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Way back when–a long time ago in the year 2000–I signed up to be a bone marrow donor. Not because I wanted to. Not because it was the right thing to do. Nope. I did it for free baseball tickets. I remember the day quite vividly. It was an August (or maybe September) and I was at a carnival or festival, or maybe the Orange County Fair (maybe I don’t remember it as vividly as I thought). Anywhos, I was there with my buddy, El Diablo, and we saw a booth giving away free Angel tickets. All we had to do was give a tiny prick of blood. They would put us on the bone marrow donor list and we could each score four free tickets. Seemed fair enough. Heck, seemed more than fair. With eight tickets and only two asses, we figure we could sell the remaining six tickets for $10 a pop and make 60 bucks off the deal.
“It’s not like we actually hafta give them anything,” El Diablo pointed out. He was right. I had no intention of ever “donating” my marrow. I knew little about it other than they had to drill into your hip . . . . .
At what point do collectibles and mementos turn into useless junk taking up space? This is the question I’ve been asking myself the past couple days. I’m cleaning out my closet because I feel like I have too much useless junk. Some choices are easy (old hard drives, clothes from the 90s, locks of hair from old girlfriends). But for others…it’s hard to pull the trigger.
The two items that are causing me the most agony are my Super Nintendo and my Game Boy. I last used my SNES before I was married (hooked it up in my bachelor pad one night because I wanted to play “Mario 3”). As for the Game Boy…last time I used that might have been in the previous millennium–literally. Given that I hardly use these items (at best), it’s fairly obvious their absence wouldn’t be noticed (other than the open space in my closet). And yet…
I can’t seem to do it. Seems to me I’d be better off selling them on eBay or giving ’em to Goodwill than keeping them here and never using them. I should let my video game systems find good homes with someone who will love them and play . . . . .
As a child of the 80s, I grew up worshiping Star Wars. Obsessions with lightsabers, Wookies, and the ability to choke someone with your mind were quite common for boys of my age (for some reason, girls didn’t like Star Wars: maybe My Little Pony was really good back then). I’m probably the perfect Star Wars age. My brothers don’t share the same obsession I do, so it’s definitely a generational thing. After all, when we were talking about a getting a cat I was the only one who wanted to name him Chewbacca.
When I was a kid, Star Wars was everywhere. Besides the obvious action figures, I had lunchboxes, coloring books, audio books (in record form), Shrink-A-Doodles, Underoos, Lite-Brite–you name it, George Lucas found a way to market it with a Star Wars twist. I grew up wishing to be a Jedi and to strike my father down with a lightsaber. I played Star Wars. I slept in Star Wars sheets. I dreamt Star Wars. I even liked Princess Leia.
One year for Christmas someone gave us the Star Wars movies (in VHS form). From that point forward, I watched the trilogy at least once a month. The . . . . .
“EEEEEKKKKKKK! THERE’S A LIZARD IN THE HOUSE,” The Wife screamed, which was followed by a dash out the front door with such speed it would make the Flash envious. Knowing she would never return unless the cold-blooded houseguest was removed, I figured it was my husbandly duty to catch it.
I spotted the lizard in a corner, hiding behind a stack of books. About an inch and half long. It couldn’t have weighed more than a nickel. How the wife spotted it was beyond me, but she has a knack for that sorta thing. We can be watching TV and she’ll somehow spot a spider in 12 feet away directly behind her.
Being a city boy, I’m not exactly versed in the capture of live animals. Sure, as a boy I would pick up worms off the sidewalk and chase girls around the playground–but they were there for the taking: catching a live animal would be a whole ‘nother challenge. I saw no need to kill the lizard. If I could somehow grab it, I would put it in a jar and take it outside. At least that was the plan. Unfortunately, the reptile seemed to disagree and didn’t want . . . . .
Thanks to an odd scheduling quirk, I was able to enjoy three consecutive days off from URS. That’s not really important to the story, but you’ll be happy to I enjoyed spending time with The Wife and fixing my dead server. Or not.
My return to work was easygoing because I was refreshed. I joked with my colleagues and conversed with customers. Even something as minute as a roll of quarters provided interesting fodder.
“What do you need,” Maude1 asked me.
I opened my cash drawer. “The big thing is quarters. I could probably use some fives and ones, but quarters right now.”
“You made me come up here to get you quarters? You could have just called.”
“Yeah, but you would have had to come up here to get this,” I said as I handed her a $10 bill.
What might strike you as mindless dribble or a poor attempt at an interesting open is actually more significant than that. But give me a few minutes of your time before you rush to judgment.
A couple of old ladies walked in the door. I charmed them with a wisecrack about how much it was raining outside. Another customer walked . . . . .
A few weeks ago, I popped by URS on my day off. I needed some milk. It was close. Look, I don’t hafta justify myself to you. I needed stuff and they had it (man, I’m awful at writing intros). Even though it was my day off, a minor crisis was ensuing that caught my attention. One of the freezers had stopped working leaving about $300-worth of ice cream in perilous danger. The manager on duty and two crew member huddled around the freezer, trying to assess what to do. As they poked their heads around the appliance, I gave it a quick look. Not because I wanted to help URS, but I do enjoy fixing things. To me, it looked like the freezer wasn’t getting any power. The lights were all off. It made no sounds at all. And it was a balmy 58 degrees inside (while I am not an expert in the specifics of turning milk into ice cream, I’m fairly certain keeping it at a temperature under 58 degrees is involved).
“Did you check the circuit breakers,” I asked the manager. I’m pretty sure he heard me, but he seemed too focused on the state of . . . . .
Last week I was stocking canned goods when I heard a commotion near the entrance to the store. I would have gotten up to see what it was, but I was quite comfortable and, frankly, didn’t care. I only abandoned my task when the manager on duty, Maude, 1 found me: “Cindy said we just got robbed.”
That got my attention. “Huh?”
“Three or four people ran out of the store with baskets of alcohol and diapers.”
“Seems like an odd mix to me.” Even in crisis I can still maintain my sense of humor.
I followed the manager into the office. URS is equipped with cameras everywhere within the store. It’s something Loss Prevention does to prevent losses (lotta good it did in this case). Since I’m not management, this was this first time I had access to the surveillance eqipment. Maude didn’t know how to use the system because she wasn’t trained at it. Luckily I’m good with a computer and in ten minutes2 we were able to see video of the theft. It was a team of four. They came in and loaded hand baskets full of merchandise (mainly booze and diapers, but they also threw in . . . . .
Even though we are just two, The Wife and I have three cars. As much as we have tried, it has been proven to be physically impossible for two people to drive three cars simultaneously. One of our cars is frequently neglected…and its battery dies. That being said, I’m a man’s man–or at least manly enough to jumpstart a car battery.
The thing about a dead battery–in most cases–it can be resurrected. A car battery is like any rechargeable battery. If it goes long enough without being charged it will drain; however, if you start the car and drive around for a half hour the battery will recharge. I’m not saying anything here most guys don’t already know: this lesson in automotive electronics is for the women (and maybe my youngest brother).
I went through this ritual on over the weekend. Car battery died. Jumpstarted it. Needed to drive around for a half hour. The Wife and I opted to go to the library because it provides cheap entertainment. I had been driving for about 20 minutes when I was five minutes away from the library. Wanting to stretch my drive an additional five minutes, I made a couple extraneous . . . . .
I haven’t had much to be proud of lately. I work at a job that suits the financial needs of a teenager. I haven’t had a good haircut since 2008. I’m a burden on society and take more in government aid than I pay in taxes. But I can proudly proclaim I had a gas-free October. I filled up my gas tank on November 2nd. The last time I bought gas before that was September 23rd–meaning I did not buy gas for the entire month of October. Driving a highly fuel-efficient Honda played a big part in that, but I’ve had the car for almost four years and I’ve been getting 35 miles per gallon from the beginning. I was able to go six weeks in between fill-ups thanks to a perfect storm of events that left my car at home more often than not (no, it didn’t break down–it’s a Honda). Since I’m only taken one class, I only go to school once a week. October was filled with rainouts and byes, so I had only a couple softball games all month. And since work is a mere four-minute walk, it’d be wasteful to drive there. I typically go . . . . .
After cleaning the toilets and taking out the trash, I was called into the manager’s office at URS for my latest lesson in working for a directionless bureaucracy. The manager needed for me to read and sign a document. According to the manager I was doing something wrong at the register. Even though it pertained to me, I was not privy to get a copy of the actual document (company property) so I’m going to do my best to repeat the document the best to my recollection.
Violation: I, Sik Nerd have been made aware that the expected scan rate of SRT is 90 percent. As per company policy, employees must compile 90 when TPS offsets the MRN scan rate. My ASR for the week of October 10th was not 90 percent SRT. Resolution: Follow the guidelines and comply with the expected SRT and ASR. Follow-up: 1 month
Those acronyms probably seem foreign to you* and you’re not alone: I didn’t know any of them. It wasn’t just the acronyms–I found the entire document incompressible. It could have been a recipe for sushi or the biological formula to make liquid hydrogen: in either case, I couldn’t tell the difference.
. . . . .
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