Today at Target a toddler escaped her mother

and started running up the aisle toward me. I knew the drill. As the kid neared me I stepped in front of her and scooped her up.

Instead of waiting for the mother to show I handed the kid off to this Karen looking woman behind me. Stunned she took the child and asked me what she should do with her.

"Hold her for thirty days," I said. "If nobody claims her she's YOURS!" and I walked off leaving her holding a toddler.

(Yeah the mother showed and collected her child.)

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Sometimes I feel sorry for the parents and sometimes I blame the parents.

depending on the circumstances.

I was going to do a long post on this but decided against it.

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"I want that garage so clean and sanitary the Virgin Mary

would be proud to grab a Homer bucket, put it in the middle of it and sit down on it and take a dump!"

I screamed at the soda blasters that cleaned up my garage during the post fire cleanup in my best Gunnery Sergeant Hartman voice.

There was probably 2 inches of basically baking soda on the floor.

Then I grabbed a shovel and started making piles of it and ranting and raving. "Well, get moving!" I shouted.

Because we were all starting to get punchy we stopped to laugh. I had managed to pull one out of my ass and my timing was perfect. The laughter was contageous.

It was late and they guys were working well into the night. 

Guys with dirty jobs for the most part live for sarcasm and if you can deliver that out of left field and give them a good laugh and a good 'follow me' example they will do anything in short order.

Every single one of the crew stopped, shook my hand and told me I make things fun.

I was humbled.

It doesn't take much. Sixty bucks worth of pizza and a blast of first rate sarcasm goes a long way with people that have dirty jobs to do.

In the fire recovery I am going through the soda blasters have made the biggest dramatic change.

Mike Rowe and I have a lot of respect for guys like that and letting them know it pays dividends.

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The wave of the future. Some kid gets it.

I told him that he ought to look into tattoo removal for a career and he said he'd check it out. He looked around and saw any number of tattoos that the owner was likely to outgrow and want removed.

Then he found out you don't have to be an MD to remove ink so he's looking into it.

Hope he does OK.

When I see some of the ink on people I just know that the time will come at they would like to make it go away. Seemed like a no brainer for a career choice to me.

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I am holed up with Kitty in a pet friendly hotel.

and the woman up the hall has a pair of chocolate labs which are among the slobberest animals on the planet.

Of course I am open to the assaults of slobbery animals and when I was brutally assaulted I fell onto my back and started  playing with them which is ettiquete under the circumstances. 

I like labs.

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Piccolo deals with TSA.

I had lost a lot of weight and my pants were beung held up by suspenders as I went through TSA on the way to work. The little dweeb told me to tak my suspenders off.

"Your call," I replied. "You wanna see and old man's pants fall down? This airport has hundreds of gallons of hand sanitizer but not one f***in' drop of eye bleach."

I got to keep my suspenders.

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OK, Mister Ban the AR let's see you pick the assault rifle cartridges.

Try the one on the left.

Now tryhe AR  looking in the middle.  The one that says .556x45 NATO. In some states it is illegal to use for hunting deer with because of insufficient energy. Virtually all of the cartdidges to the left of it are pistol cartridges, but the one on the far left is a .22LR. You can shoot it out of pistols or rifles but the diamater of the bullet is about the same as the AR 15 cartridge. It's the same diameter of the rifle they teach kids to shoot at camp.

Still believe all the hoople about the AR 15 rifle?

Here's a varmint rifle that shoots the same round as the AR15. It's a bolt action rifle commonly used for prairie dogs, ground hogs and other nuisance critters.

Figure it out yet?

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Bob Shea spent three years in Walpole State Prison.

doing the Lord's work and helping as a chaplain's assistant working with convicts. It was a saintly thing to do.

Bob Shea had many friends and few enemies but one of his enemies was a twisted rat bastard. The jerk put it on the street that Bob Shea had spent three years at Walpole which in itself was true. Shea had in fact spent three years at Walpole. The fact that he wasn't an inmate and was a social worker was immateriel. He had spent three years there.

It tarnished Shea's reputation to the point that it kept him from getting a job he was seeking.

And that, Ladies and Gentleman is how fake news works.

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It's Sunday.

and yesterday I spent a big part of the day cleaaning up with the soda blaster people.

It took 99.9% of the smoke odor out of the house.

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Kitty is here and we are both happy campers.

He gets his best pets from Pic.

We are holed up in the hotel for now and life is good.

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Kitty is coming today.

I am holed up in a rather nice hotel again and probably will be for some time. The house is coming along slow. A communication glitch between the power company and the electrician occurred and nobody spoke up until I got home and said something. At least Kitty is coming here for company.

I think the general is overloaded and is having a hard time getting good subs. These days good subs are hard to find and the smart thing to do if you see a sub screwing up is to call the general instead of talking to the sub. Most likely if you piss off a sub they will walk. 

Now the old ''I'm paying you good money'' argument is no longer valid because the guy down the street is willing to pay better money and give them less grief. It's a good time to be in one of the building trades.Even the a$$holes are keeping busy.

The laws in PA are a bit archaic in that the insurance company does not pay the contractor directly. If the contractor submits a bill for X number of dollars the insurance company gives the homeowner a check for X dollars for the homeowner to pay the contractor with.

I suppose that's OK if the homeowner is responsible. But if Joe Homeowner has a problem somewhere and between the mailbox and the bank stops off to play the ponies or get himself a fix there is going to be a real headache for all involved.

I have to do some serious book keeping to make sure everything is on the up and up.

I wish the insurance company paid the ocntractors directly.

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Is the glass half empty or half full?

It entirely depends on what's in the glass.

If it's 3/4s empty and the liquid in it is smooth smoky scotch then you have one hell of a good drink and I know I will enjoy that more than if it's completely full of cheap beer.

A glass quarter full of good scotch is fuller than one that is full of cheap beer. That's a big for sure. 

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Kirkland is the Costco brand.

So where IS Kirkland?

Strikes me that it is the Land of Kirks. Kirks live there.

Next question.. What is a Kirk? So I dug around.

Best I could find is that a Kirk is a person that lives next to a church.

By extension the lots immediately surrounding a church would constitute Kirkland because Kirks live there.

Therefore, Costco named their house brand after the lots surrounding a church.

Interesting.

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There are too damned many Jewish conspiracies out there

Let's have a good Irish conspiracy and give the Jews the day off!

They get beat up enough as it is.

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Someone asked me how I could keep a straight face while feeding someone a line.

So with a straight face I told him I had worked in an adult bookstore for about a year.

When he gave me a mildly shocked look I said, "Hey! YOU try having to explain how to operate the latest and greatest dildo to s suburban woman!"

Anyone that can do that HAS to be able to keep a straight face.

For example

"Hey, Bob! You know that Lita you got the hots for after she did the Tiajuana pony thing? Well, guess what! She made a new video, this time with an elephant! You're gonna love that one! Oh, and don't forget to wipe up after yourself. I got a complaint about it the last time you hit the peep show! Here. Have a Kleenex."

Or

"Hey, Junie Moon! You want to sit inthe glory hole, huh? Well Sarah has it now but hang around a bit. She's been in there a while and I bet she'sgetting full.....No, Nasty Lou ain't been in all day and don't worry. I won't let him in unless he's bathed in the last coupla days."

Or explaining Ben Wah balls to some suburban woman. "You put them in and here's the control that picks which one you want to vibrate. You can do both at once but the battery wears out faster. Ya don't want to mix which one you put where or you could get a nasty infection."

"Now THIS vibrator doesn't have electric start. Ya gotta kick start it like an old Harley. Biker chicks love 'em. Some of them tell me it makes them squeal like a pig after less than a minute!"

Yeah. You gotta be able to keep a straight face to work in and adult bookstore. I actually never have worked in an adult bookstore. I suppose I could keep a straight face working in one but I admit it would be pushing it..

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So the residents of Martha's Vinyard couldn't support a crummy 50 illegals in what is probably the highest per capita income Zip code in the country.

Yet they expect the rest of us on average incomes to support millions and millions of them.

I hope Florida does a major airlift of them to the Vinyard and drops off about 100,000 more of them.

It's well past time that those Limousine Liberals take out THEIR wallets, let the moths fly out and foot their share of the bill.

Drop the immigrants off in every rich liberal sanctuary  neighborhood!

Cher once beseeched then-president Trump not to ship illegals to California because it would overload their social services.

Well, no $hit! You don't say! Really? Whoda ever thought!

Did it ever occur to that dropout that states were shipping them to California so their social services would not get overloaded? Doubtful because most of the social elites don't think of anyone but themselves and their portfolios.

New York is griping about a couple of thousand sent from Texas when Texas, a border state has millions to deal with. It should be carefully noted that New York declared itself to be a sanctuary city. They have in effect asked for what they got. Either put up or shut up.

It would be interesting to see what happened to the assortment of 'Hate has no home here' signs in the Vinyard. I'd bet a number of them were taken down and replaced with those 'These premised guarded by cameras' of similar signs.

It sure didn't take long for the Vinyard residents to pull strings and have the governor activate 125 National Guardsman to haul the whole kit and kaboodle of them off to Joint Base Cape Cod!

So much for hate has no home here. They RAN hose people out!

Looks like the Vinyard continues being a compound for the rich and famous so they don't have to face the reality the rest of us face daily.

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How many time have you seen 'Sands of Iwo Jima'?

For me it's been numerous, mainly as background when I am doing something else. I rarely watch it anymore but every time I saw it, Sgt Stryker (John Wayne) would get shot in the back by the same sneaky little Jap.

EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

You'd think that after the first couple of time he'd smarten up but he never does. He just keeps getting shot in the back by the same guy at the same time. He reminds me of the Republicans.

The Red wave expected in the mid terms MIGHT be a small red ripple if they are damned lucky and it's because they keep falling into the same damned trap, the social issues, mainly abortion and gay rights.

Here in PA the Republicans, following the reversal of Roe vs Wade are going to try and regulate/outlaw abortion and will lose what control of the state that they have now.

Get over it. Most women think that they have a right to reproductive freedom. They will staunchly defend it with their vote. 

Over the years I have heard woman after woman say, "I would never consider getting an abortion but I sure as hell am not going to take another woman's right to do so!"

Every single time the Republicans enter the moral/social arena they lose. Every. Single. Time.

Every single time the issue comes up and Lucy yanks the football out of Charlie Brown's path and Charlie falls flat on his ass.

The Tea Party started off as being somewhat fiscally conservative and ignored the social issues and started taking off. Then they allowed the Republicans to drag the social/moral issues into their platform and SURPRISE! There ain't no Tea Party anymore!

It looks to me like the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is about to turn blue.

The idiots!

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Ya got three posts yesterday

So siddown, shaddup and read 'em. I takin' today off!

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For illegals people on Martha's Vinyard they sent in the National Guard and

evacuated the whole push of them to Joint Base Cape Cod, a  military installation.

That didn't take long.

Two faced bastards. Give them an opportunity to meet and greet the people they advocate for. This is just another case of liberals screaming 'Not in MY backyard!' but it's OK to have them in someone else's.

Only about 50 were shipped into Martha's Vinyard but they couldn't find work or a place to live for them. They wanted them OUT, and (presumably) in someone else's back yard.

The 'Hate has no home here' signs were immediately replaced with signs reading 'these premises protected by cameras' signs.

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Moby Dick

Oh, why not. Let's do a Moby Dick post.

I threw the lines off of a tug this morning and as I did, I said to the deckhands, "I'll see you in three years when the tug is full of whale oil! Bring back Moby Dick if you can!"

The old skipper smirked and shook his head and the deckhand looked confused.

My guess is that nobody reads Moby Dick in English class anymore and because the Gregory Peck version of Moby Dick (the movie) is in black and white they have not seen that, either.

Not all young people. One fairly young deckhand told me once  "When you first went to sea Moby Dick was a minnow!"

I took no offense whatsoever because the truth doesn't bother me. 

Come to think about Moby Dick, I just remembered the time I worked with this Cajun woman. She was actually a crackerjack deckhand. She pulled her ownweight and generally then some. I really respected her.

She had come over from the tug and was helping me tie up and spotted a really morbidly obese woman on the dock that was probably someone from corporate HR or something giving a dockman sensitivity training or some such crap.

Now the Cajun woman was a pretty plain speaker. She took one look at the woman and turned to me and said, "She looks like a beached whale."

I forgot who I was talking to and replied, "Yeah. A regular f***ing Moby Dickless!" and then I immediately cringed.

Instead of a scowl I was treated to hearing her chuckle. "You got that one right," she replied.

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I think it is time for me to set up a rain barrel.

which is something I can do for cheap. 

Of course in some places it's illegal but so what.

In Massachusetts it's illegal to take a bath on Sunday and I think it's still illegal in Pennsylvania to wear a pair of pants on Sunday if it has a pocket big enough to hide a pint bottle.

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I see where Governor Ron DeSantis dropped off two planeloads of illegals

in Martha's Vinyard.

I like the guy more and more every day.

I would like to see the look on former President Obama's face when he returns in the spring to find about 50 illegal immigrants squatting in his $11+ million dollar mansion or at least camped on his lawn.

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"Why is that gun loaded?"

someone asked me many years ago.

I had put a pistol in my desk ane a relative came by. They saw it and asked if it was loaded. When I confirmed it was they wanted to know why.

"Because if it is not loaded it will not shoot," I replied.

Made sense to me now and still makes sense.

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One of the things associated with 'Liberty' is that unless it truly encroaches on yours (or someone else's)

you pretty much have to mind your own business.

You can't control someone else's sex life. You can't force people to eat the same way you do. You can't tell your neighbor when to mow his lawn. You can't tell him what color to paint his house. There's a lot of stuff you can't do to other people.

OK, you can TRY to tell someone what to do but do not be surprised to find yourself ignored or perhaps told to do something anatomically impossible.

I get more and more Libertarian as I age. I also get more stubborn, too.

Truth is I don't really care what someone else does so long and it doesn't infringe on mine or anyone else's personal liberties.

What business is it of mine if the guy down the street cuts off his own tallywhacker and gets a boob job? What business is it of mine who someone else marries?  I don't care who sleeps with who. Where do I get off forcing my sense of morality, religion, what have you on someone else?

On the other hand, nobody has any business forcing their $hit on me, either.

**********************************

From a political standpoint the Republicans would OWN this country if they just got out of the damned moral police business.

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Over the years I have heard

various things measured in various ways. I have measured speed in miles per hour, feet per second and even furlongs per fortnight. 

I have measured weights in tons, metric tons, pounds, ounces, grams and numerous others.

I have measured volumes in pints, gallons,ounces, liters, cubic meters, barrels and and numerous other units of volume

The most interesting way I have ever measured water is by the hour.

Barges generally don't get near shoreside water supplies. Many docks are supposed to have it but they shirk the rule by listing it as non-potable. Sometimes when we tie up at a company pier we can get water but generally we get it from a tugboat.

That's often hit ot miss. I think a big part of it was that several decades ago someone started a rumor that the water given to a barge comes out of the skipper's pocket at a buck a gallon because trying to get water from some of the skippers causes much moaning, wailing and gnashing of teeth. The handful of dumbasses out there probably still believe the ancient rumor from the days of galleys of oarsmen.

Actually most of them are pretty good about it to be fair.

Still, there are a handful out there that hoard it. When you finally bludgeon them into it they say, "I'll give you and hour's worth."

This means they will have the deckhand hand you the hose with you put into your water inlet and then the deckhand turns on the water. Ten minutes later the skipper tells the engineer to turn off the pump and fifty minutes later the deckhand comes out and takes the hose back.

Needless to say after the first time it happened to me I started sneaking over to the inlet and listened. When the deckhand came out for the hose I simply told him "You owe me another 48 minutes because the Chief turned off the pump." 

Needless to say, I was met with denials and threats so I retreated and picked up the VHF microphone and called the office. I had done the dispatcher any number of favors so the skipper was treated to a chewing out on the air that the entire fleet heard.

In the course of the chewing out the skipper was told to fill my entire tank any time I wanted it even if it ran him dry. 

Still, over the years I have been told "I'll give you an hour." a few times which is oddest way I have ever heard of measuring water.

"How much gas do you need for a fill-up?"

"Oh, about four minutes."

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Bathrooms.

Looks like they are going to have to gut the bathroom and as usual the womanfolk want to design it with the usual assortment of foo foo woman stuff.

Let's look at this from a different perspective.

What is a bathroom, anyway?

It's a place to perform the five S's, shave, $hit, shower, shampoo and shine. Nothing more, nothing less. 

The first of the four tend to leave it in need of periodic maintenance. You scrub the toilet, the sink, the tub, the shower and the floor to keep it tidy and sanitary. 

What people really ought to do is cease and desist making a 'fashion statement' over what is nothing more than a hygeine station and make it easy to maintain.

A bathroom should simply be a one piece fiberglass insert consisting of a toilet, a sink to wash hands and shave with and a bathtub/shower combnation. When you frame the house you simply drop it in.

It should also be equipped with a pressure washer, a soap sprayer and a floor drain so you can easily keep it clean.

Instead of the usual assortment of bathroom cleaners one just walks in wearing a bathing suit or a pair of shorts and sprays the entire thing with Zep degreaser, lets it sit for a few minutes and then power washed the entire thing and just let everything just wash down the floor drain.

Of course, try selling this one to the Karens of the world. Ain't gonna happen because there's no spot for them to hang artwork that nobody ever looks at, anyway.

See how telling her to get it laminated and duct tape it to the wall will go over.

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No animal testing.

Walking through a drugstore someone read aloud 'No animal testing' on a bottle of Castille soap.

Her son asked her how they do test it and that was too good of a target to pass up. Target of opportunity!

"They test it on newborns and toddlers," I said. "Their skin is more sensitive than adult's skin."

Karen's look of shock recovered and she turned to a thoughtful look of wondering. What it said on her face was ''If they don't test it on animalls then where DO they test it?"

Keep 'em guessing.

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I remember as a kid going through other people's trash.

We were probably about 12 at the time.

My pal was doing the digging and said, "Hey! this can says DuPont FFFG black rifle powder on it. What is that?"

"DEFINITELY a keeper," I replied.

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If Biden forgives student loans

then we're going to have to brace ourselves for a shortage of decent looking strippers.

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More thrilling adventures in the San Francisco ay Area.

I popped a button so I asked a clerk if they had a needle and thread for purchase.

"What do you need it for?" he asked.

"I'm going to watch a knife fight tonight and I'll need it to stitch up the losers," I replied.

He didn't know what to say.

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Ten minutes later someone accosted me about something to do with saving the California coast. I ignored him as I was busy and he got assertive and started to tell me how important it was. When I ignored him he tried again.

"Listen, Jerk. I'm a commercial fisherman working for a Japanese fish consortium working as a harpooner on a whaler. You tryna take money outta my pocket, or what?"

He didn't know what to say.

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The old Contico model 1320 footlocker is getting kind of beat up looking

and the clasps are getting kind of rusty.

Someone asked me why I don't get rid of it and replace it with a newer one and I said the newer models are an inch bigger in cubic volume which is measured in Lenght+width+height. This one measures about 61.5 inches total and the new Sterlite models measure out at 62.25 or so,

The magic number the airlines generally use is 62 inches. Anything over 62 inches L+W+H is considered oversized luggage. 

That Contico footlocker is the largest size that can fly as a single siutcase and it can easily hold a BUNCH of stuff. It ain't goin' anywhere. It's a keeper!

Hell, on Southwest I can fly TWO of them for FREE!

If I can find another in halfway decent shape I'm going to snag it.

 

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I hear the Queen is not in good shape.

which saddens me. She's always been a class act.

It will be a very sad day when she passes. She reigned with class and dignity and I will mourn her passing.

Update. She's gone.

Another update. Some nasty, uppity college professor type made a comment about QE blaming her for killing off and forcing the migration of half of her family. 

Much to his credit, Jeff bezos led the charge on defending the Queen. He slammed her on Twitter. Good for him!

I deleted my Twitter account some time ago. Had I not done so I would have pointed out that if true, the Queen killed off the wrong half of her family because she's still alive.

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Long horns!

Picture about 2500 of them headed north with about a dozen cowboys in charge of the herd!

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Flying through things today

I MIGHT be able to make a decent post later. We'll see.

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One thing that I probably should have done

is to become fluent in a few different languages and not just Spanish and not just the so-called 'useful' languages.

I'm thinking of languages like Serbian, Croation, and maybe something African.

Intrepreters seem to be fairly mainstream and they learn the most commonly used languages. 

While Russian and French speakers are a dime a dozen, I'd bet that someone could do rather well if they learned lesser used languages.

Yeah, being a 'terp in obscure languages would obviously no be in demand as a mainstream language speaker, the supply of obscure linguiss would likely mean one could command a higher paycheck for their services.

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Putting together a Labor Day meal in a fleabag*.

Allegedly it's the end of summer.

Fourth of July is hotdogs, beans and tater salad.

(No. It's not long pork. I'm not eating Ron White. If I was I would have capitalized it as in Tater Salad. Hmmm...Ron White is kinda beefy. Beefy long pork...It's what's for dinner! No it isn't.)

Anyway, a Fourth of July meal is good enough for Labor Day.

I have a thing of tater salad from the supermarket deli, a small can of beans and with no grill I'll get a couple of those two for a buck hotdogs from the local convenience store. Hell. I might even get four!

For the dilientees that sounds like enough to gag a maggot but those people don't understand that if you can make it work it's all good.

One of the things that happened 35 years ago on a 24 foot seven inch sailboat in the Gulf of Alaska during a wild night at sea was having to stand up to my responsibilities.

I had told my crew of one that cocktail hour was at 1700 and dinner was at 1800. 

We were getting the holy living $hit kicked out of us and quite frankly the issue was in doubt. I mustered a grin and at 1700 told him to hand me the bottle of Glenlivit and when he did I took a pull and then told him to get us each a  Guinness.

"How can you think of drinking at a time like this?" he screeched.

"Good point. Have a snort and get us each TWO Guinnesses because the way things are going these drinks may damned well might be out last!" I replied.

At 1800 I opened two cans of B&M baked beans and handed him a can and we sat together in the cockpit of Karen Lee and watched a pretty good Gulf of Alaska storm.

One thing I remember a couple of days later in port he commented about the storm and the situation. He said he hadn't signed on for something like that.

"I told you cocktail hour was at five and dinner was at six," I replied. "It was. I kept my end of the bargain.

His eyes opened wide, he stopped short and caved in. "I guess you did," he laughed.

If you can hold to cocktail hour and dinner under difficult circumstances then you're probably doing OK.

The way I look at it, supermarket deli, some B&Ms and a coupla convenience store hotdogs and being holed up in a fleabag somewhere  over Labor Day with Kitty ain't a bad deal.

In fact, I consider it rather amusing.

It's all good.

* FWIW a fleabag is ANY place that rents beds.  It is an old sailor's term. The Waldorf Astoria's 10K/night suite is just as much of a fleabag as a $2 a night hotsheet joint.

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Almost forgot a day

A day of outside work at the house.

Just because it got burned up and smoky inside there is no reason the yard should look like hell.

88888888888888888888888888888

Yesterday I bought a weedwhacker to replace the one that got burned up in the garage fire. It's a Ryobi.

My SO asked me why I chose it and before I bought it she suggested I read Consumer Reports and research it a bit.

I didn't research it one bit. I bought a Ryobi because I have had one before. I know how to use it and how to start it. It was fairly inexpensive and $189.

When I unboxed it and put it together it was just like the old one.

Push the primer bulb 10 times, pull it until it pops. (It popped on the second stroke) Set the choke to half and give the strung a yank and she took right off. Let it run in half choke for about 10-15 seconds and flip the choke to open and I was off and running and tearing everything up. 

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Piccolo gets a $10 steak dinner at Texas Roadhouse.

which is next to the hotel Kitty and I are holed up in since the fire.

Sitting at the bar for a quick beer at a Texas Roadhouse and I was sitting next next the woman of a couple of some sort. I guess it was a dating situation.

He had ordered probably a burger of some sort and she had ordered a huge steak and everything else on the menu. When I sat down they had already ordered and their food started to arrive.

He started to chow down and I watched her take the obligatory two tiny bites and tell him she was full. He looked REALLY pissed off and I can't say I blame him. On the menu it was probably fifty bucks worth of chow.

I looked over at the poor bastard and said to him, "I'll give you ten bucks for her leftovers. After all, you're paying for it. Maybe you can recoup your losses."

The bartender, ever observant, looked wondering where this was going.

He pushed her entire meal over in front of me and said , "Mister, that's a done deal!"

I flipped him a ten.

The poor bartender had one hell of a time keeping a straight face.

Needless to say, she left in a huff and after my $10 steak dinner I bought him a beer and we discussed the fact that he got off cheap by finding out she was a gold digger AND recouping a part of his losses in doing so.

One of the things about being an old man is not looking a gift horse in the mouth. A ten dollar steak is a pretty good deal!

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Piccolo and an entertained woman at Target.

I was picking up a tote at Target and was checking them out and my phone rang. A woman was about four feet away doing the same thing. My phone rang. I answered it. It was a telemarketer.

This is what she heard.

"How am I doing? Not worth a fiddler's f***. I woke up with a nasty sore on the head of my crank. I think I got it up from some broad I picked up at the club the other night. Last time it happened I was taking shots for two weeks. That was some baaaad $hit!

The woman's eyes popped out of the sockets, her jaw dropped and she nearly went into shock.

I put my finger over the microphone hole and said to her, "Telemarketer."

She put her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh and said to me, "Please continue."

The telemarketer said something and I responded, "You're just jealous because I get more pu$$y than you. You know how it is. You probably couldn't get laid in a $2 whorehouse with a stack of $100 bills. I'm 70 years old and get more a$$ then a toilet seat in the ladies room next to the beer stall of a baseball game at Yankee stadium!"

The woman was laughing herself silly. I turned to her after the telemarketer hung upon me. "That's the way it's done. The object of the game is to make THEM hang up on YOU.

The woman turned to me and said, "You are obviously a professional. Do you always go through life that way?"

"Absolutely! It is morally wrong not to do so." I replied.

She laughed.

What's so interesting is the connection we made. She was in her mid to late 40s, probably divorced and her kids were older. She looked just like the kind of woman I dated often in my late 20s and early 30s.

As an old man it's wonderful to be appreciated for your talents.

 

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The show must go on!

Which is why I am posting. 

I have 2 appointments this morning and both are early. Neither of them will take very long. 

Then I have to trim the garden areas down to nothing even though it is too early in the season. For this I will  have to buy a new weed whacker as the old one is a couple of cinders.

I may have time later but trimming the summer grasses is going to be a chore.

While the house isn't a burned up shell, both the front and garage doors are boarded up and there is black on the bricks over the garage. Still, there's no excuse to leave the yard looking like hell. Yesterday I borrowed a mower and mowed the lawn.

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On a barge I worked on 'Yonder' was

the twin bitts amidships.

I had to deal with a man that was arguably one of the best tugboat handlers aone one of the worst communicators out there.

EVERYWHERE to him was ''Over yonder."

"Catch a line over yonder," he'd say. "No, not there, over YONDER!"

It was maddening.

Finally I decided that there was no way I could get him to stop using the term so I simply defined it. I told him 'yonder' was the midship bitts and if he told me to go over yonder I would go straight to the midship bitts. Yonder became a specific reference point. He could still use the term but now it was a specific. 

It took some doing but he finally would say things like "Catch a line two cleats ahead of yonder" which was a specific spot. It was the second cleat forewared ot the midships bitts.

It kind of caught on with some of the other people that had to work with him. In the long run it made everyone's job a little easier.

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