9/25/08

I didn’t have a rant for y'all yesterday because I took the day off to go to the dentist, see about getting my “SHICHI” plates, and take my cat to the vet. I see I already told y'all about the dentist and license plans but never mentioned the vet trip. I think I made that decision after I got home Tuesday. Anyhoo, to make a short story long, I've been finding more “sesame seeds” around the house than there have been hamburgers so I knew she had worms. I took her in for a worm shot. That did not make me a very popular person with her by the way. She did eventually forgive me though so all is well. As for the dentist, well he’s not too happy with my gums. We’ll see how that turns out next month when I go back for some anesthetized “barnacle” scraping. Which brings me to the license fiasco. From the dentist I went to the credit onion to get some cash so I could get my plates. I called John because I wasn’t sure exactly which building I needed to visit. Turns out it was the one I thought but I still parked four blocks away in the parking garage. John had said he thought the courthouse validated parking so I took the hike. Actually, John said he never had a problem finding a spot on the street but went on to say he thought they validated. I didn’t have any change to feed a meter anyway so off to the garage I went. I hiked to the courthouse and up the stairs. There were three people in line ahead of me. The line consisted of a pair of velvet ropes making a little corridor parallel to the bank of windows. I walked up to the end opposite the sign saying something to the effect of, “All License Transactions” and stood next to a dude. Someone came out from the back and said, “I can help the next person in line.” The dude between the dude next to me and the lady at the opposite end raised his hand and headed her way. This not only confused me and the other dude, but Sally Civil Servant as well. She kept calling for the lady at the other end but it finally transpired that the dude and I were at the wrong end of the line. She took both the lady and the other dude to the back whereupon dude one and I swapped places and stood at the other end of the queue. He was called to the window almost immediately and before long another person came up and tried to finger out which end of the line she was supposed to use. I shrugged and said it didn’t really matter as I was the only one lined up at this point. I was called to the window before she had a chance to melt down from too many choices. I approached the window and ‘splained that I was going to renew the trailer license, and wanted to see if my personalized plates had arrived. She checked and it doesn’t appear as though they are even expecting them until the 29^th or 30^th. She said that when they came she’d call me, have all of the paperwork done, and all I'd need to do is come in and pay. I thanked her, paid for the trailer license, and took my leave but not before asking if they validate parking tickets in the garage. They do not. I hiked back to the parking garage and hopped in Fifi. I missed the $1.50 thirty-minute mark by five minutes and had to bay $2.50 to get out. I took off toward the house intending to stop and grab a bite of lunch on the way. I really wanted a McDonald’s Chick-Fil-A style sandwich but realized there weren’t any McDonalds’ between me and the house. I wound up at Taco Casa, which I knew at the time would be a mistake. I'll ‘splain why in a bit. While I was ordering, someone behind the counter yelled, “School’s out!” I wasn’t sure what that meant until I sat down and the place was overrun with high school kids. Well, there were about fifteen maybe, but in my book that is being overrun. I ate and headed to the house. I snoozed waiting for the time to go to the vet and then, well, went to the vet. Like I said, the worm shot did not make me very popular with my girl. When I got back I snoozed some more and waited for John to call to say he was on his way to the shop. When he did, I headed that way as well. I stopped at the inconvenience store and bought three twelve-packs of various flavors of soda. As I was getting back in Fifi I saw John sitting at the light. I waved but am not sure he saw me. I pulled up to the turn lane as he was going through the intersection and this time he waved at me. I waved back. We met at the shop and he put the drinks in the fridge. Oh, by the way, along with the dreaded “S” word, another thing that grates on my nerves, although not nearly as bad, is calling soft drinks “pop.” It doesn’t illicit the heebie-jeebies like the “S” word, but I do hate it. When the drinks were settled in place, and we were drinking the last two cold ones, John told me of his utter disgust with the Corolla. He said he posted it up for $400.00 and had people nagging him about complete bullshit. “What would you expect,” he asked me, “from a $400.00 car?” I told him if it ran and drove under its own power, I'd be shit-fer happy. He said if the dude tries to low-ball him and get the price down, I should walk away because he’s going to get a new asshole ripped. I laughed and told him that my experience with the courthouse was a good-news/bad-news situation except that there wasn’t any good-news. I told him that the plates were not in yet and that the courthouse does not validate parking. He sympathized and we pulled Shi-Chi out to give her a bath while we waited for the dudes to arrive. While washing Shi-Chi, I kept hearing a cat mewling and finally saw a kitten in one of the boats across the way. When the dudes arrived and John started showing them the car, I walked over to the boat but it wouldn’t let me get very close. Well, the boat let me get close, but the kitten hid every time I got too near. I called Marty Smith and asked if he would bring some cat food back to me. He did and I gave it to the little guy. I left him some water too. Judging from the smell coming out of the boat, I'm guessing at least some of his littermates didn’t make it. As I stood there watching him eat, he did come up and sniff me and touched me once. I think I might be able to get a hold of him eventually. I'm going to try and rescue him from being eaten by coyotes. We’ll see how it goes. Dolly might have a little brother soon. I keep using the masculine to describe him even though I'm really not sure of the sex at this point. At one point, I overheard one of the dudes say to John, “So, $300.00 takes the car, right?” I looked over just as John rolled his eyes and agreed. Apparently he had made one dude that price and he brought another dude to buy it. They took the car and left. Kevin arrived as they were leaving and we were rolling Shi-Chi back into the shop. John convinced me that we ought to move the Z into the spot vacated by the Corolla and stop paying $40.00 a month for that space on the south side of the shop. We did roll the Z over and I called the office to cancel the spot. I'll stop in this afternoon when I go get Shi-Chi and confirm it with them. Oh wait, they just called to confirm I'm out of that spot so I don’t need to stop at the office after all. Once it began to get really dark, we decided to call it an evening. John wanted to go to Sticker Shock Mexican Food, AKA Caro’s, which is why going to Taco Casa was a mistake for lunch. I knew he’d want Mexican food for dinner. He always wants Mexican food for dinner. I know I should not eat Mexican food for lunch when I know I'm going to be seeing John in the evening, but did it anyway. Oh well, what are you going to do? Well, that about wraps it up so I guess I'll call it a rant for the day. Toodles.