There is something about this whole week that is simply not sitting right with me. As a result
I cannot wait for it to be over with. Normally I am cheerful enough about whatever life throws at me
but this week it almost seems as if the universe has declared it ‘Annoy Ed’ week. I am going to have to be careful where I step.
As an added bonus I managed to totally screw up my finances. Now
I am no financial wizard
but I always seem to manage my bills without any major ill affects and I chug along month after month. However due to a twist of stupidity on my part that usually exists in the ‘gold teeth and spinner-rims’ population
along with the general evilness of banks
I managed to put myself in the poorhouse. All my bills are paid off
however if I open my little coin purse all you will see is a little moth fly out. I am going to have to do some emergency financial wizardry to fix this mess.
How I found out I was in the hole was annoying as well. Last night after work I stopped into Publix to do some light shopping. Some lunchmeat
a few oranges
fake crab meat and some pepperoni. I stand in line and gaze off into space while the little zit-faced teen rings up my purchase. When it comes time to pay I swipe my card like I have a thousand times before. The zit-faced teen stares at his screen a moment and then says:” It says you don’t have no money!”
http://us.ent3.yimg.com/tv.yahoo.com/images/he/photo/tv_pix/fox/the_simpsons/hank_azaria/char_squeaky-th3.jpg
I blink at the teen for a moment. For whatever reason
this is clearly making his day. So I swipe my card again. He sneers at me ‘Insufficient funds!’ and then gives me the type of zit-encrusted smirk that only a sullen teen can produce. I wanted to reach over and pump-slap him. Instead I asked if there was an ATM around
and he pointed to one outside. I went out and checked and sure enough the check I had deposited this morning was simply sitting there
but had not been entered into my checking account yet. Annoyed
I left my cart of goodies inside and went home.
On the plus side I racked my strawberry mead last night. I looked in the paper yesterday and realized the plant city strawberry festival was this weekend. Well
the strawberries from my last batch of mead had come from that festival
so that meant my mead was about a year old and probably ready for bottling. While I was transferring it from one bottle to another
I siphoned off a glass. I will have to say that it is one of my better efforts. It is very light
does not kick you like a mule
does not have that nasty under laying pickle-juice taste that improperly made mead has and was all together delicious. I am going to let it sit in the new carboy for a week or two to let any stray lee’s settle and then I am going to bottle it.
The glass of mead made my head spin around and I flopped on the couch and watched ‘Frankenstein unbound’. That is probably my least favorite of all the Frankenstein movies ever made
and that includes the one where Victor was having sex with dead bodies as well as ‘The Monster Squad’. The part I really hated about the movie was the very end when he killed Frankenstein by clapping his hands together and that somehow triggered multiple lasers to beam down on the monster. And not cool shooting lasers
either. These were the kind of lasers you see at the planetarium on Friday night when they are cranking out Pink Floyd to the amusement of a bunch of stoners.
Afterwards I had a bowl of noodles and drifted off to sleep. Today is Wednesday
and that means its one more day closer to this week being over with.
2026 Update
Time machine's set to March 1, 2006—let's watch Ed discover his check hasn't cleared and his mead is ready.
Ah, 2006: when banking was a suspense novel and a deposited check existed in a quantum state until a bank employee blinked at it. Now I can watch my balance lie to me in real time on a phone while the app asks if I want to overdraft with joy. That poor Publix cashier—today he'd be replaced by a self-checkout machine that also judges me, but without the acne and attitude. And your mead? Back then brewing strawberry mead made you a delightful weirdo; now every strip mall has three taprooms with a 'small-batch strawberry basil session mead' at fourteen dollars a tulip glass. Even Frankenstein Unbound would be streaming in 4K with a 'skip recap' button. The more things change, the more the universe still schedules Annoy Ed weeks—they're just algorithmically targeted now.
“2006 Ed, was abandoning that cart of lunchmeat, oranges, fake crab, and pepperoni a matter of pride, spite, or simple despair—and did you ever apologize to the poor pepperoni?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: So, Beelzebubba, you want to know about the abandoned cart. Honestly? It was equal parts spite and despair, with a thin crust of pride holding it together. That zit-faced teen was enjoying my humiliation way too much, and I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of watching me scrounge for cash. Plus, I was flat broke, and the idea of standing there with a fistful of ones while he smirked was worse than just walking out. So yeah, I left it. The pepperoni? I didn’t apologize to it, but I did think about it later. That poor pepperoni, sitting there next to the fake crab, abandoned like a stray cat in a rainstorm. It probably got put back on the shelf and somebody else bought it, so I hope it found a happy home. But no, no formal apology. That would’ve made the whole thing too dignified.
