My Funny Valentine
"... I'm like a pick-up truck with broken concrete in the back ..." *
The R.D. didn’t have too much to blog about this month because life’s been pretty dull and average. Yours truly got into a rut and it kind of stayed that way for a while. But all of that changed this Valentine’s Day, as fate would have it.
When you live in a home, like I do, you need a handyman. We found a pretty good one in ours, “Doc,” who is an odd fellow who does odd jobs cheap. He recently did some plumbing work for me, but it leaked. Much to our surprise, Doc, who keeps some weird hours, agreed to come over on Valentine’s afternoon to patch things up. I hoped he would come early and leave early, so I could patch some things up myself with “Wifey,” who was certainly feeling the lack of romance lately with me in my rut.
Doc, though, who was chronically late, didn’t come until the evening. I thanked God, however, when he was done with his touch-up work in 15 minutes. We saw Doc off, waved goodbye, when…. rrrrrrrrrppppp………rrrrrppppp…… his truck died. It wouldn’t start. No Joke.
Doc said he was sure that it was only a lack of fuel. His tank was “bone dry,” as he put it, which was exactly how I felt on Valentine’s Day with his ass still in my driveway long into the night. After he used 2 gallons of my lawnmower reserves, and 2 more gallons after he sent me to the gas station to get more, the truck still wouldn’t turn over. It was obvious the problem wasn’t a lack of gas, but Doc kept trying to start the damn thing. Eventually, I got him to open the hood, and I could see we were in for a long night. His ride had a laundry-list of problems – no coolant in the reservoir, a dirty air filter, dirty oil, and the engine smoked. Doc worked on the thing six ways from Sunday but it was dead. That’s when Wifey, who was a witness to this fiasco yet had remained inside the whole time, poked her head out to volunteer me to give Doc a ride home.
Sometimes, it really feels like a conspiracy…..
Well, Doc lived like 20 miles away. In her defense, Wifey thought it would be perfect timing for me to drop him off and pick up our Valentine’s meal on the way back, but that was a total no-go. Doc said he only lived three miles off the interstate, but it was more like seven. Plus, I got lost on the way back because it required a different turn I didn’t know about. When I finally got to the restaurant, there wasn’t a parking space in the joint, and our to-go feast was cold. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, the checkout guy announces in front of a jam-packed restaurant that Wifey told him I got lost. I’m not going to name the place, but let’s just say it usually brings out the seafood lover in me. Anyway, I think the guy, who definitely learned Spanish as his first language, meant well, but he took the statement that I got lost to mean that I couldn’t find the restaurant, which made me seem even more ridiculous (in addition to being an hour late, grumpy, with oil and grease stains on my t-shirt, holding cold food in the middle of a crowd of hungry valentines who had a 90 minute wait for a table) since the place is like 10 feet off the interstate on a major road. I wish I could’ve thought of something witty to say, (e.g., “the seafood lover in me is going to get lost again….kicking your ass!...”) but I was speechless. I just kept thinking of Doc and the description of his gas tank…taunting me…..taunting me. Would my love life need more work than Doc's car after losing two hours of Valentine's eve?
Well, suffice it to say it was not a Feb 14th for the ages, but thanks to the Speed Bake feature on our oven, a bottle of bubbly, and the fact that we don’t take ourselves too seriously, it ended up being a good night……And what I mean is, at least someone at the R.D. residence got their motor running, eventually.
* This quote is by P. Diddy, not B.I.G.
The R.D. didn’t have too much to blog about this month because life’s been pretty dull and average. Yours truly got into a rut and it kind of stayed that way for a while. But all of that changed this Valentine’s Day, as fate would have it.
When you live in a home, like I do, you need a handyman. We found a pretty good one in ours, “Doc,” who is an odd fellow who does odd jobs cheap. He recently did some plumbing work for me, but it leaked. Much to our surprise, Doc, who keeps some weird hours, agreed to come over on Valentine’s afternoon to patch things up. I hoped he would come early and leave early, so I could patch some things up myself with “Wifey,” who was certainly feeling the lack of romance lately with me in my rut.
Doc, though, who was chronically late, didn’t come until the evening. I thanked God, however, when he was done with his touch-up work in 15 minutes. We saw Doc off, waved goodbye, when…. rrrrrrrrrppppp………rrrrrppppp…… his truck died. It wouldn’t start. No Joke.
Doc said he was sure that it was only a lack of fuel. His tank was “bone dry,” as he put it, which was exactly how I felt on Valentine’s Day with his ass still in my driveway long into the night. After he used 2 gallons of my lawnmower reserves, and 2 more gallons after he sent me to the gas station to get more, the truck still wouldn’t turn over. It was obvious the problem wasn’t a lack of gas, but Doc kept trying to start the damn thing. Eventually, I got him to open the hood, and I could see we were in for a long night. His ride had a laundry-list of problems – no coolant in the reservoir, a dirty air filter, dirty oil, and the engine smoked. Doc worked on the thing six ways from Sunday but it was dead. That’s when Wifey, who was a witness to this fiasco yet had remained inside the whole time, poked her head out to volunteer me to give Doc a ride home.
Sometimes, it really feels like a conspiracy…..
Well, Doc lived like 20 miles away. In her defense, Wifey thought it would be perfect timing for me to drop him off and pick up our Valentine’s meal on the way back, but that was a total no-go. Doc said he only lived three miles off the interstate, but it was more like seven. Plus, I got lost on the way back because it required a different turn I didn’t know about. When I finally got to the restaurant, there wasn’t a parking space in the joint, and our to-go feast was cold. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, the checkout guy announces in front of a jam-packed restaurant that Wifey told him I got lost. I’m not going to name the place, but let’s just say it usually brings out the seafood lover in me. Anyway, I think the guy, who definitely learned Spanish as his first language, meant well, but he took the statement that I got lost to mean that I couldn’t find the restaurant, which made me seem even more ridiculous (in addition to being an hour late, grumpy, with oil and grease stains on my t-shirt, holding cold food in the middle of a crowd of hungry valentines who had a 90 minute wait for a table) since the place is like 10 feet off the interstate on a major road. I wish I could’ve thought of something witty to say, (e.g., “the seafood lover in me is going to get lost again….kicking your ass!...”) but I was speechless. I just kept thinking of Doc and the description of his gas tank…taunting me…..taunting me. Would my love life need more work than Doc's car after losing two hours of Valentine's eve?
Well, suffice it to say it was not a Feb 14th for the ages, but thanks to the Speed Bake feature on our oven, a bottle of bubbly, and the fact that we don’t take ourselves too seriously, it ended up being a good night……And what I mean is, at least someone at the R.D. residence got their motor running, eventually.
* This quote is by P. Diddy, not B.I.G.
posted by TheRealDookie | 10:41 PM
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