one of my Holiday Naps I’ll venture off to Dreamland…

They dwell among us.

The undead.

They’re evil, wicked, mean and nasty.

KIDS!!!! AAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!

All the little monsters are getting ready for the Great Sugar Rush to fill their headbones with sucrose and chocolaty mish mash moosh until they vow never to eat any more Mary Janes, Neccos, or Snickers. You can already catch the scent of candy in the plastic pumpkins. Wonderful sugar pushers are already bringing in the deadly stuff to the workplace. Horrible things like candy corn, miniature chocolate bars, malt balls, and even Neapolitan cookies!! Yeah, you know, those wafer things that come in vanilla, chocolate and strawberry flavors.

Well, those people are all conspiring against me. They share a common goal: to cause me to binge on sweets so my britches will pop, my eyes will roll to the back of my head, and I’ll fall down in a nice pile of leaves with a big sugar-eating grin on my face. I have only one thing to say to all you sugar monkeys: I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH. COME LIVE WITH ME.

Ooops!! I said two things. That’s ok, I don’t mind. Two things are better than one. May I have another malt ball please?? Thank you. Now my teeth are brown with delight, and I shall never pressure wash them again.

Hallowe’en is a most magical time of the year, darn it. Young monsters roaming the streets, and gathering all those yummy remarkables. These days we take the grandkids trick or treating. Our own kids of course are older now, and I confess I miss the very important chore we had to bear as parents each Hallowe’en: to check the loot when they get home. Conversation during such safety checks went much like this:

“This Mr. Goodbar looks like it’s been tampered with. Guess I better taste it to make sure.”

“DAAaad!! How come it’s only the Mr. Goodbars that are defective?? That’s the thirteenth one you ‘tested’ so far.”

“Well, ok, they’re probably alright. Oooo!! Snickers! That one looks a little… yep! There’s a tiny hole right here! Gotta open it up…”

“Gimme that back!! MOM! Dad’s eating all my candy!!”

“SSSsshhh!! OK, OK!! Here!!”

Of course, as monster kids grow up, Hallowe’en activities change. One thing has remained the same though: we’re privileged to have them over to carve pumpkins. Nowadays that includes the grandkids, which of course is way cool. The traditional photo session at the end of all the carving artistry involves one picture with the lights on, and one with the lights off; while the flickering candle light of the jack o’ lanterns lights up our faces.

Before the kids were grown, past Hallowe’ens came with the traditional parental warnings: don’t harm anything. No eggs. No mayonnaise. Nasty stains with that stuff. No breaking things. Soap, shaving cream, now there’s some party favors! Our son once mentioned maybe plastic wrap might be nice.

“What, no toilet paper?? Anyhow, what the heck do you do with the plastic wrap?”

“Wrap up someone’s mailbox! Hee hee!!”

“Ummm, yeah, ok man, whatever you say.”

Sounded like fun to be honest…

After digging into my own childhood memory box I recalled when some friends of mine wrapped this guy’s motorcycle in MANY layers of hiney wipe. Poor dude parked his bike inside a gas station, where one of the pranksters worked. Right across the street from the grocery store. Talk about your supply and demand! So I was kinda keen on Nate doing a big TP job, because I never had the guts to do that when I was a kid. I was scared to death of my dad in those days; and I didn’t want the skin removed from my posterior.

At our house, we pretty much allowed harmless pranks. A well done toilet paper job is pretty cool, actually. Until it rains. Got a bit concerned once when our daughter informed us about some interesting plans, though.

“Where you goin’ tonight, Punkin?”

“We’re goin’ go to Ryan’s house and fork them!”

“SAY WHAT??!!”

“You know, you buy a few boxes of plastic forks and stick them all in the lawn!”

OK so that sounded like fun to me too! Can you imagine the parents waking up in the morning??

“Wake up, dear!!”

“Why, what’s wrong??”

“We’ve been forked!”

“O God, NO!!”

Hey, there’s lots worse these monsters can get into. We tried not to suppress their creativity, so long as it was harmless fun. In other words, we stayed involved enough in their lives to know what they were doing.

Anyhow, since they’re older now, trick-or-treating is slowly setting sail on the ship to Memory Island. But you know what? Sometimes I miss all those free “possibly defective” chocolate bars the kids used to bring home by the bushel. However, we have been known to mooch a little from the grandkids. We don’t do “safety checks” anymore, that’s Mom and Dad’s job.

I know, maybe I’ll dress up like a coffee table or something and go myself!! On the other hand, maybe I could go shopping!! Let’s see there’s all this candy; but wait… plastic forks, shaving cream, toilet paper, plastic wrap… Plastic wrap?? Yeah, why not??!!

Happy Hallowe’en, all you Flavorheads!! By the way, that Mr. Goodbar looks like it’s been tampered with a bit…

Well if you’ve ever visited this silly site before, you know I love old cartoons.  In keeping with the spirit of the season, here are a couple of my favorites.

So there I was, minding my own business, wondering what I should write about for this week’s Happy Friday!!! thing, when a Facebook Friend posted a funny: “Friday the 13th – remember – it’s bad luck to be superstitious!” so I said “thank you” because I was wondering what to write about tonight and now I know so there!

Just for the halibut, I used The Google Thing (TGT) to find out how often Friday the 13th happens. Well that took me to The Wikipedia Thing (TWT), which says “On average, there is a Friday the 13th once every 212.35 days, whereas Thursday the 13th occurs only once every 213.59 days.” We get one at least once a year, but it can happen as many as 3 times in a year.

Isn’t that special?

There was a period of my life when I was convinced Friday the 13th came much more often. You know that old saying: “if it wasn’t for bad luck I wouldn’t have any luck at all.” I’m hoping that doesn’t apply to me. Back in “The Before Times” I was certain my luck really stunk; but I gradually discovered that all the “bad luck” was really a set of consequences that I inflicted upon myself due to some rather poor choices.

Nowadays I consider myself extremely fortunate. Of course, I’m trying to make better decisions. It has been especially helpful to shed my youthful follies that involved too many intoxicants; my affinity for which helped me rationalize all too many actions that were very unacceptable and too often very unkind. I don’t think I really left adolescence until I was 35 years old. After much pain and suffering (again, self inflicted) I actually got to a point where I wanted to grow up. I’m still trying to learn better behaviors… to stay teachable. I try to be kind to everyone I meet, and I’m getting better at being kind to myself.

Although I didn’t really expect it, I guess this Friday the 13th got me thinking about all this stuff. As I said, I really am very fortunate. I can very much agree with what a friend of mine often says: “90 percent of the world would love to have the problems I have.”

Well my friends, it’s very late outside so I’m gonna make this one short and sweet. The grandkids are here, and as I’m plunking on the keyboard they are zonked out after watching very old (and very cool) cartoons until a very late hour. Therefore, I’m gonna plop some videos of a couple songs that have helped me “get better luck” over the years. They help me remember that it’s never too late to start all over again.

Even if I have to do it multiple times a day.

Not sure if I’ve ever mentioned this, but I married the Most Beautiful Woman In The Universe. She can’t help being lovely, it just comes natural to her. I really am truly grateful every day that not only is she beautiful, but she’s my best friend, and also I get to kiss her and snuggle and stuff like that there. That being said, even her Amazing Loveliness sometimes cannot prepare us for a horrific reality of life: BIG CHORES. We really don’t like big chores, especially when neither of us have had any experience with said chore. One case in particular began today after much anticipation and weather watching.

Earlier this year we decided we should stain our deck. A good idea, it’s made of wood and is 11 years old already. Until today it has never been stained. My Beautiful Girlfriend (the lovely lady who let me marry her 44 years ago) hired a nice man to come blast the deck clean with pressure washers and bleachy chemicals. He did a great job and made the wood look very clean indeed.

I bought the stain a few months ago, and after some delay with the deck cleaning job (the nice man had a scheduling whoopsie and showed up a couple months late); it was time to plan for deck staining time. This of course was completely dependent on the weather: in the event of rain you have to allow the wood to dry for a few days. Needless to say, it rained just often enough to annoy us greatly.

Here we are now on Labor Day weekend. I normally take a couple days vacation in conjunction with a long weekend so I can get lots of time off. And I figured if push came to shove I could spend my vacation staining the deck with the help of my Very Attractive Wife Lady. That fun began today.

Remember how I said earlier that neither of us really like BIG CHORES, especially ones with which we’ve had no experience? Well, not sure about anyone else, but we both got a little grouchy. She started off very grouchy, then apologized. Then it was my turn to be a stinker-butt, and I apologized. Then both of us decided that the stinker-grouchy-butt routine was not very helpful, and we managed to just get things done without trying to remove each others’ vital organs.

A friend of ours told my Sweet And Amazing Honey Pie that this deck staining job thing would only take 3 hours. Apparently our friend forgot to use the time multiplier during her ciphering… 3 hours was chewed up in nothing flat and we have several more hours to go.

Upon seeing the result, we were pretty pleased with ourselves; in spite of the mess we made. Some decorative rocks now have speckles. In the flower bed that trails around the outside of the deck is a little concrete kitty that is “sleeping.” It’s beginning to look more like a calico. We’re taking a break because the sun went ni-night; and besides, every joint and muscle in our bodies is crying for mercy. More fun tomorrow when we hope to finish it all off.

Both of us groaned that we woulda-shoulda-coulda hired all this out; but reality quickly slapped us in the nostrils because that would be rather expensive. Call us selfish, but we’re getting closer to retirement and are trying to make decisions that save us some cash. After all, as my Voluptuous Va-Va-Va-Voom Best Friend Person said, this deck staining business “is not rocket science.” Good thing it isn’t; not sure our home would survive the explosions. Hey, we made pretty on the deck, and our marriage actually survived!! Truly miraculous.

Please, no more BIG CHORES for this year.

Please.

Could have been worse, we could have chosen to build a boat…

So there I was, minding my own business, harvesting the ripe tomatoes before the rain came. And we actually got a REAL rain for a change!! Almost an inch at our house. While other parts of Michigan have been getting some pretty good moisture over the summer, here in our little corner of Beautiful West Michigan it’s been pretty doggone dry. Because of that, if you don’t pick your ripe or nearly ripe tomatoes before it rains, the extra water makes them split open.

So there I was, minding my own business (oh wait, I said that…), and as I was picking the corn, I mean the TOMATOES, I noticed that two of the corn stalks were bent over in a most unnatural way. It only took a few milliseconds for me to know exactly what this was all about… the partially chewed ear of popcorn lying there, crying silently with little chompy marks all over its outer skin places… oh yes, I’ve seen this before, it makes me crazy and sad inside because I don’t plant very much popcorn and now this (or these?) stinkin’ THIEVES are making me so arooo and bipple-dee-bip that I can’t even snibble my fardaklob without flortening even more bold italic words to show how COMPLETELY ANNOYED I AM AT THOSE MASKED MONKEES GETTING INTO MY POPCORN WITHOUT ANY INVITATION OR EVEN A SLIGHT HINT THAT THEY MAY BE WELCOME and that’s quite enough superfluous emphasis for one run-on sentence; thank you very much.

Raccoons. Just like last year. Unlike last year, I may have some reprieve. I put out a live trap last night and this morning there was a corn thief, trapped in Corn Thief Jail. Ha ha on you, you stinkin’ cute little monkey headed brinklebork!! The cat food was excellent bait for your corn thievin’ nostrils!! I really hope you were the “Lone Ranger” in this popcorn raid. Just in case though, I put the trap out again with the hopes of catching other members of your family; if they are near.

A friend of mine has chickens… and he has trapped some thieving raccoons and a couple possums I guess. They are all in heaven now; he accelerated each of their journeys with a .22 calibre shell. Sorry, but I don’t have it in me to kill these thieves. I guess you’re supposed to get a permit to either kill or otherwise remove vermin from your property; but from what I’ve heard not many folks worry about such things. No, I think what happens at my house is they crawl into some kind of wire box and somehow mysteriously disappear. During this magical event, they venture off to an unknown raccoon friendly environment that’s about 10 miles and 2 rivers away from my yard. I’ve never actually trapped one you see. It was a dream. Don’t read the previous paragraph. Oh, you read it already?? Well fine. I’ll deny every word of it.  Besides, you have to catch me…

The most effective method to stop the garden raids is of course prevention. I’ve talked about an electric fence for a couple years now. This was the year it was supposed to happen… but as is often the case I forgot to quit procrastinating. Now the corn is well on its way to maturity. Although I dashed off to the Farm and Home store last night and went nuts buying electric fence surprise supplies, I’m embarking on a learn-as-I-go journey to put a row of ouchy-wawa wire (that’s technical talk for HOLY MACKEREL THAT’S A BIG SHOCKEROONY) on top of my existing 5 foot high wire fence. I think I have a nice design; so wish me luck.

My grandiose plan for all things like this is to quit procrastinating either tomorrow or the day after that. No need to rush into things you know. Everything falls into place, especially change out of your pockets when you sit on the couch. Did you ever look under the driver’s seat in your car?? There’s treasure under there I tell you!! This is all from things falling into place. OK, maybe I’ll actually have to work to finish the electric fence surprise. That will take some effort.

Maybe tomorrow…

Today’s video has nothing to do with corn theft; rather it is a rendition of one of my favorite Beatle songs. Not sure if my little corn thief’s name was Rocky… might have been a girl. But then a friend of ours named Richelle actually is known to us as Rocky.

I’m guessing many of you have heard The Beatles version of Rocky Raccoon.  If not, you can find it on the YouTubeThing.  I knew there would be no Beatles video of it; but I rather like Richie Havens’ version of Rocky Raccoon.

Once upon a time, in a brand new16 year old car, the air conditioning died and the Spoiled Americans who owned the car were very dismayed (especially the American Wife). Because the Spoiled American Husband really enjoyed staying happily married, after many hot summer days (and an upcoming family reunion on the east side of the state) he finally got off his hiney and got the brand new, 2001 Chrysler Town and Country to the Air Conditioning Fixing Guy.

The day of Air Conditioning Fixing came, and the Air Conditioning Fixing Guy called and spoke in very technical jargon: “I can’t fix your air conditioning unless your cooling fan works. Your cooling fan doesn’t work.” Well this sounded a bit fishy to the Spoiled American Husband. But being the (relatively) obedient person he is, he took the brand new 16 year old car to the Normal Car Fixing Guys (who don’t do air conditioning) and said, “the Air Conditioning Fixing Guy says he can’t fix the air conditioning because the cooling fan doesn’t work. Seems to me it’s OK, but would you please check for me?”

The Normal Car Fixing Guy called back: “there’s nothing wrong with your cooling fan. I kinda got into an argument with the Air Conditioning Fixing Guy when I called him, but I’m sure your cooling fan is OK.” So by now you all have probably guessed maybe that I am the Spoiled American Husband Guy so I will save my word count and herewith refer to myself in the first person. That is, of course, unless a second or third person comes to visit and claims to be me, in which case I’ll probably not be able to finish the story for many more minutes.

Anyway.

So I call the ACFG (Air Conditioning Fixing Guy) and say, “well I had my cooling fan checked, it’s OK. But you know, you serviced the air conditioning and replaced the compressor about a year ago, and now it is already broken. For why this is so quickly dead? Is there no warranty on the compressor?” There was some silence on the other end, and the ACFG basically gave the telephone equivalent of a shoulder shrug: “uhh… no… it’s been a year… ummm… no; no warranty.” I paused, and said, “well OK, when can you take another look?” “I’m booked till Monday,” he said. So I told him I would consult with my Beautiful American Wife Person regarding scheduling and get back with him.

Now I am knowing it’s time to do the Google search for a nice, shiny, New Air Conditioning Fixing Guy. I am also getting weary to the point of not with good grammar typing or word usage correct. And also even not caring about it really too!! So I look at the reviews and found that a neighbor of mine was indeed pleased with the service at the New Air Conditioning Fixing Place I found. Atsa nice. OK. So I go there and they check and find a bad compressor. I am now tell them “yes I know, the other Air Conditioning Fixing Guy replaced it about a year ago.” “Didn’t he give you a warranty??” “No,” I said with some harrumphing. “Well,” the Nice Office Lady says, “we give a warranty on all our repairs: 3 years or 36,000 miles.” “I like that warranty a lot,” I retorted. I schedule the repair, we drop the car off Sunday night for the Monday working time, and wonder how, oh HOW CAN WE SURVIVE WITH JUST ONE CAR??? OH GOD OH GOD!!!

Monday comes. More waiting. No call. Here comes the late afternoon. Oy yoy yoy…

Finally the New Air Conditioning Fixing Guy calls me and says, “your compressor is bad. Do you know you need to replace the expansion valve and the dryer unit? Ya, if you don’t do that the compressor won’t last very long.” “Pretty sure the other ACFG didn’t do that,” I replied with a sigh. “No worries, we’ll get you fixed up!!” said the NACFG (New ACFG). “When can you do that?” I asked. “Looks like Wednesday is open.” “OK thanks,” I said obediently. We drop off the car again. Again we are cry of our now having only one car, Oh God OH GOD.

Wednesday is almost gone now. Oh God. They call again… “there’s a part we can’t get till tomorrow morning.” I try hard to conceal my sadness. “OK… will it for sure be done tomorrow?” “Yes, no problem,” the Nice Office Lady replied.

Thursday. Tick tock, tick tock… afternoon arrives. Late afternoon.

Yay, I cheer with Great Impatience Now!!  (I cheer with sadness and worrisome sarcasm.)

The Nice Office Lady finally calls and tells me that the bill will be about $818. Well by now I am rolling in gooey, sticky happy sauce, because the first “fix it” job cost a bit over $600 about a year ago. No warranty. Now I get to enjoy a Brand New Bill from the NACFG for $818. Is that cool or what?? And this amount was prefaced with the following, when the Nice Office Lady at the NACFG place told me, “well, your air conditioning works great on the passenger side; but not so good on the driver’s side.” “I can live with that I think, my Beautiful Wife Person is the one who really needs the air conditioning to work.  But wait,” I hesitated, “can you fix the driver’s side? How much would that run?” She commenced to ciphering, and the new bill was looking like it was gonna exceed $1000.

For air conditioning.

In a 16 year old car.

No.

Uh uh.

Stop.

Please.

“OK,” they said. And when I came in to get the car, the Nice Office Lady went over the details of the VERY NICE WARRANTY (seriously, it was very nice) with me. I thanked them all with great exultation, and on the way home I fiddled intently with the temperature controls and I think… maybe… PERHAPS I may have noticed an improvement of air conditioning on the driver’s side.

Maybe.

I dunno.

So, the moral of the story is: we are spoiled rotten. The brand new, 2001 Chrysler Town And Country will now be cooler inside than it is outside when the summer heat returns. Otherwise, it’s in pretty good shape; comfortable to ride in; and runs great. Nice radio… it even gets AM!! I really love AM radio (but that’s another story). And it’s paid for… no car payments at our house.

Spoiled Americans. That’s what we are.

I think next time I go for the deliciously expensive car repair, I will help them to cipher the bill like Mr. Lou Costello did with his landlord…

Once upon a time, like this evening, I thought it would be really cool to replace the belts on the mower deck of our brand new 2002 Cub Cadet lawn tractor. Seemed simple enough… “Oh and while I’m at it I might as well change the oil,” I said to myself. Another seemingly simple task.

Well, a mechanic I’m not; and in the realm of garden tractors I’m thinking I have the know-how of a choo choo truck with no interior antibodies. Huh?? Let’s put it this way: I seem to have an affinity for learning things the hard way when it comes to anything with an internal combustion engine.

OK, I’m shaming myself. As you may have guessed by now, things didn’t turn out quite like I planned. I got the mower belts changed without too much difficulty; although it was a whole lot easier getting the deck off the tractor than it was to put it back on. Then for the oil. I looked here and there, and found no evidence of where the oil drain might be. “Oh wait,” I thought, “there’s a thingy with a cap off of it that might be a drainer doodad. Looks like the cap’s been off for a loooong time…

So being the thoroughly modern ignoramus I am, I got on the interwebs and found that the thingy with the cap off was indeed the drainer doodad (please forgive my technical jargon). I tried to follow the instructions: push in slightly and turn counterclockwise to drain the oil.

Well because the drainer doodad was totally gunkified, I couldn’t push in, so I turned counterclockwise and the whole darn thing came off. Now the oil is draining into the tub I have waiting below. Cool, so far. I thought. Then… OH PEEGLESNURGE!! IT’S RUNNING ALL OVER THE POWER TAKE OFF!! I made quick with the rags, but to no avail. Big mess. I did get the gunk out of the drainer doodad so I can use the thingy with the cap next time. But this was this time, and I tried to clean up everything the best I could.

OK… after much weeping and gnashing of teeth, but without throwing any tools or biting my wife’s head off, although I did ask her to quit asking me questions, like “will it start now? Did you get it? Is it going to run?” because after she asked me several of these I would run around the house screaming and crying because of the mess I made and I’m feeling pretty dumb and I didn’t want to make my Beautiful Honey Pie sad by barking at her when she was just wondering how things were coming but holy gazzamoopa I was getting really frustrated and I finally, FINALLY after much finger ouch and crawly grunty times I got it all back together and now it’s time to try the mower and wow by golly it works great but something’s wrong besides this run-on sentence you see because the tractor ain’t cruising so good so WHAT THE HECK IS THE DEAL NOW??

“Oh poop,” I recalled, “I must have oiled the pulleys.”

So now the belt thingy that runs the hydrostatic transmission whatchamahinger is oiled nicely; which of course means it ain’t gonna have much power because it be a-slippin’ all the stinkin’ time. Is that cool or what?? NO!! THAT IS NOT COOL!! So what did I do? I did what any almost-a-mechanic-guy would do: I got out my floor jack and jacked up the hiney of the tractor so I could see what the deal was and A) yes there was oil where it shouldn’t be and 34) the belt should probably have been replaced many moons ago which I think needs to happen at the dealer. Otherwise, I’m a gonna need me a tractor tutor.

I could have avoided all this cockamamie flerping around by not trying to do stuff for which I’m not really well trained. The folks at the Cub Cadet service house would have made some grocery money from me and my tractor would actually do what it’s supposed to do. As it stands now, we should be able to mow… works OK on a flat surface. Gets a little wimpy trying to go up hill though… The old Cub Cadet needs to go to the doctor soon. A real doctor that is… And of course, you probably know what I told my Most Wonderfully Attractive Wife person after all this, right??

“I want ice cream.”

Guess I could take it to these guys…