Tag Archive for: Classic

This happened a while ago.

A ROUGH WEEK!

Here is an illustration of how a week that starts to go downhill can quickly pick up speed as it rolls rolls rolls down down down – to the point where you have to address the situation(s) that is(are) happening as being oddly humorous – if even just because you can’t really believe that the world is serious about what is going on. . .

This specific series of events started when I burst out of my house fretting about being on the cusp of “about to be” being (and being and being) late to a meeting that had taken me months to arrange. Immediately I was stuck by the distinct brokenness of the windshield of my car – which was a state that it hadn’t been in when I had gone to sleep the night before.

I yelped a little curse and sped towards getting severely lost for my meeting somewhere in the wilds near the Alabama border – when I go the bright idea to call up my lizard endorsed insurance company to ask what I should do about the ever (ever) growing crack on the big piece of glass in front of me. Their first suggestion was to pay the $500 (five-hundred dollar) deductible – which didn’t sound very fun to me. The next was to contact the glass company directly and see what they said.

Well – I got in touch with the glass company – where I got stuck knee deep in an odd conversation about poetry and the cosmic nature of cosmic things that are cosmological in nature. All the while, I was getting more and more crazy twisted lost and later and later to my meeting. It was a strange time to be driving around – but I scheduled the windshield to get repaired the next day – in my driveway – for only $200 (two-hundred dollar bills) and all seemed better in the world. I even (eventually) got to my meeting.

The next day rolled around and the nice guy came and fixed my windshield (in my driveway) – it was great – the world was great. The world continued it’s upswing when I found a super cheap new XM Satellite Radio for the car. I tend to drive as much as a trucker up and down the east coast (or the E.C. as we call it in the driving trade – because abbreviations are quicker to say) – and the XM has become my favorite crutch to lean on as I drive. So I bought the new unit and properly installed all of the wires running along the (new) windshield and the antenna coming out of the trunk and everything. Things were really on the up and up and up and up – I’d say.

We are officially at the middle (the high point) of the movie (the bad movie) where everything starts to zip downward style.

Now (and we are still in day number two here – the same day that the windshield was installed and the XM was bought/installed) I had another meeting in the afternoon. So I got into my awesome car and went went went to it. But not – of course – before I had to go to the tire place around the corner to get the sadly flattened tire happily unflattened. On the way home was where the next batch fun happened (it was becoming an all I could eat buffet of fun). It started raining – the kind of crazy rain where you can barely drive – and so I did what you are kind of supposed to do . . . I turned on the wipers. Nothing happened. On the highway – in the pouring rain – into the “emergency lane” I went. Out of the car – fiddle-faddle with the wiper – and then POP! The windshield cracked again . . . the wipers were too tight – or the glass was too lame – or something.

Luckily – the company came out the next day to repair the (put in a new) windshield. Everything seemed to be looking up . . . Until I got into the car later – to find that the newly installed antennae wire had been cut during the windshield re-installation process . . . the windshield and the tire were doing well . . . the XM was dead . . . my head started hurting.

I took the XM back (sneakily putting my old – also broken – but not in any detectable way – antennae into the box) – to get a different one. Evidently – I got the last one. There were no replacements.

It had been three days of 2 (two) broken windshields, a flat tire and a bought/installed/broken/returned radio thingy. It all made me sleepy, so I went home and took a nap. That usually makes the world a slightly better place.

Slightly . . .

[Old Story #1]

My Meeting With Barry

There was this one day – when I was walking home from working in the yard of all yards. I made a stop at the pill and convenience store on the corner of road and drive – where I picked up a lunch/breakfast/snack of a 20 oz. Mountain Dew and a “Big Grab” of “Spicier Nacho Doritos” – and hold onto your booties kids – because we are just getting started here.

After leaving the store (with my goods in tow) I was approached in most frightful ways by some of the neighborhood dogs – one was a big ol’ and mean ol’ rottweiler (who was without gate). They would do that run up to the edge of their property (like they even pay any sort of rent) all full of bluster and barking and making a show. I would just not even look at them – wouldn’t even give them the pleasure (plus somewhere in my head – a voice told me that as long as I didn’t look in their direction or speed up or eat a chip – then all would be okay).

I was dirt and tired gloom – but as I passed the outer skirts of dog-land – trudge trudge trudge – I knew that there was the possibility of one more test in front of me. So I started to expect another dog (a chow) on the corner. And – I should point out that it has been my experience that sometimes . . . chows like to eat people. If you just look in their odd teddy bear fluff dog eyes. . . you will see what I talking about.

Anyway no dog – so safe – safe home – home.

As I went over the crest of the flat road, I noticed that there was a guy on the other side of the street – about a hundred yards or so away. After a quick mental note was made that there was about to be another human in my vicinity – not another thought came into my head – but more chips did – yum! Then it happened – right when we were across the street from each other:

[B=Barry and M=Me]

B: HEY . . .
M: huh?!
B: Said hey
M: Uhrm – oh – hey
B: What you drinkin’
M: Huh?!
B: What you drinkin’ there?
M: Oh – drinking – uhm . . . just some mountain dew.

**pause**

B: Let me get a sip of that . . .
M: Noooooo
B: Whats that? I’m just like you – and I need something to drink . . .
M: Uhm . . . No I – uhm . . . can’t . . .

And we are still across the street from each other – keep that in mind . . .

B: Whats the matter . . . you sick or something?
M: No – well – ah . . . my – It’s just that my doctor told me that I can’t let people drink after me . . .
B: Whats the matter . . . you sick or something?
M: No – well – ah . . . my – It’s just that my doctor told me that I can’t let people drink after me . . .
B: (Even from across the street kind of looking nervous at this point – just a tiny bit – at least.) You got some disease or something??
M: (Acting kind of ashamed-ish and weird) Noooo – no . . . not any disease – – it’s just this problem – it’s uhrm . . .

**pause**

M: It’s this . . . upper-respiratory thing . . .

After a few ticks on the clock (seconds and stuff)

B: Well can I get fifty cent so that I can get something to drink?
M: Oh – yeah sure – I think that I have (end up pulling seventy-five cents out of my pocket!) – ooh yeah – I have seventy-five.

And then I stand there with the money in my hand – with him still standing across the street . . .

M:Well?! Here it is – come get it . . .

There was no – no – no way that I was going to cart his money all the way to his side of the street . . .

B: Oh – thanks (and then he comes over to my side of the street)
M: So what is your name anyway?!
B: Barry –
M: Well Barry – my name is Nat – and I live over that-a-way – down there a bit. Uhm . . . it was nice to meet you . . . (and then we exchange a kind of weak weak “pound” type of thing)

Then Barry started to walk down the street – (back back) from the way that I came . . .

B: (He turned back towards me – only a few feet away at this point) Hey man . . . you take care of yourself with that . . .
M: ahrm . . . thanks Barry – – thanks a lot. I will.

And then we parted ways. My favorite part of the whole exchange was that at a couple of points – – I managed to throw in some little **cough coughs** – – to I guess push forth the whole “upper-respiratory problem” that I was having . . .

That was the last time that I ever saw Barry. But I can’t help but think that if Id see him again – it might just spoil things (a bit). Fare thee well – friend Barry – and may your upper-respiratory system always find good health!