What's Good For The Pony Is Good For The MOMBA

A couple days ago I hollered through the closed door of The Pony's room to remind him to check his credit card balance, and pay it if necessary. He has it set to be due on his birthday date, and I've always told him to check it on my birthday date four days before. He hasn't been late on a payment. 

Anyhoo... the next day, The Pony was fuming with faux outrage.

"I didn't have a balance to pay this month, but listen to THIS! The bank wanted me to set up an IRA! I feel so OLD! I mean, sure I will do that when I get a steady job. I was reading how much it will be worth when I'm old enough to draw it out. But I'm not ready for that yet!"

"Heh, heh! Welcome to the club. The OLD PEOPLE CLUB!"

Monday morning, I was treated to a dose of my own medicine when I turned on HIPPIE for my morning innernetting. I always go to the BING page and peruse the news stories that they want to spoon-feed me. Huh. It's perhaps ironic that I just typed those words: spoon-feed. Because I was outraged at the AD that was amongst the thumbnail pictures of the news stories across the top of HIPPIE's screen:

AFFORDABLE PLUS-SIZE...

They never show a complete sentence. It's always cut off. But when The Pony came in to ask me something, I told him,

"I know how you feel about the IRA! You won't believe what BING is trying to sell me! AFFORDABLE PLUS-SIZE clothes! So not only am I FAT, I'm also POOR!"

The Pony got a chuckle out of that. Yes. I'm selfless, spreading joy throughout Hillmomba, even at the cost of my own dignity.

Ungrateful Feeders

Since our last cat seems to have gone to a farm upstate... there is no need to buy cat food any more. Well. There IS, because the dogs dearly love it as a treat. Not so much in the warm weather as in the winter, when they need fuel to keep their bodies running on all cylinders until they can lie in the sun and re-charge. 

We have a horrendous squirrel problem. They used to just steal the chicken feed, but since the chickens all went to live on a farm upstate, courtesy of transportation by the mouths of the neighbor dogs, the squirrels have claimed the cat kibble as their own. After all, they can scamper up the porch supports, run along the rail, and jump over to that bench thing against the garage wall that holds the old black speckled roaster pan Farmer H uses for a feeder.

As I sat at the kitchen table peeling eggs for deviling last Saturday, Farmer H came in from his Storage Unit Store shift.

"I don't think we need to put out cat food now. The dogs can't jump up to get it, and it disappears pretty fast from these darn squirrels. I saw one run along here that was as BIG as a CAT!"

"Yeah. I don't have to buy any. We're almost out."

"But the dogs love it!"

"I can leave it in the garage. You can get some out of the can where I keep it."

"Yeah. It's harder, but I hate feeding these bushy-tailed rats."

So now I have to go into the garage, set my purse on T-Hoe's hood and hope it doesn't slide off, take the lid off a little plastic wastebasket with two side latches (I don't think any animals in there can open the lid, but he latches it), dip a little saucepan into the kibble, and walk out to the side porch and dump some for each dog. I don't LIKE doing extra "work," but I will. For my dogs.

Monday I threw some of the leftover Easter feast off the back porch. Farmer H was draining water off POOLIO's cover, and said the dogs had been sniffing around it, but he didn't know if they ate any. From the looks of it, I think they only had some potatoes that were cooked with bacon draped over the top.

Anyhoo... the dogs still ate the cat kibble I gave them. Less that a handful each. 

When I returned from town, the dogs greeted me, but without the energy they usually have to gambol and frolic with the excitement of an upcoming TREAT when I get the kitchen door unlocked. In fact, they just walked slowly to the side porch, stuck their noses at me, and walked to the top of the steps. Juno did not start "talking" as she usually does, with whimpers and whines and short barks of anticipation when I say the magic sentence, 

"Are you ready for a TREAT?"

The closer I looked, the more I understood. I guess they'd been feasting on the yard feast. Jack's belly looked more like a basset hound than a dachshund, and Juno appeared rather portly under her sleek black fur. Copper Jack didn't even bother to leave the yard and come up on the porch.

The Discombobulation Of The Woman Owner Of The Gas Station Chicken Store

Whoopsie! I did it again. I played with her mind, and she got lost in the blame. Yes, the Woman Owner of the Gas Station Chicken Store was mighty confused when I walked out the door on Sunday. She was pretty hard on herself. You know, what with running this business over 30 years, and being the one to train a whole small-town population of cashiers over that time. But I must take some responsibility.

Man Owner was busy helping a teenage kid who was paying for his mom's gas. He couldn't work the chip card. Then he didn't know the security number it asked for. So he had to run back outside to ask her. Man Owner was telling Woman Owner that he remembered when the kid was THIS HIGH, but couldn't remember his mom's name. Woman Owner told him. She was stepping behind him to scan my winning scratchers, since she'd offered to help me at the left register while Man Owner was busy.

She asked how I was, and I said, "Great, but I hate this wind. I can hardly keep my shirt from blowing up over my head. I wish I knew who ordered this wind!"

Man Owner: "Ha ha. We have a shipment of KITES coming in tomorrow..."

I knew he didn't. But it was pretty funny. Woman Owner showed me my receipt stapled to the winning scratchers. I had $55. I knew that going in. I planned to spend $25. That being $24 of it on scratchers, and $1 on my magical elixir, plus I'd give her the 69 cents for the soda. That would give me $30 in change. I like to make it come out even.

Woman Owner tore off my tickets, and punched them into the register, saying the amount of each, then laying it in front of me as she did so. That's how she trains her staff. I told her I had my 69 cents exact change, and she giggled.

"Oh, GOOD! Because I was really confused when you didn't have it the other day, heh, heh."

"I KNOW! So was I!"

"Okay. That'll be $61.78."

"Um. Are you sure? Because shouldn't it be 69 cents? Not 78? It's always $1.69 for my soda." [I was so fixated on that exact change that the enormity of me owing $61 didn't even register in my brain.]

"Oh. What did I do?"

"Did you ring up a 32 oz? Or smaller?"

"No. It shows here (she pulled out the register tape) I rang up a 44 oz."

"That doesn't seem right..."

"Let me look. OH! Silly me! I forgot to clear the gas purchase I had on here! I'll have to deal with that after you leave. I'm sorry. Here! You get $50 back."

"Uh. I don't think so! I only gave you $55 of winners!"

"Oh my. WHAT have I done? Let's see... you should owe me $25.69. Take off the $55. So I own you $30 back! I'm terrible today!"

"No. I confused you talking about the wind."

"No. It's totally my fault. 

"Oh, no! You might need Man Owner to show you how to do it!" [He's notorious for messing things up, and being really slow.]

"I hope not!"

"I think you need to go lay down for a while!"

"YES! That's just what I need. Thank you for suggesting that? Did you hear her? I need to go lay down for a while."

Man Owner looked perplexed for a minute, until he realized she was kidding.

I really need to keep my mouth shut when I go in there. Before they deny me my magical elixir. Like a certain New York SOUP STAND PROPRIETOR on a show about nothing...

With A Knick Knack Paddy Whack Give A Dog A Bun, This Old Man Sucks All The Fun

My dogs could have had a delicious treat on Saturday. The potatoes and carrots that had been steeping in the bacon fat since LAST Saturday. The only problem is the bacon fat. According to Farmer H, I am prohibited from putting such a treat on the porch, because it will stain the wood for a week or so.

Sweet Gummi Mary! If he had treated the porch wood with sealer like he professed to be doing on his little scooter thingy with his paint-by-numbers brush... I don't think the bacon grease would soak in. Maybe I could try serving it to each of them on a plate the next day, when winds shouldn't be 35 mph. Then I could pick up the plates as soon as they were done. So Jack wouldn't eat them.

Anyhoo... my dogs had to be treated with a hot dog bun apiece, one day from expiration. I could have given them more, but maybe Farmer H would want a hot dog...

Anyhoo... last week in Country Mart, I saw some kiddie pools. Little plastic colorful kiddie pools, maybe 3-4 feet in diameter. I told Farmer H about them.

"Country Mart has little plastic swimming pools! I bet Jack would love one of those in the yard. You know how he likes the water."

"He'd just chew it up."

"Not at first. Remember how he loved that little dish tub when he was a pup?"

 

 

"He chews up everything."

Well. Jack DOES have a chewing issue. But if he was splashing in the water, I don't think he'd chew. Farmer H is a fun-sucker.

A Risque Ride With A 2-Liter-Coke-Swilling Pony

The Pony and I picked up Domino's Pizza on Friday, for our late lunch/early supper. Lupper. As usual, The Pony rode shotgun in T-Hoe. We got his rolling feast first, and he strapped on the old feedbag before I even left the parking lot. 

My next stop was the Liquor Store, where I got a $3 crossword scratcher that later won $12. From there it was off to the Gas Station Chicken Store. A journey that requires nerves of steel and cat-like reflexes, to make a right turn out of the parking lot when the stoplight turns red to hold up oncoming traffic, but before the right-turn-on-red people hit the accelerator. As soon as I'm out of the parking lot, I have to swerve into the left-turn lane immediately, onto the street beside Casey's, to take a short cut across the back of Farmer H's pharmacy, and across the moat to the GSCS.

"Hold onto your pizza!" One of those things you never thought you'd be saying to your future kids.

The GSCS sold me tickets (that won their money back. So it was not a banner scratcher day, but nothing to sneeze at), which I put away for later scratching, and settled my 44 oz Diet Coke into T-Hoe's cup holder. 

"Aah. My precious! My magical elixir!"

"Heh, heh! I won't even say it. It's too obvious. I can't... but you know what it sounds like."

The Pony lets his 13-year-old freak flag fly. His humor relies heavily upon "That's what SHE said" scenarios. 

"Okay. I know what you're getting at with E LIX IR."

As I waited at the light, I sympathized with Man Owner.

"Man Owner is working all by himself. He's not the fastest cashier. You'd think after owning this place, and doing it for 30 years, he'd be a little better at it."

"I take it his temperament is better than Woman Owner?"

"Yes. Man Owner shall inherit the earth. Woman Owner will reign in the Nether Region."

I thought The Pony was going to snort a liter of Coke out of his flaring nostrils as I made the right turn at the light to head home.

"UM! UH!"

"Okay. I know what I said. What I MEANT was NetherWORLD! WORLD! But it's hard when you get old and probably are coming down with a case of Alzheimer's!"

"Well, yeah. Nether REGION has a different meaning entirely!"

"I KNOW that! I use it all the time."

We made it another three miles before my sweet revenge was served up on a silver platter, by Even Steven wearing a tux and white gloves. As we rounded the last curve on the blacktop county road, headed up the hill before the descent to Mailbox Row... a white dump truck pulled out of a long gravel driveway on the right.

"Eew. Yuck."

"What do you mean? It's only a dump truck."

"I thought he was going to stay there. This is no place to drive on the other side of the road to go around him. Hill."

"I bet he just put gravel on their driveway. Yep. Look up there."

"I can see where he just dumped his load up and down it."

"HA HA HA HA HA!"

"STOP! I just realized what I said, a little too late."

It's pretty early for The Pony to be having Alzheimer's set in...

My WORST Day Now Could Have Been My BEST Day Then

Back when I was working, I would have killed to have a day like Thursday. Maybe not killed, exactly. Unless it was my regular sping-summer killing spree when I take the Black Flag insecticide can that shoots 20 feet, and roam around the Mansion porch bringing liquid death to stinging freeloaders hanging from the soffits.

Now that I'm a lovely-lady-mulleted lady of leisure, Thursday was not such a great day. To begin with, my alarm clock was on the fritz. By alarm clock, I mean The Pony. He has standing orders to wake me every day at 11:00. Then I verbally press the snooze button, and tell him to come back in 30 minutes. 

The Pony is like a cheap timepiece. He loses time. For a month or more, he's been waking me at 11:15, saying it's 11:00. THEN he comes back at 11:45, and says, "It's been a half hour." Technically true. But that makes it almost NOON when I arise.

Thursdays are my errand days. Bank, post office, gas, Burger King. My itinerary is spun gossamer-fine. If I don't get to Burger King before 2:55, I'm in a world of hurt. SCHOOL lets out around 2:50. The traffic is horrendous. Like people trying to get out of town before the meteor in Deep Impact. So I was really planning to get up at 11:00. Or 11:15. But no. On Thursday, The Pony didn't give my first alarm until 11:30. And came back at 12:05.

It didn't help that Farmer H had left my good square glass bowl, now bereft of 7-layer salad, full of water in the sink. So I had to start dishes. My phone lit up with a text from my sister the ex-mayor's wife, inviting us on a CASINOPALOOZA next week. We can't go. Farmer H has a medical appointment, and The Pony is waiting to hear from the USPS. It doesn't pay to be five hours away if they want him to come in for training on short notice.

I had to write a check for Genius, since he miscalculated his scratcher winners. And I also needed to print out my tax return, since I'd been putting it off to make sure the printer had enough ink for Genius's letter.

By the time I left the Mansion, it was 1:50. A quick stop by the Gas Station Chicken Store got me part of Genius's new tickets to put in his letter I was on the way to mail. Then I encountered utility work on the way to Sis-Town. And a car had parked, blocking the entrance road to the cemetery, so my routine short visit was thwarted.

Lucky for me, Farmer H did part of the banking on Wednesday, so I skipped that torture chamber, and got gas without incident. Mailed Genius's letter at the drive-thru mailbox. Made my next-to-last stop at the Sis-Town Casey's for scratchers. When I came out, I looked across the 4-way-stop to see cars lined up as far as the eye could see, from the elementary school. 

 

I got to Burger King with only one car ahead of me to order. At the stoplight over there, I saw cars all the way past the turn-in to Farmer H's nurse practitioner. Heh, heh. I'd made the mistake of coming back that way last week. That would have been 10 minutes of burning my just-bought gas before getting through the light. So I'm glad I reversed my route this time.

I only had a slight headache when I got home. Which was to grow into a non-physical BIG headache when I plugged in the special exact replacement batteries (that I got out of EmBee) to my lair phone, and got the message INSERT BATTERY. Looks like we'll have to buy four new phones anyway. I can't believe they don't last more than 15 years!

When I went upstairs around 8:00 to chat with Farmer H about THE MOST RECENT THING YOU'VE DONE WRONG, the topic was the opaque plastic quart container that once held Sweet & Sour Soup. It had been holding the bacony vinchtables from our Easter feast. I had two and a half containers. Farmer H had used the last of this one, and SET IT IN THE SINK, FULL OF COLD WATER.

Really? Had he only set it on the counter, I could have wiped the insides with stale bread for the dog treats on Friday. They love bacon greasy bread! But now it was all wet. I dumped out the water and set it aside. Perhaps to dry overnight. The grease was clearly still intact.

It's now 1:57 a.m. on Friday. Surely this day will be better. The Pony and I are getting Domino's Pizza for lupper. I will take one last look at the phones on the chargers, before commanding Farmer H to pick up a set at The Devil's Playground. It's not the cost, nor the inconvenience. We can afford a cheap set of phones, and Farmer H will plug them in. It's the CHANGE that I dread. Even though The Pony will explain to me how to use them.

SOOO... I'm fairly optimistic about Friday. Stop that! I heard your eyes roll! I AM. This day can only be better. And the very BEST part? I don't have to get up at 4:50 a.m. and drive to school to teach all day!

Sixlet Of One, No Half A Dozen Of The Other

The Pony usually goes to the Devil's Playground for me on a Tuesday. He wants to go on Monday, but I remind him that the shelves are bare after the weekend, and we may not get the delicacies we are jonesin' for. Like baby dill pickles that are actually the size I prefer, which is more like premature, rather than the starting-pre-school size in the recent jars he has bought by default. 

Last week, The Pony kept putting off his (my) shopping trip. I was starting to think he wouldn't make it, and I needed a couple of items for the holiday meal that I couldn't find at Country Mart. And also some PEEPS and Sixlets for my candy stash. 

 

He'd finally relented, and said he'd go on Thursday. Which was pushing it, what with Thursday being the first day of the month, when many people get their checks, and with EASTER coming up, and people buying their feast vittles.

Anyhoo... as you may have discerned from my other blog, the Thursday shopping trip did not happen. The Pony was busy waiting on an email from the USPS about his CONDITIONAL job offer as a City Carrier Assistant. Then he heard from them, and had to drive 90 minutes one-way to give his fingerprints on Friday. So the actual shopping trip to the Devil's Playground was on Saturday. The first weekend of the month, and the day before Easter!

I'd like to blame The Pony for his procrastination, but I can't. He comes by it honestly. I am a world-class procrastinator. A national champion and a gold medal winner. I don't mean to brag, but I'd say that I'm in the top 99.99th percentile of procrastinators. My speaking engagements would be booked years in advance. I would be Professor Emeritus of Procrastinatorship. There might even be a scholarship in my name. Or an award to be lauded at the graduation ceremony.

Anyhoo... because The Pony put off that shopping trip so long, 

I AM WITHOUT PEEPS!

Oh, how I love those squishy pink bunnies! You can have the chick version. NO! I take that back! I would welcome any shape or color of PEEP right now. They were not available last year, you know. And this year they made a comeback, but now I can only hope for a revival at Christmas time. 

The good news, and what kept The Pony out of the dog house, is that he found SIXLETS! 

 

 

They were my second choice. I can only find them at Easter time. The Pony was quite proud of himself.

"Mom! I got you FOUR bags! There are 75 in a bag. So you have enough to eat one pack a day until the END OF THE YEAR!"

"Yeah. Well. THAT'S probably not going to happen. But I'm thrilled to have so many Sixlets!"

I am. But I still want my PEEPS.