What a wonderfully dreary day out. Today would be a great day for me to loaf in my sun room and watch the rain come down while I read a book and perhaps snooze. But, alas, it's into my windowless office for me as I slave under the buzzing illumination of florescent lights.
Saturday was one of those days where nothing wanted to go right for me. In the morning I had a mulch errand to run. There is a place near my house that will dump a huge load of mulch into the back of your truck for 25 bucks. My sister had an outside project going and she asked me to get her a load. I went out to my truck, and naturally the battery was dead. I still have to do something about its mysterious battery drain. So I had to jump it with my porta-jumper to get it going. Every time I stopped the truck I had to re-jump it. It's pretty annoying.
Then I went back home to work on my bathroom. I needed to cut out a chunk of wood from a wall to fit a pipe in. So I brought out my little jigsaw. To my annoyance, the saw was dead. I must have burned it out trying to cut concrete board with a dull saw blade. I was not in the mood to drive across town to harbor freight to buy a new one, so I drove over to big lots to buy some cheap Chinese one. Turns out it was way too cheap. I brought it home, opened it up and tried to install the blade. The little screws holding the blade into place were so cheap that when I turned the screw to tighten the blade, it ended up simply stripping the socket. I was pissed because I had wasted fifteen bucks and I did not feel like going out a third time that day.
I am also paranoid about the plumbing I am going to install. It is half threaded pipes and half PVC. I am going to get only one shot to install it. If I put it all together and it leaks, then I am screwed. I decided that with the way my luck was going that day, I would hold it off for another time.
My friend September had invited me to some BBQ a friend of hers was having. With nothing better to do that night, I decided to go. She made it sound like a hoot. A bbq with a fire out back and all sorts of people were going to be there. It was an hour away, but like I said, I had nothing better to do. I fretted for a moment because I was supposed to bring a side dish. With no time to whip anything up, I swung by Wal-Mart and grabbed a couple of those giant bottles of dill picks. It made sense to me..BBQ...pickles... Everyone likes pickles.
Before I left I stopped into the local pub for a couple of quick pints and then I was on my way. About twenty minutes down I4 I felt an ominous pressure on my bladder. It would soon need to be relieved. I pulled into the nearest rest stop, but I was horrified to see no restroom there. It was a 'No Facilities' rest stop. With no other choice I ducked behind a dumpster and let fly. From the smell and stains behind that dumpster, I was clearly not the first person to have answered natures call in that stop. I then went on my way.
I think I spent about twenty minutes at that BBQ. I walked into the house, one of those new homes that is so neat and clean you are afraid to sit in fear of leaving an ass print on the chair. I was also horrified to notice that I seemed to be the youngest person there. Everyone was in their forties to fifties and heads full of silver hairs abounded. I felt rather foolish in my t-shirt and denim shorts. I hung around for a short while and listened to one older guys tale about how he did not become a racist until he moved to South Carolina. I then thanked September for inviting me and quietly snuck out the side yard.
Sunday was Easter and I had an excellent time at my folks feasting on ham and deviled eggs. There was plenty of ham, so it's ham sandwiches for lunch all this week. Other than that, my entire weekend was uneventful. I need some excitement.
2026 Update
Firing up the machine for April 2007: a weekend of dead batteries, cheap saws, and a desperate roadside pickle.
Nineteen years on, and I'm not sure which part of this weekend makes me wince harder: the $25 mulch dump, the $15 jigsaw that stripped its own soul, or the idea of showing up to a BBQ with giant pickles as your side dish. In 2007, a man could buy a tool so cheap it disintegrated on contact and still feel robbed—now you'd have to rent that jigsaw by the hour through an app and pay a convenience fee for the privilege of watching it fail. Your truck's dead battery? You'd just call a ride-share and then complain about surge pricing while the mulch rots in the bed. And that rest stop with no facilities? These days there's an app for locating a clean bathroom, but it's a premium subscription with ads, and the free version routes you to a dumpster anyway. Even the new home you snuck out of would now be full of gray laminate and 'luxury vinyl'—but the real luxury is being able to sit without leaving an ass print, because nobody actually owns the furniture.
“2007 Ed, when you grabbed those giant jars of dill pickles at Wal-Mart, did you genuinely believe 'BBQ...pickles...everyone likes pickles' was a culinary thesis, or were you just testing how long a side dish could sit unopened at a party full of silver-haired strangers?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2007 Ed: So, Beelzebubba, I'd say it was a little of both, honestly. On paper, pickles at a BBQ make sense to me, salty and sour cuts right through all that greasy meat, and yeah, I do believe everyone likes pickles, I'll stand by that. But I also knew full well a giant jar of dill pickles could sit unopened for a month and nobody would say a word, so there was a certain lazy logic to it too. I wasn't about to whip up some fancy potato salad for a bunch of silver-haired strangers in a house so clean you'd leave an ass print just by looking at it. (Plus I was running late and Wal-Mart had 'em right there by the register.) That party was so sterile I felt like I'd contaminate it just by breathing, and the one guy was going on about how South Carolina made him a racist, so honestly, the pickles were the least weird thing about that night. I figure they sat there unopened next to the chips, and that's fine by me. Sunday's ham sandwiches made up for it.
