Grand Slam Communication
Nothing says IDGAF like a grocery clerk with an attitude.
Who manhandles all of my items.
And processes the entire order one handed.
While rage sighing throughout the entire transaction.
I know he’s tired.
It’s been a long ordeal here in Texas.
But come on, seriously?
That was the weirdest week of my life.
Now I know how the Donner Party felt.
If it had gone on any longer, I might have turned into Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
At one point, three days in, with no power and no water and freaking frigid temperatures, the electricity finally came back on.
I was like a kid at Christmas!
I bustled about, tidying up, anticipating the house heating up.
I was especially waiting for the water heater.
Oh, how I wanted hot water.
And then….
And then the power went out again.
I could have wept for my lost shower opportunity.
I zipped my parka back up and plopped back under all of my blankets.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And…finally…the power came back on!
This time I was more cautious.
It might not last.
After an hour, I thought that maybe the electricity was here to stay.
Should I take a shower?
By this time it was late at night.
If we lost power again, I would be stranded in the pitch dark.
In single-digit temperatures.
Should I risk it?
We’re still on boil-water orders.
What if the water isn’t clean?
Oh, but what the heck.
I’ve waited long enough.
I brought a flashlight just in case.
It was the most glorious shower I have ever had in my life.
If I had gotten violently ill from dirty water, it still would have been worth it.
But I didn’t get sick.
If I never see snow again, it will be too soon.
I decided to put on my snow gear and take a walk in the zero-degree Texas snowstorm.
On top of many layers of clothing, I put on my Polaris snow boots.
I put on my Lands End subzero jacket.
I put on a cap, a neck gator, a scarf and ski gloves.
I was actually pretty warm.
Except for my eyeballs.
My eyeballs were the only part of me exposed.
And they were so cold they hurt.
The news says that the conditions are blizzard like.
But I’m not so sure about that.
Yeah, it was windy.
And cold.
And the snow was coming down furiously.
But there was plenty of visibility.
I’ll admit that this California girl doesn’t know much about blizzards.
But I did read Little House on the Prairie when I was a kid.
They would worry about Pa finding his way from the house to the barn and back again.
Pa would not lose his way today.
He might get frostbite.
But he could easily find his way through this snow.
Blizzard – ha!
Our next door neighbor has a little girl scout.
Last night at about 9:00, I was craving some cookies.
Bob texted the neighbor.
“You up? Got any cookies?”
The kid was in bed, but the dad came over.
He gave us our stuff.
We gave him some cash.
It felt like a drug deal.
It’s all good.
UPDATE – The knife has not been located.
However, the Grown Son informed me that if he were going to stab me, he wouldn’t use a knife.
The evidence would melt.
He couldn’t be convicted.
I should probably be terrified.
But I’m actually kind of impressed.
I need a “proud parent of an evil genius” bumper sticker.
I am missing a sharp kitchen knife.
I asked the Grown Sons if either of them had it in their room.
They were both offended at the question.
Their rooms are where coffee cups, cereal bowls and silverware go to die.
Wet towels migrate into their man caves to propagate mold.
They have been known to pilfer scissors, nail clippers, phone chargers and mechanical pencils.
And break every single one of them.
So yeah, I asked the question.
Each of them pointed the finger at his brother.
Now I’m a bit paranoid.
It was only a small utility knife.
I don’t suppose they’re planning to stab me in my sleep.
Although they could perhaps carry out a good scratching.
Cue the Psycho knife stabbing music…
The TV in our living room has three remotes.
I can never figure the darn thing out.
Now we have a new speaker.
And an additional remote to go with it.
Bob explained, again, which of the identical remotes controls which device and which order I need to press which buttons to watch different programs.
Whatever.
I didn’t want to watch anything anyway.
I don’t like the snooze button.
The few times I tried it, I was crippled with anxiety, waiting for the alarm to startle me again.
How in the world can someone go back to sleep under those conditions?
Apparently my kid can.
His bedroom is right next to my home office, and every morning (or afternoon, depending on his schedule) the snooze button goes off every nine minutes for what seems like hours.
He denies it.
But he’s asleep, so who are you going to believe?
This morning his alarm started going off at 7:00 am.
It continued every nine minutes.
At 8:00 I needed to go out, but his car was blocking mine.
Since he’d been trying to get up for an hour anyway, I woke him up to move his car.
He was angry that I woke him up so early.
Whatever…
A question recently posed at Toastmasters was, “What is your talent?”
My talent is to destroy DIY home improvement projects.
I have been banned from ever touching any of my husband’s tools.
It all started many years ago.
There was a sketchy incident with one of the power tools.
It was big.
I am small.
I had to be rescued from a disastrous runaway belt sander.
My darling husband has never let me forget it.
Sometimes he’ll ask me to help him with something simple.
“It’s easy,” he’ll say, “Just help me carry this thing into the other room.”
That thing is always very heavy.
I can never hold up my end properly.
And I inevitably bump into the very things he told me to watch out for, creating a secondary DIY project with scratches, dents and gouges.
Last week I assembled a small bookcase.
I followed the instructions.
But when I got to the last piece, I couldn’t make it work.
The Grown Son stepped in to help.
Apparently the last piece wouldn’t work because I had assembled the whole thing backwards.
He took it apart and put it back together the right way.
Yep, my talent continues to shine.
It’s that time of the year.
It’s time for our annual insurance renewal fiasco.
It happens every year.
The pharmacy wouldn’t release the prescription.
The birthdate was incorrect.
Excuse me?
We all have the same birthdates we have always had.
Nothing has changed in that department.
They told me to call the insurance company to straighten it out.
This entailed an entire afternoon of phone calls and lengthy holds.
It eventually got resolved in my favor.
I knew it would.
I received an updated text from the pharmacy that my order was ready.
Back I went.
Where the clerk told me they couldn’t release my order.
The birthdate was incorrect.
I took a deep breath.
A very deep breath.
I was about to go full Karen on him.
But then he looked through the computer records and saw that the issue had been resolved.
I got the prescription.
As soon as I got home, the kid remembered an additional thing that he needs from the pharmacy.
I need a drink.