A Severe Boxing Is In Order

Farmer H has less common sense in his whole body than I have in my little finger! I don't know how that guy has survived this long, without succumbing to his own stupidity. He's planning a trip, so I bought him some snacks, and some for The Pony as well, since he will be making a stop there on his journey. All I did was ask him to grab two boxes, so I could put the snacks directly from the shopping bags into the boxes.

Farmer H was willing, but his common sense was weak. I know what kind of box a normal person would grab to fill with snacks. Snacks that are going to travel cross country in the back of an Acadia, some being consumed along the way. Uh huh. A normal person would grab a box with four or possible three-and-a-portion sides. Open top. Set the snacks down inside. VOILA! Snacks are contained. Snacks can be accessed easily if desired. Boxes fit snugly against each other, leaving room for luggage.

We have such boxes over around the kitchen table where we never eat. I bring home the Save A Lot groceries in them, then toss them across the counter for Farmer H to deal with. Sometimes he needs boxes to carry his auction stuff up to his Storage Unit Store. Sometimes he burns them. Did Farmer H grab two of those boxes to fill with the trip snacks? You already know the answer, don't you?

THESE are the boxes he grabbed! Amazon boxes, with flaps that don't fold all the way down inside. The boxes I keep for sending treats to The Pony or Genius. Boxes that will tape up nicely. They are not good for traveling snacks, which you don't want to be hermetically sealed. Those flaps are a nightmare if you're trying to arrange these boxes in the back of an Acadia, alongside luggage, which will be moved in and out. The snacks for The Pony included containers of Chex Mix. They would be sticking up over the sides of these boxes, the flaps of which could not be folded over if you wanted to.

Farmer H disagreed about my box rejection. But he went back to the other side of the table, and grabbed the kind I wanted. As a regular trip-eater of snacks, you'd think Farmer H would have more knowledge of how snacks travel.

Disclaimer: Please disregard the bags, which contained ingredients for the Chex Mix. Like pretzels and cashews and Bugles. That big bag on the floor also has individual bags of Sun Chips, Sour Cream and Onion flavor, which Farmer H bought at the auction, and are quite tasty. Though not at the same level as my Chex Mix.

It's So Easy, Squeezing Green

Look what I bought myself!

It's a squeezer for the tiny limes for my daily 44 oz Diet Coke. I found it in the alcohol aisles at The Devil's Playground. You might ask, "Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, you naughty teetotaler, what were you doing on the alcohol aisles?" I was on the water aisle, getting flavored waters for Farmer H, and my route was blocked by another poor sap who shops with The Devil. So I turned the corner and went up the next aisle, where these beautiful gadgets were hanging.

There were two choices, yellow or green. Well! Green is my favorite color. Besides, I'm squeezing LIMES, not lemons! So of course green was a must.

I gotta admit, when I took this picture, I'd already used my squeezer. It's METAL, even though it looks like plastic. The cut half-limes fit just right. Squeezing was easy. Easier than cutting my limes into quarters, and squeezing them over a pasta strainer propped on my 44 oz foam cup, using my arthritic old-lady hands.

I'm not sure I got as much juice out, though. When done, my half-limes looked like an umbrella that had been blown inside-out. But there was a little rim around the edge that I'm not sure got squeezed sufficiently. Still, it was quicker and less tedious.

Who knew so much joy could be found on the alcohol aisles of The Devil's Playground?

He's The Gladys Kravitz Of Fast Food

Oh. My. GARSH. Or Sweet Gummi Mary! Farmer H is up to his old shenanigans.

Yesterday, he was painting stain on the front porch with his tiny brush. The temp was already 93 degrees. Too bad he closed up Poolio for the season on Labor Day. He did take his shirt off, but he wasn't down to his tighty-whities.

I was leaving for town, and to be nice, I asked if he wanted anything. Of course in his passive-aggressive approach to life, he said,

"No. Not really. I can't think of anything I need."

"Okay. Because it's 12:30. I didn't know if you were going to town for lunch. Or warming that pulled pork that I made you a sandwich with yesterday."

"I'm not hungry now."

"Okay. You know you're supposed to eat on a regular schedule. You should probably come in pretty soon and make some lunch."

"Well. If you're going to town. If you want to. I'd probably eat something from there. It don't matter."

"I'm only going for my soda. There's Dairy Queen or Hardee's."

"Well. I'd eat one of them burgers you got me the other day."

"Okay. The 1/3 pound cheeseburger combo. Do you want it upsized to medium or large?"

"No. The regular one is fine."

It took me an hour, after mailing my DISH bill that I found in the mail, and stopping for scratchers (not a single winner), and driving through Hardee's. When I got home, I passed Farmer H making a mini dust tornado on the gravel road with the lawnmower spitting out grass and hot air, as he mowed along the front edge of 10 acres we have adjacent to the BARn field. He made a motion that he would turn around and come home. Or else he was making the crazy-temple-finger motion by his own head.

Farmer H carried in the food and his drink, while I grabbed the mail, my purse, my 44 oz Diet Coke, and my mini purple bubba cup of water. I also stopped to pet the dogs. When I stepped inside the kitchen door, there was Farmer H,

ELBOW DEEP IN MY CHICKEN TENDERS!

"What are you doing?"

"Oh. Is this mine? It says BURGER on it. No. It's chicken. Huh. Did you get me a burger?"

"Yes. In that box that your burger always comes in. You've been getting them for a year now, with your coupons that you didn't even give me. You don't have to paw through my chicken."

What in the NOT HEAVEN? Does this really look like a burger box?

Okay. Maybe it's shaped like a burger box. But the tab is clearly poked in where it says CHICKEN TENDERS! But no, he had to pop it open, and then not put the tabs back in the notches to close it after snooping.

His cheeseburger was in THIS box, which clearly has the tab poked over 1/3 lb CHEESEBURGER! So people don't have to rip open every box in their order, and lean over it, breathing across the food, to figure it out.

Seeing as how the items are printed on the boxes, I don't know how Farmer H could get his 1/3 pound cheeseburger in a black box all the time, and then set a black box aside to open a YELLOW box that had chicken written on it.

Farmer H is just too nosy for his own good.

Farmer H Tromps A Tightrope

As I have previously revealed, and any hidden entities in the Mansion have heard for themselves...Farmer H is not light on his feet. He stumps around like his feet have been detached from his ankles. I don't think he realizes the way he plods from place to place. Maybe it's from too many years in steel-toed boots, on concrete.

Farmer H's figurative footfalls are a thing of beauty. He manages to waltz in and out of trouble waiting to happen, without a trip or a toe-stub. I am shocked to hear some of the situations he's walked into.

This tale comes from last month. It started out astoundingly close to another tale he'd told me the week before.

“I’m having lunch at Burger King." [He was really at Hardee’s. He gets them confused.] "After that, I’m going over to Lowe’s to get a board for a shelf in my Storage Unit Store. I heard on the radio there’s a guy with a gun over in Bill-Paying Town—“

“Let me guess! You’re going to find the guy with the gun!”

“Yeah.”

Later that evening, he told me all about it.

“The guy’s house was up a street behind the old Medical Arts building. I went up on the porch, and I heard, ‘Smile, you’re on Candid Camera.’ I seen there was a camera there. I knocked on the door. It wasn’t closed all the way. Just pulled to. I thought I heard ‘Come in,’ but I wasn’t sure. So I knocked again. I didn’t want to go barging into someone’s house. Especially with a camera on me.

Nothing happened, so I knocked again. Finally an old man, older than me, opened up the door. He wasn’t getting around very well. He had a cane and a bad foot. He hobbled back over to a chair and sat down. I just stood inside the door. He had a big rack of guns there, and another rack of guns beside his chair, and a pistol on the table beside his chair.”

“Well, he WAS an old man, with a bad foot and a cane, and you could have been anyone, there to kill him and take his guns!”

“He had plenty of guns, but he only said on the radio that he was selling two. I only wanted one of them. He was asking $165 for one, and $125 for the other. I said I’d take the $165. He said, ‘How about $240, and you can have them both?’ So I said I’d do that.”

“He probably needed the money. And to get rid of some guns.”

“He tried to sell me some AK-47s, but I told him I already had two, and didn’t want to be messing with those these days!”

Let the record show that Farmer H sold those two Old-Man guns the very weekend after he bought them, for a total of $250. So he made $10 on that questionable transaction.

He could have made that much selling two fishing poles. Without any drama.

Hillmomban Horror: The Buttering

I am such a butterfingered ninnymuggins!

Not butterfingered, like Edward Scissorhands was scissor-handed. How delicious THAT would be, if I had Butterfinger candy bars on my hands. Like, 10 of them! I could be called HM Butterfingers. I confess, I might eventually (in an hour or two) have a couple of stumpy digits, mere nubs.

All day Saturday, I was wreaking havoc like a bull in a china shop. Like Godzilla tromping through Tokyo.

I dropped two ice cubes while trying to fill my purple mini bubba cup for town.

I dropped the soap in the shower.

I got my foot down the wrong leg of my striped sweatpants.

I knocked plastic containers out of the cabinet as I put away a big cup Farmer H had used.

I knocked the cutting board askew while rolling my mini limes on it, almost toppling my magical elixir, which was inches away, lid off, after adding cherry limeade.

I carefully placed the lid on my 44 oz foam cup after adding the lime juice, and instantly bumped it, sloshing bright red cherry limeade all over the underside of the lid. Which makes it stick when I try to remove that lid to add ice later in the day and night.

I reached for the wrong end of my Pioneer Woman ceramic knife to slice my mini limes, and felt the blade slice through a couple epidermal layers. NO blood, though! Thanks, Even Steven.

I reached for my scratchers, which I'd carried down to the lair on my lunch tray, and tipped over a ramekin of salsa.

I sliced a pickle for my tuna salad supper, and of course some of the dicings fell off my Pioneer Woman knife onto the kitchen floor.

I picked up a mini sleeve of Ritz Crackers to open, back in my lair with supper, and dropped it on the edge of my desk. It didn't fall to the floor. I pinned it there with a wrist. They crumble, you know.

My fumble-fingered, dropsyness-filled day was like a horror story: The Buttering.

Here I Drone Again On My Phone

Sweet Gummi Mary! It's time for another rant about institutions who have done me wrong. And how Farmer H was equally right!

Farmer H goes to the doctor every week for a shot. It gets billed ($30) to the insurance, which pays a pittance, and then $22.60 shows up on the statement for him to pay. We get the statement at the end of each month, and I write a check and mail it the next day.

Yesterday, while Farmer H was having lunch before his shot appointment, I got the bill. It showed an amount 30 DAYS PAST DUE! Well. That doesn't fly with Mrs. HM. I pay that statement every month. I dug out the last itemized statement, and saw the charge in question had been marked with an asterisk, for PENDING INSURANCE. That happens pretty regularly. Then the next month, the statement shows the remaining $22.60 due as part of the new items.

It has never termed such an amount PAST DUE.

Seriously? I have nothing to do with the insurance. Why is it MY fault that the service was on July 26, sent to the insurance for processing, with the statement mailed July 31? I'm not the one making it look PAST DUE. I pay as soon as I get the monthly statement. I can't pay more than the total due at that time.

Anyhoo... it's not like they billed it twice, or overcharged. I just object to the 30 DAYS PAST DUE terminology. Couldn't that affect a person's credit? How unfair is THAT?

I'll get over it, but of course it put a bee in my bonnet when Farmer H wasn't here to hear me buzzing about it. So I sent him a text, with a picture of the recent statement showing the 30 DAYS PAST DUE, and the previous statement showing the original charge. I thought he might ask about it while he was in the office.

I didn't hear anything back from him until he came home around 6:00. Farmer H declared that nothing on the statement showed PAST DUE.

"You're crazy! It's right there on the bottom line! $22.60, 30 DAYS PAST DUE!"

"No. You're crazy. There is nothing in any of the boxes showing past due."

"I swear! How can you miss that? Are you looking across the bottom line? On the top picture?"

"Yeeessss."

"I can't believe you! I guess I'll have to show you myself. It's as plain as the nose on your face!"

"It's NOT there. As plain as the nose on YOUR face!"

"We'll see, won't we? When you get home."

"Yes. We WILL!"

Farmer H came stumping down to my dark basement lair, holding out his phone, zoomed in, to show me nothing in the past due boxes.

"You're on the wrong picture. I said the TOP picture. Look. Here it is on my phone, where I sent it to you. Top picture. Zoom in. THERE! $22.60, 30 DAYS PAST DUE! I TOLD you!"

"It's not on MY phone! Look."

"You're on the wrong picture! Back out. I sent you the statement. Then a note, saying 'I am sending last month's below.' Look at the TOP picture!"

"I only have one picture."

"No you don't! My phone shows that I sent you two! See?"

"I see that on your phone, yes. But look at mine. I only have one picture. The line above it says 'I am sending last month's below.'"

"Oh. Well. I don't know how you can only receive one picture, when my phone clearly shows that I sent two."

SWEET GUMMI MARY! We were BOTH right! I hate it when that happens! Because it means that Farmer H is right.

People Are Stinkin' Crazy In Hillmomba

I honked at a car yesterday. Don't go thinking it was a case of road rage. Mrs. HM is perfectly capable of throwing a raging fit of road rage. But this was not it. This was purely a warning honk. No fist-shaking or cursing within the confines of T-Hoe's hermetically sealed cabin.

It was on the curve by the prison. I was headed towards town, making the prison on my right, putting me on the inside of the curve. This curve seems not to be banked correctly, or was perhaps measured as an imperfect parabola. I've driven this curve for 22 years, in both directions, and I am wary each time I approach it. It can be taken at the legal speed limit of 55 mph, even in a vehicle with a high center of gravity, such as T-Hoe. I say it CAN be driven at that speed. Not that it SHOULD.

In fact, when The Pony was learning to drive, in his little Nissan Rogue, which is low to the ground, and small compared to T-Hoe, I warned him. "Slow down here and pay attention. This curve will eat you up. There's a reason those tree trunks are scarred up. People run off the road here all the time."

My mom would slow down to 35 mph on that curve, in her TrailBlazer. I didn't begrudge her this rate, even though I was generally antsy riding with her on the straighter parts, her 45 mph seeming too slow.

So the facts have been established. This curve is nothing to trifle with. All week, there's been a dead skunk near the center line. Not on it. But not in the middle of the out-of-town-heading lane. It's the outer edge of the curve, where people run off the road and would land in a small pond if not for the scarred trees.

I am very aware of my road companions in this area. I know what's behind me, how close, and what's coming at me. On my way home all week, I slowed down at the skunk. With nothing coming, I'd make sure to straddle it with T-Hoe's tires. If traffic was coming at me, I'd slow more, and move over towards the side line to avoid the carcass. Nobody wants (even dead) skunk juice squirted on the underside of their vehicle.

Anyhoo... there I was on Thursday, heading to town, in the non-skunk lane. A maroon sedan was coming in the other direction. He moved over to straddle the skunk. Way over. Into-my-lane over. I was sure he'd correct himself as he got closer to me. But he did not! As far as I could tell, he was fixated on that skunk, and was continuing to encroach more and more onto my blacktop territory.

So I honked.

The maroon car at least stopped coming into my lane. Held steady, though still forcing me to the very edge of my side. I felt bad about the honk. Our neighbor Tommy has a car like that. Well. The car we bought and gave to him. He's a pretty fast driver, and this one wasn't going all that fast. I kept worrying that it was Tommy. We pass every day around that time, but usually on our gravel road as he comes home for lunch.

When I got into town, another maroon sedan was pulling out of the Orb K parking lot. I tried to convince myself that it was Tommy. I felt a little better about that honk.