Whoops, Did I say that?

Dorea and I were watching the "My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding" movie the other night and I was reminded of something that happened to me. When I was in high school, I had a part time evening job at a local Pizza restaurant. My manager was from Iran and of course was bilingual. His cousin, Navid, also worked with us and was a little deviant. My manager told me one evening that his family was in the U.S. and would be stopping by the restaurant to eat dinner. His family included his mother, father, cousins, grandparents, and several others. None of his family who were visiting spoke any English. I asked my manager's cousin, Navid how to say "Welcome to our restaurant. Please, make yourself at home." in their language. I was going to surprise the family with my newly learned words to help them feel welcome. So finally they arrived and I ran to the front of the restaurant with my hands in the air loudly proclaiming what I thought was "welcome". They looked really surprised once I shouted this phrase in their language, a little too surprised. Their reaction was not what I expected. It was more of a mouth open, silent stare at me. At the same time my manager runs to the front and says to me, with a scouring tone, "what are you saying that for?" My manager says, "why are you telling my family that we have rats and you like to wear ladies underwear?" I looked in the corner to see Navid laughing hysterically. I, too, thought it was pretty funny. I am still friends with that manager. His family just thought I was some fool.

Back to Normal.......Yeah, right.

Finally, the water bill is back to normal. It was only 40 bucks this month. What a relief. Paid off the debt on Thursday then on Friday... the A.C. went out on the minivan! How lovely, just before summer time. Estimated cost...1,000 to 1,200. Somehow though, it's really no big deal. We're all healthy, we still eat too much, and everytime I lie down on the living room floor the kids attack me like I'm some beached whale. Life is good.

Water is Expensive

Our water bill for January was 900. I thought that may be a problem since it should be around 40 bucks per month. There is about 1800 feet of water line from the road meter to the house. That's around a third of a mile. It's a challange finding a water leak when your water line is buried but I unsuccessfully did. I had no choice but to start looking, (digging). I really didn't want to start a winter water project but we couldn't go without water. I did find a leak and fixed it in Jan. however, I found a leak but not "the" leak. Febuary's water bill was 600. OK. great. I have spent mega bucks on backhoes and used several days vacation only to be left with 1500+ for a water bill and still a leak. Not good. I had two choices left. One, was to dig a new water line through my neighbors yard. That would cost about 1500 bucks. It didn't seem too unreasonable since that's equivelant to around two month's of water bills but it wasn't my first choice. Second, I could gamble with possibly using water line number two. That's right, when my house was built the original owner put two pipes in the same ditch. One was my water and the other was a spare in case another house was built close to mine. The only issue I had was its' dependability. It could be as bad as my original. So I spent all weekend without water and made the change to the spare water line. It's been two weeks and so far all is well. No leaks and good water pressure. I hope my next months water bill is a little more like 50 dollars. The water dept. now knows me on a first name basis. We may not have water again but it's only because I can't pay the bill. They did tell me I can pay it over time. So even though my water bill may be normal, my payment for the next year will continue to be over 100 per month. There will be no water pool parties this summer.

gone fishing

I went fishing with an old friend a few years back and had another one of my, let's say "lack of thinking" incidents. We were on a state park lake that didn't allow boat motors and could fish as far as our trolling motor could take us. We were fishing close to the shore and noticed an old, small builing on the land not too far from the water. There was a wooden sign posted on the front. I read it and was a bit confused so I asked my friend, "what does that sign say"? He read it too and we were both baffled. Why would the sign read "Pain Shelter"? We caught several fish in that location and by the end of the day had decided to fish in the same spot the next day. When we returned to the boat dock, a couple of dock workers asked how we did fishing? We pointed in the direction and told them about the great spot out by the "Pain Shelter". They looked at us and said, "You mean "Rain Shelter" don't you"? My friend and I looked at each other stupidly and replied, "Yeah". The "R" on the sign had lost the piece that can easily change an "R" to a "P". We just couldn't put it together while fishing. We still laugh about it and probably all ways will.

Blue Light Special

Forgetting something while being an officer is usually a public affair. I remember completing a traffic stop during the middle of the day and then driving off once the car I stopped was gone. As I was driving, at traffic speed, I noticed cars ahead of me pulling over. I noticed cars coming toward me also pulling over. For some reason I didn't think of the most obvious reason for their behavior. The further I drove, the more everyone was taking to the sides. My first thought was maybe an ambulance was coming up behind me. Of course I check my rearview mirror but nothing was there. After going a few miles at 45 mph and watching people pulling over left and right, I finally realized that I had left my overhead blue lights on. You can't tell during the daytime because there's no reflection coming back to me. In my defense, the little indicator light on the switch had blown and I didn't notice that I had left them on. I looked like a real genius driving by people at normal speed and looking back at them thinking "you people are crazy". I wonder if any of those who pulled over were one of the men that saw me cluck at the chickens several years back? Now that would be funny.

Chicken Run

During my youthful driving days, I would frequently slow down or even stop on the road and aggravate livestock. One time I saw some chickens on the side of the road behind a fence. This looked like a good place to do something stupid since it was an old country gravel road. The small flock of chickens were on the right side, so I stopped and rolled down the passenger's side window and stuck my head out. I yelled and imitated a chicken laughing loudly and clucking. I might have even flapped my arms, I can't remember. I did this for a couple of seconds. After I felt like the chickens were traumatized and had scattered, I rolled up my window and drove on. As I started driving I noticed two old men leaning on a fence about 30 feet from where I had stopped. Both men were looking at me with their mouths open. While I still enjoy aggravating livestock as I drive down the road, I now keep my eye out for any witnesses.

In the court room

I plan on being the only guy to input, so here's this weeks story. I've held several jobs throughout my life and will have stories from many. In 1994 I was a police officer and was assigned court duty for the month. This meant I was balif and would bring in the loser criminals and keep things flowing. It also meant starting the court which included introducing the Judge. This particular judge would always provide a sheet with what he wanted to be said during his entrance. It always starts with "All Rise", the honorable blah, blah, blah, presiding, and then would give his creditinials. The court room was full and I was in the room next to it waiting on the judge for the go ahead to start reading. I decided to practice this before court started so as not to mess up during the real thing which was to start in about five minutes. During practicing my lines, I heard a lot of hustle and bustle in the courtroom. I peaked in and noticed everyone standing. Uh oh, they heard me say "All Rise". I looked around hoping maybe the judge would be coming in but he's nowhere to be found. I had to tell the court to sit back down but I passed it off as the judges' fault. Saying something like "false alarm the judge isn't ready yet, you can sit back down." I remember that it was only a few minutes until the judge did come in. They probably felt like a yo-yo.