The Pony Sees The Light

I felt quite guilty Friday morning. When I awoke in my OPC (Old People Chair) around 11:00 a.m. and headed up the 13 rail-less stairs from the basement, my phone buzzed to signal an incoming text. What I saw chilled me to the bone. Okay. I was already chilled to the bone, having left the comfort of my heated OPC, and fleece blanket won at one of the Christmas Eve parties at the home of my sister the ex-ex mayor's wife. But still, it was a disconcerting text. From The Pony.

"I'm not sure I'll be able to make it to work. I woke up at 6 with a migraine, medicine hasn't helped in 45 minutes. I'm having trouble focusing my eyes and even moving around in the shower is making me feel sick. I really don't think it's safe for me to drive like this."

Sweet Gummi Mary! In The Pony's hour of need, I was not there for him! I would have been, if the text had come in on time. It was stamped 6:43 a.m. Darn my poor SPRINT reception! Sometimes I can get texts by my OPC. But I can't send them. I get the orange exclamation mark telling me to resend or delete.

Now it was 11:00 a.m. The Pony had left for work at 8:05. I know, because he came down a few steps to tell me goodbye. He didn't mention a migraine. And I fell back asleep in my toasty chair, having turned the heater on again. It's on a 15 minute timer.

Of course I sent a text to The Pony. I don't often do that. He's busy working. I figured he could check his phone on his bathroom break. 

"Is your head okay? That long text just came in."

Let the record show that The Pony is a writer. Each text is the next War and Peace.

"It was better by the time I left. Just nausea. I sent that text at 6:42 a.m."

Of course that didn't help my guilt, but I was glad to hear that The Pony ONLY had nausea. It was a bear of a day, too. So humid after a downpour, and actual tempersture in the 90s. But The Pony survived to tell the tale. On Sunday. THIS TALE:

"You know the other morning when I had my migraine? I had the light off in my bathroom, because it hurt my eyes. So I was taking my shower in the dark. And you know what? The shower drain GLOWED! Light came out of it! I don't even know how that works."

Well. At first I imagined it to be like that shaft of sunlight through the staff-topper of Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Then The Pony clarified that it was just a glow.

"Maybe it was coming through the pipes from another drain? Somewhere else in the house? With the light on. It couldn't be the NASCAR bathroom. Light was off. But the kitchen has the light we leave on."

"That's the only one. The sunlight wasn't coming in the house at that time, to reach any other drain."

The Pony looked around the basement when he carried down my magical elixir and bubba cups of ice.

"Hm. I don't see ANY light that's very bright, or close enough to that drain."

"I don't know. I'll have to ask your dad."

Of course Farmer H had the answer. 

"Well, yeah. Light can show through the pipe. It's not coming down THROUGH the pipe. It's coming in from the side. It's not very thick. It's that white PVC pipe. Light can go though. Like if you hold a flashlight up to your hand. Your hand is solid. But the light goes through, and makes that red glow."

I might even believe Farmer H's explanation this time...

The Couch Is Left Holding The Bag

Of Holding. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

The Pony has been working an odd schedule ever since he started. Which is pretty much NOT a schedule, but a weekly list put up for all employees to check. A couple days, he was told he wasn't needed, less than an hour before his shift. Other weeks, his scheduled day off was shelved the day before, and he had to go in. He doesn't complain. He takes whatever they give him. Monday, he says he goes in at 3:30, for a half-day, because they think they'll have some LLVs back for him to drive one. Since The Pony and MAW (Middle-Aged Woman) started, three new employees have joined the force.

Anyhoo... The Pony mainly goes in at 9:00, and leaves whenever they run out of work for him. If he finishes his route, they send him to help others. He's fine with that, too. Last week, he had a couple of 11-hour days. But he was off Tuesday and Thursday. He's never had to work a Sunday yet. He says this office doesn't do that, although others do, to deliver Amazon packages.

Anyhoo... The Pony worked until after 8:30 on Friday night. He came home and tossed some frozen fish sticks in the oven, eschewed his nightly 2-hour big triangle tub soak for a rinse-off in his own shower while the fish sticks were baking, and went to bed.

Saturday morning, he walked down half of the 13 rail-less basement steps to tell me bye, as usual. It was 8:05. Nothing different from any other day.

Saturday evening, Farmer H hollered to me in the kitchen as I was putting the cherry and lime flavoring in my magical elixir.

"I'd like to know how your little Pony is delivering mail today, with his mail bag sitting here on the couch!"

"What? I guess they have extra. Like they use for training, before they give them each their own kit. Maybe an old leather one, like they used to carry. I'm sure it didn't keep him from working. And he's not the type to get up early and leave like he's working, if he had some secret mission to accomplish. He'd sleep in."

"If you say so. But there it is. I don't know why he brings it in. He oughta just leave it in his car."

 

"Maybe there's something he's afraid might get stolen, that he's responsible for. But I'm pretty sure they turn in their scanners at the end of the day. He might be missing stuff he had in it, though. Hand sanitizer or something."

When I went to sit on the short couch to devote 10 minutes to Now Is the Time We Talk About the Most Recent Things You've Done Wrong (unclear credit card charges with no receipt) before Farmer H left for the auction... I saw the bag.

"That's not The Pony's mail bag! That's his personal bag. The one he carries his laptop in. I gave it to him for Christmas a couple years ago. He was just talking about it yesterday. How much he loves that bag, because it was good for carrying all his stuff at college. It's called a Bag of Holding. I ordered it from ThinkGeek, back before they went out of business, or joined up with GameStop. That is NOT The Pony's mail bag."

Yeah. The Pony had his mail bag all along. It was his Bag of Holding that the long couch was holding. It's a gray, padded messenger bag with assorted (some-zippered) pockets, and a cross-body padded shoulder strap. Not a dark blue nylon mail bag with a flap and inside dividers.

No Cottonmouth Chicken Salad For Mrs. HM

Remember the chicken salad sandwich I last had from Country Mart? The one so dry that using the term "salad" should have been grounds for a lawsuit due to violation of the Truth In Deli Product Nomenclature Law? Not that there is such a law, but I WISH!

Anyhoo... I made my own chicken salad at home. It was moist.

 

Of course, Country Mart still made a profit off of Mrs. HM. I bought some of their croissants. MY chicken salad was made with canned white meat chicken, because that's what I had on hand. It would be better with the boneless skinless chicken breasts cut up or shredded, but that's a project for another time, when I am ready to invest more effort. Also in my chicken salad is mayo, a dash of sugar ( I suspect Country Mart makes theirs with Miracle Whip), and some diced dill pickle. Country Mart uses celery, of which I am not a fan.

On the side, I had those delicious red grapes. I didn't cut them up into the chicken salad, because I like the pop of the grapes as I bite into them. My chicken salad lasted for four days' lunches, because I planned it that way to use all four croissants.

Yes. I would make mine again.

Can't Reach The Mailbox For The Trees

When Farmer H questioned why I parked over by the creek, on the wrong side of our gravel road, for him to get out and pick up the mail...

THIS is where he WANTED me to park:

 

That's the spot on the right side of the gravel road, where I park T-Hoe for ME to get out and walk across the blacktop road to get the mail. The perspective doesn't do it justice. Those trees are so close that the door will bang into them before it opens to the first notch. The ground is WOODS ground. Dead leaves and roots and uneven footing, sunken down from the gravel about a foot.

Of course Farmer H wanted me to park over there so he could get out for the mail. Because by parking across by the creek, in a logical spot for him to get the door open and have gravel under his feet... I was not letting him control me!

I should have moved over like he wanted. Except I don't want dents in T-Hoe's door.

Another Day Of Begrudged Servitude

I wish Farmer H would go back to his old ways of hanging out at his Storage Unit Store every waking moment. I don't know if his buddies up there have other things to do these days, or if the novelty has worn off. Farmer H is around the Mansion entirely too much. 

You know what THAT means, right? MORE WORK FOR MRS HM!

Wednesday, we had a tentative non-binding agreement to sit down at the kitchen table at 12:30, to fill out some online "paperwork" for one of Farmer H's ventures. We'd started it before, but he changed his mind a couple pages in. So... I started all over again. 

It's not exactly a collaboration when I work with Farmer H. I do all the work, while he sits across from me and reads me news items that pop up on his phone. I don't mind keeping up with current events, but when I'm on a website for the State of Missouri, reading their dry, dry instructions, and filling in info after looking up codes on assorted other sites... I can remain ignorant of worldly affairs for a couple hours.

Anyhoo... I must have been on about page four or five. They're not numbered. They just say SAVE AND CONTINUE at the bottom. But when I tried to continue, I got the PALE SCREEN OF PERPETUAL LOADING.

"Oh, no! We were only 38% done! Now it's just spinning. And it says, 'Please Do Not Press the Back Button or Refresh.' I don't know what to do!"

"Just let it go, I guess."

"We could be here all day! It's been FIVE MINUTES!"

After another couple of minutes, I got a weird screen talking about some kind of error, and possible IP something, or firewalls. I'd never seen a message quite like that page. It gave suggestions, like TRY AGAIN LATER. Not very helpful.

"I know! I'll check the IS IT DOWN website. AHA! The state website IS down! That's the problem! It's not us. WAIT A MINUTE! This says that website has been down FOR A WEEK! How do they expect people to do anything if their website is down? This is NOT a good thing! I guess we'll have to do everything all over again. Unless it locks you out when I try. There goes an hour of my life that I'll never get back!"

 

"I wish there was an office I could go to that would just let me do it there. I'd pay someone to do it. I'd drive all the way to Jeff City to do it. This here paper I got says they have an email. You could send them an email and ask about what to do with the website down."

 

"Seriously? Their website has been down for a WEEK, and you think they're going to answer emails? They don't care about reading emails. What are people gonna do if they don't answer? Send them ANOTHER email?"

 

Farmer H sometimes forgets that I'm an insider who has worked for a state agency. With that venture thwarted, Farmer H decided to do his laundry.

 

"Oh. I was going to do mine as I went to town."

 

"It will take you a while to get ready. I'll have mine out of the washer. Oh, and you need to drive me to Mick's to pick up my truck."

 

"Well, I'm not going to be ready until about 3:30."

 

"The time don't matter."

 

So off we went, Farmer H and me, his personal chauffeur. 

 

"Can you get the mail for me?"

 

"Yes. WAIT! Where are you going?"

 

"I'm parking here by the creek so you can get out and not be in the woods."

 

"I could get out over there if you park on the right side of the road."

 

"I don't think so. The Pony never could. The door won't even open against the trees. Unless I park in the MIDDLE of the gravel road, and block traffic BOTH ways. You can get out fine right here."

 

Sweet Gummi Mary! He'd argue with Helen Keller!

 

"Gosh, that sun is bright. I'd put on my sunglasses, but they're under my purse now that I had to set it on the console."

 

"Do you want me to get them for you?"

 

"NO! I don't want you messing around with my stuff. You already stepped on that spare straw I had laying there. I guess I won't be using it in an emergency if my shake straw collapses."

 

"Is there anything you don't complain about me doing?"

 

"No. I like it better when it's just me and my purse. And right now you're in Purse's seat."

 

I think tomorrow, I'll suggest that the lawn looks like it needs mowing...

Quest For Phone

The Pony is PHONED-UP again! If you thought my tale of adding him to my Sprint account was exhausting (the PROCESS, people, NOT my tale!), then you might have slipped into a coma after enduring The Pony and Farmer H's Quest for Phone.

 

They left home at 3:30 a.m. Farmer H was released from his medical procedure at 9:30. By 9:40, The Pony had LOST the carefully handwritten user name, password, and PIN that I had given him on a 3x5 note card. So I had to text it to him. Not something you want floating around out there in the invisible electronical cloud juju record. But whatcha gonna do?

 

The Pony had done some research on the new phone he wanted. It was out of stock EVERYWHERE that I looked. Meaning the local store, the one Farmer H prefers near the city, and three stores within 2 miles of where Farmer H was having his procedure. The Pony found one slightly on the way home, that said IN STOCK.

 

The Sprint stores didn't open until 10:00. The Pony said they were going to get something to eat. I imagined a pancake house, or perhaps a McDonald's. Only later did I find out that they went to TED DREWES! So my blog buddy River can understand the magnitude of this revelation... that's a FROZEN CUSTARD stand! I guess it's not any worse for breakfast than what they usually eat...

 

Anyhoo... The Pony said the people at the Sprint store told him about that discount for trading in a repaired broken phone. AND they directed him to a store that did it RIGHT THEN. So he decided to take that deal, and he and Farmer H went BACK to the city, for phone repair. It took a couple hours. 

 

Then it was back to buy his new phone. Of course they had to load all his apps and contacts on the new one. Farmer H sent a text that it was taking FOREVER. At 2:00, The Pony estimated that they might be home by 4:00. But at 4:00, it was only 33% done. Farmer H had wanted Chinese buffet on the way home, but he was famished. I guess TED DREWES doesn't stick to the ribs.

 

They left the phone and went to RED LOBSTER to eat. When they went back, the phone had barely transferred any more. So the  people stopped it, and started it again. My eyes glazed over here, but they got all the contacts. Not the apps or the messages that The Pony had hoped to keep.

He got a screen protector and a case. He said he remembered to set his wake-up alarm. Then he took a two-hour soak in the big triangle tub. I'm sure he's exhausted, yet elated.

Now I will wait for the bill to arrive, to see what scams Sprint is trying to pull this time. I have The Pony's receipts and contract that were emailed to me (MY account, you know!). So I WILL be comparing. That trade-in $500 discount better show up! They said the only way to get it was to pay for the phone monthly, and not buy it outright. I think it's easier to hide their scam charges that way...

I really hate getting a new phone. Even when I'm not paying, and I don't have to learn how to use it.

Who Ya Gonna Call? Phone's Busted!

The Pony had a mishap at work on Monday. So sad. He'd been looking forward to Monday, he said, because,  

 

"The temperature is only going to be in the SEVENTIES! Even if it rains, I won't mind. I don't care about getting wet. It's just the heat."

Before noon, I had a text from The Pony:

"Not a good day. Phone fell onto gravel, several big cracks. Touch screen is a bit unreliable now. Back to work."

Ten minutes later, The Pony asked me to consult Genius, our no-longer-resident phone guru, on what model replacement would be best. Genius says he's out of the android loop, so just an updated version of The Pony's Samsung Galaxy should be sufficient.

THEN commenced the quest to procure a phone for The Pony. Nothing is ever easy around the Mansion. The Pony had scheduled Tuesday off, in case Farmer H needed him to drive to a medical procedure at 5:15 a.m. The Veteran had said for weeks that he would do it, but just in case, Farmer H planned ahead. So The Pony figured he'd go get a new phone on Tuesday.

However... the only names on the account are HM and Farmer H. Sprint is a real rumpus about letting people buy phones without being on the account. Even if people plan to buy the phone outright, and not be billed monthly. So I put in a call to see if I could add The Pony, since I didn't know if he would go to the store over in Bill-Paying Town, or the one near the city.

Of course all representatives were busy helping other customers. I could stay on the line for 5 minutes OR MORE to get a rep. Or I could hang up and have my place in line saved, and the first available rep would call me. Nope. I know how THAT goes. They DON'T call, and then I'd have to call back again, with a new place in the queue, and start over. So I stayed on the line, and in 15 minutes I got a rep.

She was very polite, and enunciated clearly, but I had trouble understanding her Asian accent. I'm not good at hearing directions anyway. I'm better at reading them myself. So her slightly different pronunciations, and different emphasis on different syllables, and different cadence of speaking, made me stop and ask her to repeat. It was going okay until she said she needed my password and user name and PIN. 

Every time I deal with the Sprint account, I have to reset the password. It's a pain in the rumpus. Besides, Genius last used it to take himself off our account. We switch between three different passwords, but I didn't know which one he had it under. Didn't really matter, because if I was going online for the account, I'd have to reset anyway.

This Gal said when she picked up that she saw I was calling from my phone. Which I WAS. It worked in the house! I'm sure that's because I held my head to the side for those 15 minutes of wait, not daring to move and lose the connection. So I didn't understand WHY she said she couldn't do anything else until she had those three things.

"Well, then I might as well hang up. Because I DON'T have them here. No. I can't go get them. We are done, because even though I answered the security question on the account, and have given you other information about the three phones and users on it, that's not enough. So I'll just go along with my son to buy his phone."

"I am trying to complete this addition to your account."

"I know that. But I don't have the information you say you have to have. So there's no point in continuing."

"I will try another way. I'm going to send you a security number on the phone you say you are using."

"You already said you could SEE I was using that phone. But okay. Am I going to have to read it to you?"

"Yes. That's the point."

"Well, good luck to me on not cutting you off. I'm not good at switching from a call to doing other stuff, and then finding the call again."

SWEET GUMMI MARY! I only was able to do that because I saw the little phone receiver symbol at the top of my phone screen, and pulled it down to resume the call. Because I tried going back into the phone part, and couldn't do it.

Anyhoo... she had to send me THREE confirmation numbers! For user, password, and PIN. Even though I had given her all but one symbol on my user name, and had provided five of the six correct numbers of my PIN, heh, heh. I guess being CLOSE isn't good enough. I know that's the corporate policy. I'm not mad at THIS GAL. Just tired of the hoop jumping. You might recall that when we tried to buy The Pony a phone down in Norman, Oklahoma, that Sprint locked me out of my own account and said it was attempted fraud!

Anyhoo... she SAYS we got The Pony added to the account. She kept telling me to make note of the items for future reference, and to give them to The Pony to get into the account. Duh. I'm NOT an idiot! I told her I had written them down, which seemed to throw her off. I guess I was supposed to find some magical way to store them in my phone!

Anyhoo... as you might have surmised from further up the page, The Pony is indeed arising at 3:00 a.m. to leave at 3:30 to drive Farmer H to his medical procedure. I'm pretty sure there's a Sprint store between here and there, so he can stop on the way home and get a phone.

We had a protection plan, but you know how that goes. You have to send off the phone, and The Pony cannot be without his phone, because without his own route, he's in constant communication with his manager, being sent to and fro to help with other routes. I figure he can get a phone, and then send off the broken one for fixing or replacement, and have a spare always ready. Or switch back to it if he doesn't like the new one. Anyhoo... this one is on HIS dime.

The Pony showed me his broken phone. It's not just a cracked screen, but three craters in the glass, along the edge.Sometimes the bottom half of the screen goes white. It's not going to be just a replacement of the glass.

I will be glad when this is over. The Pony will probably be glad to go back to a normal day of work.