Day 36: Personality Screening

So I didn’t sleep last night, because of the PAP PAP PAP. Between the actual noise and the subsequent fits of wonder, the only hour of rest I got was one after which I was supposed to be awake.

The first thing I did was cancel plans for tonight that I’d confirmed a month ago (I’ll see you before you go, Steph, I promise). The second thing I did was start planning for bedtime.

Normally, this is the point at which I would call time out for Prudence, but I really feel like I haven’t done anything since I finished varnishing the back hall a week ago.

(That’s because, says Goody, You really haven’t…)

So crap. What can I do that will be like really doing something that I can do between the time I get home from work and go to pick up Johnny? Something that won’t make me all sticky, or at least any stickier than I already am in this spray-mount-trying-to-pass-for-air weather we’ve been having…?

The phone rang as I was contemplating this. I almost didn’t answer it, but the ID said Curry Hardware.

Huzzah! The screens are in!

Johnny and Larry are still working at that house by there. I’ve been picking him up at Larry’s house at night, but if I pick him up at the job instead I can kill two birds with one stone, pop them in when we get home (the screens, that is, not birds) and be back in bed before the nightly news (which I actually don’t watch, but it sounded good. I do read the paper, though – on actual paper – if that counts for anything).

At this point I was almost late for work, but I called Larry’s cell phone to tell Johnny the plan. No answer. I left a message telling him, and asking him to ask Johnny to leave me a message at the house telling me that he got this message — because there’s really no sense in me going all the way home after work just to wait for him to call. If I know he got it and he'll be there, I'll just head straight over.

Except apparently I didn’t exactly say all that. Apparently I just asked him to leave me a message, and assumed the rest was just implied.

When am I going to learn that Johnny doesn’t understand the concept of leaving messages?

I called all day from work to check the messages on the machine. Nothing, nothing, nothing. So after work, I just went home. I wasn’t going to go all the way to Milton if he was already on his way to Larry’s house in Randolph, was I?

By the time I got to Weymouth there was a message on the answering machine wondering where I was.

I love him I love him I love him I love him.

Okay.

(One of these days we’re going to get ourselves some cell phones. Except, really, we probably won’t.)

So I’m not going to get into all about the funny noise Chuck started making when I got back in, and I won’t tell how I thought Johnny wasn’t there when I arrived. I won’t mention how, when he came out after all, he shouted “You’re late!” and laughed at his own cleverness. I won’t tell you that he wanted to know why I hadn’t brought a a beer for him, and I won’t talk about how, when I asked why he hadn’t left a message like I asked him to, he answered “How was I going to leave you a message if you weren’t even home?”

He’s really not retarded. Really.

Right about when I finished explaining to him the concept behind this thing we call an answerphone, is when I realized I’d forgotten the order slip for the screens we were on our way to picking up.

And the order was under Johnny’s name.

And I didn’t take his name when we got married.

And Johnny had left his wallet -- and, therefore, ID -- in Larry’s truck.

Which was on its way to Randolph.

Thank god for Curry Hardware, that’s all I can say. It took them a while to find the order without the slip, but they did find it, and they even didn’t make us pay for it again or anything.

On the way home, Johnny offered to install them when we arrived, but I snapped “I have to do it!”

Because if I didn’t get to put them in, then I’d have to find something else to do.

And we all know that wasn’t gonna happen.

Day 36: Accomplished.
Time: Including going all the way home and back again? No? Okay fine. About fifteen minutes.
Cost: Nothing. If I don’t get to count the time then I don’t have to count the gas.
Going To Bed At 6:53 On A Summer Evening When I Haven’t Even Eaten Dinner Yet: Pre-Pubescent

Day 28, Project 11: Swearing A Blue Screen

My plan today was to drop the screen-door screens off at Curry Hardware (the Ace Place where I have the plus-five-dollar coupon for) -- which is conveniently located on the way to dropping Johnny off at work -- because they’re both torn and we were supposed to get them fixed sometime over the winter. (Oops.)

It wasn't until we were actually driving by Curry Hardware that I realized I forgot to bring the screens.

So my new plan was to drop them off at the other Ace Hardware on my own way to work.

I won’t get to use the extra $5 coupon from Curry (which expires tomorrow), but the fact is, as great a store as Curry is and everything, they are generally more expensive than the competition. The $5 they're offering would probably save me just about the difference between going there and going somewhere else (if I’m explaining myself clearly, which I don’t know if I am because it’s really, really hot still).

So okay. I put the door-screens in the car (step one: accomplished!), and I head to work. I park where I always park and I carry the screens (which aren’t heavy, just awkward and conspicuous) for the two blocks to the hardware store.

There’s someone waiting at the register, but I raise the screens above his head and ask the guy behind the counter “Do you do these? Just, you know, before I wait in line…?”

(Ruder than I usually allow Prudence to be, but I haven’t exactly left extra time for myself to get this done and still be to work on time. But if I wait to do it on my way home, then I won’t get to pick them up on my way home -- which was the beauty of the whole plan to begin with. Drop them off, go to work, pick them up, go home, put them in -- practically no time spent and day 28: accomplished!)

Yes, they do do them -- and, bonus! The guy at the register isn’t actually in line. He's just standing there. So I don’t have to wait!

Measure, measure, math, math, and then…

“There you go ma’am, that’ll be $30.09.”

See? At Curry I had a free $30. Here I only have a free $25. But I bet it would have cost more at ol’ Curry, anyway. I flip the guy my $25 Ace card and my five-dollar bill, and I go fishing in my pocket for nine cents.

“Um,” he says. “We’re not Ace, anymore.”

What? Oh crap. I knew that. They changed hands like a year ago. Crap. Crap crap! Now what do I do? Do I pay $30 because I’m here and it’s all done? Or do I got back over to Curry this afternoon? But I was just over there! But the only reason I'm doing this in the first place is because I have the card…

“You could go to Curry,” the guy sas, while I'm thinking. “But they’re all the way on the other side of town…”

Screw you, Mr. Guilt-Maker, I’m Curry-ing!

So I put the screens back in the car and go to work. And after work, I head back over to Curry.

Try to look on the bright side, I think to myself, as my brain fries in the 130 degree heat inside Chuck the Fucking Truck. At least this way you get to use your coupon.

Oh, yay.

So I get there and the lady at the register measures them and rings me up. She’s funny and she's nice and she's everything we love in Curry Hardware. It comes to $35.60. Minus the $5 coupon is $30.60 -- so I was right, almost spot-on, about what the difference in price would be. Minus the $25 gift card, it comes to five dollars and sixty cents.

Here’s $10.60. Just to make it easy...

“Thanks very much,” she says. But before she rings it in, she adds: “We’re lookin’ at two weeks.”

Two weeks? Crap crap! I thought I could pick them up later, or tomorrow. Or at least in time for the fourth of July. Okay two weeks fine whatever. Balls.

“Great, then. We’ll call you.” And she punches numbers in: $5.60 due, $10.60 paid…

NOT VALID AMOUNT the computer tells her.

HOLY MOSES the computer says.

And dies.

Bottom line: I stood there for another half-an-hour (okay, ten minutes) got three different sets of receipts (okay, two), paid $5.28 actually (instead of $5.60) and still have to wait two weeks for my screens.

And I got stuck behind the bridge on my way home.

So when I got here, for Goody's sake, I stuck this to Fucking Chuck:



Which I’ve been meaning to do since last December, when I got it in exchange for babysitting the wee Football Buddy. And also I stuck this:



Which I’ve been deliberately not putting on any car for seven years because the last car that I put one of these on passed away a few days later. But Chuck’s on his way out already, so who cares?

And then I baked a cake.

Really.

Day 28: Attempted. And, therefore: Accomplished
Time: All freakin’ day.
Cost: What’d I say? $5.28?
I Need A Shower Because I Smell: Pungent