The Sometimes Unpleasant Small-Worldness Of Hillmomba

Not so sure I should tell this tale, but ya twisted my arm, so here goes.

I mentioned several days ago how The Gas Station Chicken Store had been without my magical elixir for a whole week. And how soon after, they were out of my preferred 44 oz cups. When such a calamity has occurred before, it could always be traced to the accidental misfeasance of the Man Owner. We even tease him about it, and most times he broaches the subject first, with an apology.

On Thursday, as I was leaving the store with my 44 oz Diet Coke, Man Owner, also on his way out, held the door for me.

"Do you have a minute?"

"Sure. I have nowhere to go, and nothing to do. This is the high point of my day."

Man Owner walked me to the end of the gas pump row, where we stood in the shade, me resting my magical elixir on one of those concrete posts about waist high that prevent idiots from driving into the gas pumps.

"I just wanted to tell you about why you didn't have your soda--"

"Oh! I know it's not your fault this time! Your wife told me what happened. About the cups, and the company going out of business. You're off the hook!"

"Well, it's not that. It's about when we ran out of Diet Coke. We didn't get our order on Tuesday. I had put in my order as usual, the week before, but didn't hear back for confirmation. I tried and tried to call our salesman, but it kept going to voice mail. So I left him a message that I just wanted the same order I always get. When I hadn't heard anything by Thursday, I called the company. All these years, we've never had a problem with him. The only problems were when I forgot to do something! That guy is very dependable. So I said, 'I'm not complaining, but for some reason we didn't get our order this week, and I haven't heard back from our salesman.'"

The guy at the company said, 'Oh. You didn't hear? He was killed in a car wreck over the weekend.' I felt SO BAD! I had no idea! My wife got on the internet, trying to find out what happened. She thought she found the article, but then she said, 'No, this can't be it. It's the same name, and the right date, but the headline says SCHOOL SHOOTER KILLED IN CAR ACCIDENT. That's not him!' 

Well, she got to searching some more, and found out that it WAS him! We knew him as Drew Grant, but he had changed his name. When he was 11 years old, him and another boy--"

"I know about that! My principal used to bring it up all the time, when we did our safety drills. In Arkansas, right?"

"Yes! They pulled the fire alarm, and picked off people as they came out the door. I read about his deposition. The cop asked him if he shot the teacher, and he said, 'I don't remember.' He asked him if he shot the girl next to the teacher, and he said, 'I don't remember.' The cop asked what kind of gun his friend had and he said [I forgot what kind]. Then he asked Drew what kind of gun he used, and he said, 'A [some kind of carbine].' And the cop said, 'We have ways to tell which gun fires which bullets, and the teacher and the little girl were killed by bullets from your gun.' And Drew said, 'I guess I shot them, then.' It was terrible.

Drew's name back then was Andrew Golden. He served his time in juvenile detention, and when he was 18, he was released, and the records sealed. He changed his name. Somebody asked him, 'I know that you got Drew from Andrew, but how did you get Grant from Golden?' And Drew said, 'That was my grandma's name.'

Anyway, after the wreck, the cops were looking for ID, and one found Drew's, and said, 'Wait a minute. This doesn't match up. This can't be this guy.' But another cop on the scene said, 'Yeah, that's him. I know this guy, he changed his name.' 

He was only 33. So polite and pleasant. We'd dealt with him for years. All this time, I'd been doing business with a killer!"

"Well, at least he turned his life around. Having worked with kids that age, I've gotta say, some of them have no idea how life really works. They'll push it to the limit, not thinking there'll ever be consequences for what they do."

"I had no idea. I never would have known, except for the accident."

Let the record show that I don't want any comments on other such events, or what should be done, or anything of a political nature. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom tries to remain apolitical on her blog(s). I only use the name because that's a fact, and that's how it was told by Man Owner. I'm not trying to be sensational. I share this because it's such a weird connection.

And it exonerates the much-maligned Man Owner in MissingDietCokeGate.

Probably An Attempt To Scare Me To Death

You know how your eye is drawn to something new? You don't consciously scan your everyday surroundings for changes. But your subconscious will alert you to an inconsistency. Like what demanded my attention as soon as I backed T-Hoe out of the garage on Thursday.

I'm not talking about the open space where the camper trailer is missing. I KNEW that was going bye-bye, up to the Storage Units. Still no offers. No, I'm talking about this non-talking head nailed to a post.

Farmer H had been rooting around in his Freight Container Garage for new items to take to his Storage Unit Store for the weekend. I guess he didn't think anybody would want to buy this mask. Or else he wanted to keep it for his own evil purposes. I'm pretty sure he's trying to kill me.

TRY AGAIN!

I don't find this mask frightening. Not compared to some others he's brought home. Including one The Pony swears turned itself over when left on the kitchen table overnight. Let's see if I have a pic of that one...

Yes, there it is, from several years back, before Genius went off to college. The Pony is modeling it, perhaps at my request. My biggest fright came when Genius wore it halfway down the basement steps, and hollered to wake me from a slumber in my basement recliner. For all I know, Farmer H sent him on that mission.

Anyhoo... I sent The Pony a picture of the new mask on the carport pole.

"What you're missing here at home."

"Make sure he knows he's still not allowed to put them in my Sword Shack!"

"I'll tell him, but I think the others are still in there."

"The ones in there are creepy, but acceptable."

"In your opinion."

Third Time's NOT a Charm, Nor Charming, Nor Even Borderline Acceptable

The saga will not end! Farmer H cannot let it go! Oh, how I rue the day I found an odd piece of metal in the road down by the mailboxes!

For the THIRD time, Farmer H is telling me what I found, even though it's NOT TRUE, and I've PROVED that it's not true! Time ONE. And Time TWO.

Saturday evening, Farmer H started jawing about another gun that he bought. Of course I don't know what kind it was, even though he told me, as if I was remotely interested, and as if I know anything about guns.

"I seen that somebody must have busted the barrel. One side of it has a notch out of it. It may have been cracked, and they tried to fix it. I need to look closer. But I know how I can fix it. Lead is really soft, and easy to melt. I could take that tire weight you found--"

"WAIT A MINUTE! First of all, I found it, and it's mine, to do with what I want. Who says I want to give it to you to melt it down? And anyway, it's NOT LEAD! I've told you that twice!"

"Yes it is. Lead. That's what they make those tire weights out of."

"You told me it wasn't a car weight, because 1/2 OZ would be too heavy! But now you say they make them out of lead, which is HEAVY!"

"They've always made them out of lead."

"Nooo... it's iron. Remember? It has FE on it. Which is the symbol for iron. And when I LOOKED THEM UP, the description for online buyers clearly said they were IRON, treated with something."

"Oh. Well. FE. Yeah. It could be iron. I haven't used the stick-on kind. So it might be iron."

I'm pretty sure Farmer H planted that little piece of metal down there for me to find it. So he could use it to drive me crazy. He might even have taken a piece of lead and embossed it with FE to make me think it was iron.

I'll probably lay awake at night, wondering when Farmer H is going to deny my valid information again. My brain will be all muddled from lack of sleep. My appearance will grow unkempt. I will sit on the short couch, rocking back and forth, stroking my tiny piece of metal which is supposed to be 1/2 OZ of iron. I'll lose interest in my little Jack and Sweet, Sweet Juno. I'll forego the daily 44 oz Diet Coke trip in favor of polishing my precious tire weight. I'll forget to eat, and waste away...

I'm pretty sure Farmer H is trying to kill me.

Just When You Think It's Safe To Go Back In The Gas Station Chicken Store

You may recall that I only recently recovered from the trauma of NO DIET COKE at The Gas Station Chicken Store from July 18 to July 25. Sweet Gummi Mary! The outage lasted almost as long as the beef between DISH and the local CBS affiliate. Except that one's still not over, much to my Big-Brother-loving chagrin.

Anyhoo... I'd once again fallen into my routine, skipping gaily into TGSCS between noon and 1:00, to fill a 44 oz foam cup with my magical elixir. No more roughing it at Orb K with a Polar Pop, in their too-slim cups that tip over easily. I was on top of the world, had it by the tail, it was my oyster.

REEEEE!

That's the sound of a needle scratching across a phonograph record, in case some young whippersnapper is reading this instead of taking a selfie making ducklips. Mrs. HM's gay skipping screeched to a halt on the back aisle of TGSCS, beside the rack of flaming hot chips. What kind of trick was this? The Diet Coke spigot was perfectly normal. No sign made from a snippet of notebook paper proclaiming OUT. So there was magical elixir inside the soda fountain. But the hole for the 44 oz foam cups was EMPTY! And a snippet of notebook paper taped underneath said

OUT OF 44 OZ CUPS. MORE TOMORROW.

I felt faint. This couldn't be happening! I was there. I was ready for my 44 oz Diet Coke. I looked in the cardboard box at the end of the soda fountain counter. Many a time, I've foraged in there for a 44 oz cup when the display was out. But NO! The cardboard box was bereft of 44 oz cups! Not even the misshapen barrel kind to be had!

With my vision growing wavy like a bad sitcom flashback transition, I made a snap decision. I clutched my $5 scratcher winner in my left hand, and my two quarters, one nickel, four pennies, and one dime stacked in my right hand, and turned on my heel and left TGSCS. Not gaily skipping.

Of course I went over to Orb K, which is on my route home, just through the stoplight, under the overpass, and through the other stoplight. At least I'd only have to wait one day to resume magical elixiring.

Tuesday, I rounded the flaming hot chip display at TGSCS, and saw THE SAME THING! It was like Groundhog Day! The movie, not my best old ex-teaching buddy Mabel's favorite holiday. Only this time, I had a $15 scratcher winner in my left hand. The line wasn't long, so I decided to stay and cash in my tickets. (Didn't win anything on the new ones.)

The Woman Owner was working the second register, and waited on me. She said that she was SO SORRY, but the cups were due in that very day, and were late, because they'd seen the truck driving back and forth in front of the store WITHOUT STOPPING! I told her if I'd known that, I'd have been out there flagging them in.

Wednesday, THE CUPS WERE BACK! The Woman Owner was working alone. As I set my 44 oz Diet Coke down on the counter, I said, "Finally, I've got my soda again!" In a happy way. Not shaming her. Not at all.

Woman Owner said the whole problem was due to a new supplier. The old company had abruptly gone out of business, firing all their employees without notice on the previous Wednesday, and not telling their retailers. So I couldn't even blame the Man Owner for this outage.

He would have given me my soda for free, though...

Woolly Pully

Even though I made the most scathingly brilliant discovery yesterday, about the little metal weight I found down by the mailboxes... Farmer H refused to believe me! He continued trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Even though I had concrete proof, and he just had his flapping jaws and big ol' empty head.

This guy!

"Oh, I figured out what my piece of metal is that I found yesterday. It's a weight used for balancing tires."

"No."

"YES! It sticks on the wheel, and must have fallen off when the car bumped from the gravel road onto the blacktop."

"Nah. That ain't it. It's too heavy."

"I SAW IT ON THE INTERNET! Pictures of the weights! They come with adhesive backing, which is what I scrubbed off at the sink! And it IS iron, not lead. So that's the FE."

"Well. Maybe. They could use 'em on aluminum wheels now. So that's how it got in the road."

Uh huh. Told you so, told you so, told you told you told you so! I refrained from doing the Grace Adler dance off Will&Grace. But only because I was afraid I might injure myself.

Seriously. I told Farmer H what it was, where I got the info, how there are pictures of them for sale online... And STILL he persists.

I Stumped Ol' Stumpy!

Mrs. HM is a freakin' genius! Or at least a semi-proficient researcher.

Tuesday, I was walking back to T-Hoe with the lone piece of mail in my hand, when I saw something in the middle of the road. Pretty much the exact middle, where the stripes would be painted if our county blacktop road had a center line. I bent over to pick it up.

Huh. It was heavy! What in the Not-Heaven? Was it a magnet? Stuff was stuck on the back of it. Maybe it was part of the latch on EmBee. It's been broken for a while. But it's a round magnet, and a rectangular piece of metal to stick to. That piece of metal, last I saw, was in the butt-end of EmBee.

I picked up that intriguing piece of roadsam, to bring back to the Mansion and ask Farmer H. After soaking in water and Dawn dish detergent for a few hours, I scrubbed it as clean as I could. I took it to Farmer H.

"Look what I found in the road down by the mailboxes. Is it part of our magnet?"

"No. That's no magnet."

"It's really heavy. Do you think it's lead?"

"Yeah. That's lead."

"I got it as clean as I could. Is there anything else you can think of that will clean it up? Make it shiny? Does vinegar interact with lead?"

"I don't think it would hurt it, but it might turn it black."

"Yeah. It's clean enough. I'm not really going to do anything with it. It says 1/2 OZ FE. I think it's heavier than a half-ounce. Maybe it means it's one 2-ounce piece. And FE means iron. Do you think it's iron?"

"It's lead. It feels like 1/2 ounce to me."

"I wonder what it's for? A little scale, maybe? Do you think a drug dealer was using it to measure out his dealings?"

"It's possible. Like a little postage scale, maybe. They use those."

"Huh. Well. I'm taking it downstairs to my office."

Here's the object, all prettied up and posed on top of a Pepcid lid:

The back has no writing. It was kind of gunky with black stuff and road dust, so I had to scrub it with my fingernail, even after soaking. There's no writing on the back. It's 1 inch long, and 1/2 inch wide, and 1/4 inch thick. The base is a little wider than the top, though you can't tell it by this picture.

There it is, on end. I did a little research on the innernets. Looks like Farmer H doesn't know what he's talking about. He can go around, stumping on his footless ankles (from the sound of him walking above my head while I'm in my dark basement lair), all puffed-up in the knowledge that his knowledge is the most knowledgeable knowledge ever acknowledged... but I know he's WRONG! On this one, anyway.

My little metal lozenge is neither lead nor part of a scale.

It's a wheel weight used to balance tires. It's iron. Some of them have a little flap that gets hooked on a tire rim, and others come with adhesive backs. I guess this had the adhesive, and fell off a tire. That would be the gummy part I scrubbed off.

You'd think Farmer H, the gearhead, would know about a weight used for balancing tires!

Now I wonder what else he's told me over the years that isn't accurate.

Back On The Complain Train

I'm sure you're shocked that Mrs. HM has something to complain about. It's SO not like her to voice displeasure. But the fact remains that The Universe conspires against her, and her little Pony, too.

Look what I got in the mail Monday:

Uh huh. It's a letter that I write lovingly every week rush to come up with around midnight on Thursdays to mail on Fridays, to The Pony at his college apartment. He lives in university housing. It's not like he rents a tool shed out back of junkyard. He's lived in the same place for three years now. I've been sending him mail to the same address. Written the same way on the envelope. Sure, it takes 8 days to get there, when Genius's letters only take 4 to Kansas City, and that includes a weekend. But it generally gets there.

You might notice on the redacted envelope that my writing is not a chicken-scratch. It's perfectly legible. Spaced accordingly. Nothing ambiguous about my penmanship. Yet my little Pony's letter has been returned to me as UNDELIVERABLE!

Not only returned as UNDELIVERABLE, but returned 38 DAYS after it was originally mailed!

That is unacceptable! I sent The Pony a picture, with the caption:

"What is WRONG with your mail people out there?"

"That would explain the gap in the numbering." The Pony is a factual kind of fellow, and notices the mailing date of his letters. Mainly because sometimes he goes weeks without getting one, and then three appear in his mailbox.

"I will open it, and enclose it with the one I send this Friday. I'm going by the dead mouse smelling post office to ask what's wrong with the address."

"Has Dad's come in yet?" [The check from The Pony's professor for that lab work Farmer H did on July 15. Not sure when The Pony mailed it, but the check was dated July 17.] "I guess that's what I get for using the drop slot and an actual stamp rather than paying straight at the post office counter."

Indeed.

I bellied up the the counter at the dead mouse smelling post office around noon-thirty. Nobody was there. It was so quiet you could hear a mouse die. The little bell on the counter had the sign saying to ring for service. I hate to do that. I don't like to impose on somebody busy not-doing their work. But I didn't want to hang around with my resentment festering until I grew a long white beard, or a line formed behind me.

I gave the bell one tap.

A couple minutes later, a kid came out of the back room. He looked about The Pony's age of 21, with a short beard instead of The Pony's flowing locks.

"What can I help you with?"

"I have a complaint, and a question. Neither of which involve this specific office. I got this letter returned today, and I don't know why it took 38 days to get back to me."

Baby-Faced Beardy took a look. He peeled off one of the yellow stickers that were on top of each other. I first thought he was trying to see the edge of my writing, to see if the address was good. But no, he was looking at the underlying yellow sticker.

"Huh. This was July 26."

"That's still A MONTH after it was mailed. Before they even said it couldn't be delivered."

"Yeah. I don't know why that part took so long. But they've (here he gave a chuckle) put this sticker on saying it was undeliverable, without giving a reason WHY it was undeliverable. So it went back there, and they just said it was undeliverable again, and put the RETURN TO SENDER on it. They shouldn't have done that. There should be a reason why it couldn't be delivered."

By this time, he had peeled both the yellow stickers off the envelope, and was kind of tapping the envelope on the counter.

"What do you want us to do for you?"

He said that in a polite way, really trying to help, not in a smart-a$$ way, mocking me. Like maybe did I want him to send it again. Perhaps giving me free postage for my trouble, though he did not suggest it himself.

"Oh, I'll just open it up and mail it again this week. Is there something I should do about the address? Why is it coming back? I've used that address for three years."

"Have you gotten them back before?"

"Once or twice. It always seems like it's in the summer. Like maybe they get new student workers or something at the college. But I don't know how the post office works. If students are allowed to handle or deliver the campus mail."

"Does he still live there in the summer?"

"Yes. Nothing changes."

"Well, it could be their sorter. If it happens again, take it to the main post office over in Sis-Town."

"That's what I did before. They got on their computer and looked up the address, and said that's how it should be written. But I thought I'd ask here this time, in case anything had changed."

"They didn't say why it was undeliverable, so I don't know. Sorry that I can't be of more help."

"That's okay. Just thought I'd check."

See there? A young person who knows how to unruffle an old lady's feathers by being polite, and revealing a bit about the sticker mistake made by his far-away cohorts.

Customer service isn't really that hard.