Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Save Him From Himself

Farmer H has been rockin' a cold since last week.

As if he's not miserable enough, our shower sprang a leak. A leak that trickled into the ceiling tile of my dark basement lair, putting a blight on that rough-textured panel, and meandering down some type of piping until it reached the other side of the office, where it drip drip dripped coin-sized spots into two other tiles. Now he has a big red ladder looking over my shoulder as I type. But he hasn't yet fixed the shower, other than a patch job to stop the immediate leak through a fiberglass crack. I don't blame him. I imagine his head spins when he tilts it back to look up into my ceiling. I can wait until he gets over the head cold and his equilibrium returns. It's not like I'm hosting Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II for tea and crumpets this week.

Now Farmer H has maimed himself. He stomped all the way down 13 basement steps to huff and wheeze into my office to tell me that he just split his own lip. I looked. There was a tiny pinpoint of blood on his upper lip. Not at all the gaping wound I was expecting to suture with baling wire. I stopped short of offering to put a tourniquet on his neck. Seems he was pulling nails out of some kind of boards he is recycling, and he yanked that hammer back into his own mouth. I suppose we're lucky that no teeth were shattered.

But don't you all worry about Farmer H. He scored big at the auction last week. He paid two dollars for a box of assorted junk that had one thing in it he wanted. When he dug through his precious junk, he found...not auction meat, but two old metal tape measures. You know, the kind you pull out and then push a button and they shoot back in. The tape measures were broken. But Farmer H's auction buddy reminded him that they were brand name, and that Lowes would take them back, because they're warranteed for life. I told him that he would need a receipt. "Nope," he said. "They gave me two new ones." He held them up, still in their plastic packages. One sold for around $13, and the other for $15. Not too shabby for his two-dollar investment.

I suppose Even Steven even follows Farmer H.

6 comments:

Sioux Roslawski said...

I went to a thrift store over the weekend and found a Jodi Picoult book and a Barbara Kingsolver novel. Plus, the cashier--since the books were not priced--threw out some very low prices and asked if I thought they sounded right.

Not-heaven yes!

Perhaps Farmer H and I--with our similar good fortune (treasure-wise)--are in parallel universes (or some other sort of science fiction mumbo jumbo)...

Kathy's Klothesline said...

Bargains are great! I just bought a package of chicken thighs for $5.56 ...... but, because I had the coupon from buying 10 pakages of Knorr noodles for $10, I only got $5 off on the chicken. I don't really like those noodles, but He Who does.

knancy said...

If you can't bring yourself to tie a tourniquet around his neck for a lip bleed, what ARE you going to do? I suggest slamming a Smart Phone up the side of his head to knock some sense into him. Then blame it on his hammer. I better quit now. Watching CSI is starting to do weird things to me.

Hillbilly Mom said...

Sioux,
I think Gretchen Wilson scored a big hit with that song...Not-Heaven, Yeah!

Hick would never buy a book. Not even a box of them at the auction for $2.

*****
Kathy,
Well, I suggest you make lemonade out of those lemons, in the form of chicken and noodles. Like Jack Spratt and his wife, you two can lick the platter clean.

*****
knancy
I fear that your methods are traceable, Ma'am. Get back to me when you have refined them.

knancy said...

Chuck everything down the sinkhole and throw a deck of Germ-X infused index cards into the whole mess. That should do it.

Hillbilly Mom said...

knancy,
I weep for the environment. Not from your suggestion, but from years of Farmer H chucking cabinets, dead vermin, and assorted detritus down our sinkhole. I can only hope that the water table runs away from our well, and toward our neighbor's.