Oops, I Win It Again

Can't keep a good gal down. I have had a lucrative week playing scratchers, not needing to delve once into my weekly allowance money that I use for scratching. I had consecutive days of $50, $50, $25, $45, nothing, $20, and $150. Of course, some of that was re-invested into the next day's tickets. But I've built my casino bankroll back up to where I like to keep it.

Here's my latest windfall, from Friday, the $150 day.

It was the first ticket I scratched that day. So the rest was gravy. $50 worth of gravy. I was ecstatic to find the 20X symbol under the multiplier. Usually, I get the 1X on these tickets. I first noticed the 2, and was crowing to win $10. But it was $100, by cracky!

I showed it to Farmer H, and told him I felt bad for Genius, because I'd bought this in a group of four tickets, on the way to the post office, and put two in an envelope with Genius's letter.

"Genuis is really my biggest good luck charm. Every time I buy our tickets together, and pick out two to send him, MINE end up winning something good."

"Sorry for GENIUS? What about ME?" Said Farmer H. Not at all self-centered.

Well, the difference is, I don't buy tickets for Farmer H. So his bad luck is all his own doing, and none of mine. I like to win, but I'd really like Genius to win, too. Even though he's pretty rich, what with his fancy job making a higher salary upon putting his signature to contract than I earned in my final year of teaching.

Farmer H was also bemoaning the cold (45 degrees) rainy weather on Friday.

"I was the only one in the whole flea market who opened my Storage Unit Store. I had two customers, though! And made $54."

"Well, if people drive all the way to the flea market, I guess they might as well come in and see what the only proprietor has for sale."

"I only had two customers. One is my guy who asks me to get stuff for him. And the other was the mom of Genius's bowling team friend. Her husband, actually, coming to get some buttons I'd saved for her."

"Well, you still made money for your trouble."

Saturday turned out to be cold and cloudy as well, but without the rain. Farmer H made sure to tell me that he'd done okay.

"I'd say I took in $150."

Of course he would. Funny how that's the same amount I won on Friday...

Mrs. HM's Not-Very-Terrible Tater

Farmer H wanted chicken and dumplings for supper Wednesday night. Oh, not the real thing! What do you think I am, some kind of backwoods Michelin chef? No siree, Bob! I take every shortcut possible. I am like the Rosie Ruiz of cooks.

So I made Farmer H my poor-man's chicken and dumplings. Not poor, as in monetarily challenged. Poor, as in pitiful, a sad sack whose wife won't make him real chicken and dumplings. This kind might be called 6-can chicken and dumplings. Two cans of chicken broth, two cans of cream of chicken soup, and two cans of white-meat chicken. Plus a pack of flour tortillas, cut into squares, added after the 4 liquid cans are boiling, then stirred for 5 minutes. Chicken is added after. Oh, and I always put in a lot of ground black pepper, and some minced garlic while boiling.

Anyhoo...this isn't about Farmer H! It's about ME! I'm not a big fan of poor man's chicken and dumplings. I ate it Wednesday night, because it was hot and ready. But I did not want it again on Thursday, even though Farmer H was looking forward to his leftovers. I decided to have a Terrible Tater. That's a large baked potato, covered with butter, sour cream, and barbecued pulled pork. I didn't name it. That was from a restaurant that has since gone out of business. Go figure! Who WOULDN'T be clamoring for a menu item called The Terrible Tater?

I had a bag of giant baking potatoes, but I didn't want to go whole hog on this tater. Wise choices, you know. So I chose the smallest of the giant potatoes, which was about 1.5 times the size of a normal potato. I left off the butter, because who needs that many different flavors? I put on a thin layer of sour cream, then my BBQ pulled pork, which came out of a tub that I bought at Save A Lot in the refrigerated section.

Yeah. My Terrible Tater wasn't real big. And was topped with just sour cream and BBQ pulled pork. So you might say it was just a Naughty Tater. Not terrible.

When The Rat's Away, The HouseMouse Doesn't Get To Play

Farmer H drove himself to our old favorite casino today. Funny how he didn't ask if I wanted to go! He knows, though, that I'm compiling my casino bankroll again, for a CasinoPalooza over the holidays, and don't want to fritter it away right now. Besides, he was going on a Goodwill tour as well. I don't enjoy that. He went last Thursday, too.

Farmer H also had a $15 free gift card (each Thursday in October, for The Devil's Playground) to pick up as a comp at the casino, as did I. But you have to show ID to get it, so he couldn't take mine along with him. It's not worth it to me to spend my hard-won money gambling just to walk in and pick up a $15 gift card. And you KNOW that Mrs. HM can't walk through a casino without playing! It's worth it to Farmer H, because he doesn't gamble as much. He's on his own dime now anyway, so I don't care.

Here's a weird thing Farmer H told me earlier this week. He said one of his buddies from the Storage Unit Store won $500 playing slots one day, and $1000 the next. RIGHT HERE IN HILLMOMBA! That can't be right. We're not on the river. How can we have slot machines? I thought casinos in Missouri were relegated to riverboat gambling. The days are done when you had to actually cruise before betting. And the casinos are on floating platforms that qualify as being on the river, even though they look like regular buildings.

Farmer H said the guy was playing at a gas station/convenience store up the road from The Gas Station Chicken Store. I call poppycock! No way! I'm pretty sure gambling in Missouri is regulated. It's not like Oklahoma, where the Indian Nation has the monopoly on gambling, and you can find slots in gas stations.

I don't shop at that convenience store. I went in several years ago, when the Diet Coke fountains were broken simultaneously at the GSCS and Orb K, and I didn't like their set-up or the attitude of their workers. I don't plan to go back, even though I see on the MoLottery website every now and then that they've had a big winner on their scratchers. No way I'm going to stand around a convenience store playing slots. Which I doubt are there. Farmer H must be confused.

Farmer H has standing instructions to go in that convenience store and scope the place out, to see if that guy knows what he's talking about. He has not gone yet.

I'll keep you posted.

Ripped Froim A Page In The Stalker Handbook

I might have off-handedly mentioned in passing once in a blue moon that Farmer H is always turning up wherever I am. Whether it's in the kitchen to crowd into my space while I'm warming unhealthy food for his supper, or sitting at the table to lecture me while I'm washing dishes that couldn't be paper plates or plastic forks from the unhealthy supper, or sitting on the long couch while I'm trying to do my morning innernetting on HIPPIE...he always appears.

For a short time now, I seem to have dissuaded Farmer H from sidling into my dark basement lair while I'm having lunch. Or maybe it's just a happy accident, because I don't have lunch now until 2:30 or 3:00. Anyhoo...my guard has been down, as I've grown complacent with the kitchen/dishwashing/innernetting interruptions.

Wednesday, I walked out of The Gas Station Chicken Store, happily clutching my 44 oz Diet Coke in my left hand, along with some scratchers I'd traded a $20 winner for. Yes, I was virtually skipping with joy, having procured my two major addictions, with Chicken Bacon Ranch Pinwheels (finally in stock at Walmart) in a cooler in T-Hoe's rear, awaiting my lunchtime appetite. All was right with my world. All was ROCKIN' in my world!

A car was parked right next to T-Hoe! Backed in! The driver only a couple feet away from the door I would be unlocking and entering, while preoccupied with a 44 oz Diet Coke and some scratchers.

IT WAS FARMER H!

Uh huh. I knew the gray car was similar to his TrailBlazer, but a glare on the windshield kept me from seeing who was inside, until I was nearly to T-Hoe. Now Farmer H was following me to town, and waiting outside my daily haunts. Okay. Truthfully, he had been to the city already that morning, if I was to believe his text. And now he had turned up out of the blue, all up in my business.

Seriously. I think this might be in the Unofficial Stalker Handbook. How to discover your victim's routine, and plant yourself nearby to catch her outside of her vehicle, and away from people who might intervene.

At least it was during daylight hours, and not under cloak of darkness.

Farmer H, P.I.

Farmer H has a buddy who drives a truck for the electric company. So I wasn't surprised when I tried to leave the driveway on Tuesday, and found it blocked by an electric company truck. Farmer H was sitting on his $1700 lawnmower beside it, talking. He tried to wave me through the yard in T-Hoe, but I was having none of that. He wasn't getting rid of ME that easily, so he could gossip without being rushed.

I parked T-Hoe halfway down the driveway, waiting. It's not like I'm on a schedule. Besides, I wanted to talk to Farmer H. The electric company truck left, and Farmer H pulled up beside T-Hoe.

"You didn't have to stop talking. I'm not in a hurry."

"My buddy said he had to get going, anyway. Somebody else got their electric turned off! He didn't say who. I asked if it was the people up on the hill, and he said no, he didn't have to go up the hill today. So now I'm wondering who it was."

"And he can't tell, because that violates confidentiality."

"Maybe. He didn't offer. But if I said, "Was it Tommy?" he might have told me. Because I'd be the one who guessed. I really am afraid it's Tommy."

"I hope not. You'd think Tommy would be sure to spend whatever money he has on food, and then on electricity. And let anything else slide. Like insurance."

"I don't know. He's done okay so far, and he still goes to work. I can't imagine who else it would be."

Several hours later, I got a text from Farmer H, P.I.

"We do have power don't we. I think I know who got shut off."

"Yes we have power."

"PartyMom just messaged me asking if we had power."

"Crap. While I'm still feeling bad about her daughter's phone being taken away. Maybe they should use the phone money on the electric bill."

"Just saw my buddy going back up the road towards their house."

"Maybe he got the wrong one. Or THEY didn't get THEIR electric bill. For 6 months."

"Probably paid on the phone."

"Or not."

"Ya. Who knows."

"Or maybe their credit card expired and they forgot to put in the new one. It could happen."

See? That totally COULD happen. Because when our new credit card came, I remembered to update my Amazon account, but totally forgot about PayPal for a week or so. Good thing I didn't try to use it. That's what's wrong with all this technology. You can think your payment is being taken out as usual, but if you don't update, it won't be.

You'd think they'd get a notice, though. It's none of Farmer H's business whose power was turned off. We'd just worry if it was Tommy.

Is It About To Freeze Over, Or Is The Requested Ice Water Melting?

Monday, I rushed over to The Devil's Playground because I was out of Chicken Bacon Ranch Pinwheels. Actually, The Devil was out on my previous trip, and I'd just run out of two Turkey and Cheese Pinwheels.

Just my luck, I rounded the corner into the deli area, and there was a woman with a full cart, and a teenage girl. I really think she should have been in school! Because then she wouldn't have been able to pick up the last container of Turkey and Cheese Pinwheels, and wheedle her mother's permission to put it in the cart. Leaving only about a dozen Italian Style Pinwheels. Which nobody likes. Nobody. That's why they are always left on the shelf.

I swear, if I was in charge of The Devil's deli, I would stock three times as many Chicken Bacon Ranch Pinwheels, the same Turkey and Cheese as they stock now, and do away with the Italian Style. But that's just me. I don't presume to be The Devil.

Good thing, too! Because when I had pulled up outside, it looked like The Devil had his hands full today.

Is it ironic, perhaps, that I call this place The Devil's Playground, and the service man there helping to resolve the situation is driving a truck with LORD on the side? Heh, heh. That amused me.

I think the source of the flooding was on the wall there, behind those carts. It looked like some kind of spigot. Maybe for washing carts, or for the fire department to hook up to in case of a conflagration.

Not my problem, since I'm not The Devil.

Sometimes, I Wish They Were REAL Crocs

The other night, I was standing in the kitchen making supper for Farmer H, who was kicked back in the La-Z-Boy, watching reruns of MASH. All at once, Farmer H cranked the La-Z-Boy forward and exclaimed,

"I forgot my lottery ticket!"

He buys one every now and then, and sticks it up on the visor of his TrailBlazer. Then when I sit down to discuss my day's winnings (hopefully!) with him, he remembers. This time, I had no winners, and hadn't even mentioned the subject. But Farmer H suddenly remembered his ticket, and had to go outside RIGHT THEN to get it. He was like a cat who can be lazily twitching his tail, chilling on the carpet, and suddenly realizes HE NEEDS TO BE IN ANOTHER ROOM INSTANTANEOUSLY, and tears out of there like a car rounding a corner on two wheels.

Farmer H was delayed momentarily, though. He was just entering the kitchen when he hesitated.

"Huh. I need some shoes."

He went back to the living room, to his collection of three pairs sitting by the fake electric fireplace, just in front of the La-Z-Boy. I don't know what he'd been thinking when he came to the kitchen barefoot, on his way out the door to his Trailblazer parked in gravel. OH YES I DO!

It was not lost on me that Farmer H was right beside the living room bookcase, against the wall where the kitchen starts, when he had that revelation about needing shoes. That's where I park my Crocs. Except I was wearing them on my feet at that moment. Not my old red Crocs, all worn down and misshapen, that I wear all the time around the house. No. My newest Crocs. Which makes them about 6 years old, I think, since I got my mom a pair at the same time, and she's been gone three years now. These Crocs are dark blue. Not even broken in yet!

That's right! Farmer H was planning to wear my newest Crocs out to his car. Which he apparently does all the time, since without even thinking, he bypassed his own shoes, and went straight to the location of mine. Dang it! I don't want Farmer H's stubby bare feet, with the (formerly broken) big toe that doesn't bend, inside my newest Crocs! Call me selfish, but I think some things are personal, my shoes being one.

Uh huh. You know how I hate feet. And here was privileged Farmer H, with $1000 inserts from The Good Feet Store, still wanting to horn in on my $9.99 Crocs that I got off Amazon. When he came back in the Mansion, I let him have it. And I don't mean my newest pair of Crocs!

"You've been wearing my Crocs, haven't you? I KNEW IT! I don't want your feet in there! Your bare feet, all moist and diseasey! Keep your feet out of my shoes!"

Seriously. He has HIS OWN pair of Crocs, which I bought for him, all camouflage and manly, but he's too lazy to walk 10 steps around the short couch to get to them when he goes through the house. Not to mention, they're RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM when he's sitting in the La-Z-Boy.

Here's a picture from the La-Z-Boy. My newest blue Crocs, awaiting my feet when I stand up, and Farmer H's camouflage Crocs. Plus a pair of his shoes that I think he stole out of The Pony's room.

I really wish he had bigger feet, which would keep him out of my Crocs for sure. And while I'm wishing, I wish that they were REAL Crocs, that could bite him if he sticks his Farmer-H-y feet inside my newest Crocs.

Not to sever his feet, of course. He already sounds like he's walking on ankle-stumps from down in my lair. No, just to bite into his flesh. Maybe make him need a tetanus booster. Or give him a little infection requiring antibiotics and a short period of staying off his feet.

I'm pretty sure he wore them again two nights ago. I gave him the option to confess.

"I'm giving you ONE CHANCE to be honest with me. Have you been wearing my Crocs again?"

"No."

"Because they were messed up. The strap was down."

"Oh. I ran into them the other night. Maybe that did it."

I'm pretty sure he was lying. If they were REAL Crocs, I would see the telltale tooth marks.