Lucky Day

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

It was like I was mowing my lawn and this car stops. Three people get out and wave me over, not wanting to get too close to a running lawn mower. Anyway, two of them come over, the third goes over to the mailbox and starts chatting with it.
“Pardon me Sentient,” the driver says. “We’re not from around here. We’re from…”
“Ecuador, say Ecuador” the second one prompts the first in a stage whisper. “No wait! Portugal. No, no! Belgium! Yeah, we’re from Belgium!” This guy has a lot to learn about whispering.
“Ah Belgium!” the third one says to the mailbox. “The beautiful methane pools. The glint of the Primary Sun off the city domes before the Secondary rises…”
“We are from Belgium…”
“The birthplace of waffles!” helps the second, still not getting the whole “whispering” thing.
“We are from Belgium and would like help with our directionating. Could you tell we the way to the nearest petroleum distillates depot?”
“Gas station?” I hazard.
“Yes! Yes! Gas station. Could you tell we were it is?”
So I tell them and they get back in the car and drive off. But not before the first person says:
“Thank you! Thank you! For your being of helpfulness to us, you shall have great luckiness all day!”

It was like that, only completely different.

I guess I just had a pretty good day. Firstly, I didn’t strangle the boys ALL DAY. That’s always a good sign. I did get drunk on whine by the end of the day, but some things just can’t be helped. (Especially when you STILL can’t find that big roll of duct tape.) But I got a package. It’s always good when you get a package. It was a big package too. It was about the size of a wooden shelf to a shelf kit I put together last week in a cardboard box for mailing. Actually it was exactly the size of a wooden shelf to a shelf kit I put together last week in a cardboard box for mailing. That would be, of course, because it WAS a wooden shelf to a shelf kit I put together last week in a cardboard box for mailing. While I was putting it together, I slipped and busted a shelf… I mean, the kit came with a defective shelf and I had to e-mail the shelf company to get a free replacement. And it came, so I could stick stuff on the top shelf now that there was a shelf there to put things on. My big tent lives up there now.

Then the regular mail came and I got a letter from Coleman. Remember a few weeks ago when I found a Coleman stove up in the attic of the new house? Well, the instructions to it just showed up. Not that I needed the instructions, because I had help from my friends. But the instructions came, which reminded me that I was soaking the valve on the fuel tank in WD-40 for about a week (Because I forgot it? No way! I was letting the oil penetrate the jammed up parts. Yeah.) and I should see if I could get them apart. See, I loaded it up with new fuel and pumped it up with my new pump and turned the valve open on my new generator and put a match to the newly cleaned burner and… nothing. So I figured the fuel straw thingy was gummed up. Only I couldn’t get at it because the parts were jammed and needed a good soaking of WD-40 to come apart. So I soaked the parts for a good long time and then took my wrench and… nothing. It was still froze up. So I whacked my wrench a couple of good ones with a hammer and got the whole mess apart. Whacking broken things with a hammer is a time-honored tactic in these parts. Sometimes it even works to my advantage. Sometimes it just makes me feel better to be whacking broken stuff with a hammer. Anyway, the fuel straw thingy was gummed up. But now I could clean it. So I cleaned it. You know what happened after that? I put it all back together. You know what happened after that? I refilled the fuel tank. You know what happened after that? I pumped it all up. You know what happened after that? I went out in the yard and lit the bad boy. I got one SPECTACULAR flare up. Then the stove lit! Yay! That was Good Thing #2.

You’d think that would be enough, wouldn’t you? I sure did. But things got EVEN BETTER!

We were out of bread, (no, that’s not the Good Thing, but it is integral to the Good Thing actually happening) and we went up to the Hostess Outlet store to stock up on bread. I like to get my bread there because, bluntly, it’s cheap there. So I grab a bunch of bread and some hamburger buns and a box of Ding Dongs (for the Little Woman) and a box of Chocolate Cupcakes (again, Little Woman) and a box of raspberry sweet rolls (for me) and head for the friendly check-out lady. She told me I bought more than $5 worth of stuff (US) and since I bought more than $5 worth of stuff (US) I was entitled to a Free Pie!
“Why, I would be a fool to pass up Free Pie!” I thought. So I told the friendly check-out lady: “Why, I would be a fool to pass up Free Pie!” The friendly check-out lady told me something that utterly shocked me. Some people didn’t take their Free Pie. Can you believe that? Qualifying for Free Pie and then not taking it? I thought those people were fools. Fools I say! So I told the friendly check-out lady “Those people were FOOLS!” and I took my Free Pie.
-Rue.

2

See, here’s my problem. I want to use Rue, you FOOL! to start my post, but there are so many foolish things it would just seem repetitive. But repitition could be a good thing, after all it might just get pounded into his skull so that he’ll learn his lesson. Consider it my hammer for pounding broken stuff.

Rue, you FOOL! ALWAYS keep emergency stashes of duct tape around the house. If you don’t you could wind up drinking in too much whine and end up with alcohol poisioning. Or pre-adolesence poisioning, which is even worse.

Rue, you FOOL! If you only got one measly flare-up you didn’t clean the stove right. Any person in thier right mind would have had half a dozen flare ups. It’s not fixed until you’ve broken it at least twice and injured yourself.

Rue, you FOOL! Why didn’t you bust out the ol’ Rue charm and convince the friendly checkout lady to put aside other people’s free pies and give them to you? Because the only thing better than getting free pie is getting someone else’s free pie.

But most importantly: Rue, you FOOL! You forgot to tell us what kind of pie!

-welby (Likes saying Rue, you FOOL way, way too much.)

3

All I can say is I went to bed last night hoping that I would be the first one to post in today’s MMP. This was my whole goal for the day! I figured with the munchkin getting us up so early lately that I was a shoe-in for first post. Then today what does my little alarm clock do?? She sleeps until almost 8:00!

So by the time I get her some breakfast and check the SDMB; Welby has taken all of my thunder away.

Guess my day is not going to be full of luckiness. Or was the extra sleep my bonus for the day? At the cost of not achieving my very important goal of first post in Rue’s thread I’m not so sure.

Or maybe I just need a life :slight_smile:

4

Why, Welby, wouldn’t it be, “damn fine cherry pie”?

And I’ll go ahead and say it:

[homersimpson] Mmm, pie! ::drool:: [/homersimpson]

(Wow, two sentences, two quotes. I need a life more than tanookie!)

5

I’m just happy that the Evil House Alarm From Hell ™ did not go off this morning. Sunday morning it went off from roughly 4:30 AM to 7:30 AM in random intervals so that sleep was impossible. I spent much of the time fantasizing about smashing the siren with a baseball bat.

6

As coincidence would have it, some of these very same things came up over the weekend.

Though we did not have confused foreigners stop to ask directions to the nearest gas station, we did mow the lawn. Our strange next door neighbor likes to dump his wet, stuck-together grass clippings in a small pile at the property line between our houses. (It looks like a pile of horse manure). We still haven’t figured out why he chose this spot, as it is visible from the street and is unsightly.

We also were unable to determine the location of our roll of duct tape (or if we had or had not used the last of that roll…which I doubt is the case because I am sure we would remember if we had used the last of a roll of duct tape, wouldn’t anybody?). I came to the conclusion that somebody (not me) must have laid it down somewhere in the garage where it doesn’t belong instead of where it should be stored, and thus cannot be located.

And, during our afternoon motorcycle ride, I noticed a bakery thrift store on our way to lunch, and thought I would like to go there and see what they had (maybe they give away free pie as well).

7

Sorry Wintermute but no one needs a life more than I :slight_smile: (I really should not be so proud of that fact!)

Parallax and I were in the kitchen as he was trying to make iced coffee and could not find the sugar. As I was smugly showing him the various containers of sugar I remarked that we got the biggest one from his mother as the store was doing a buy one get one free promotion and she couldn’t use 10 pounds of sugar. Then I remembered it was flour she did that with. But she didn’t used to take the free ones either… over the years I have badgered her into taking the free ones and giving them away (preferably to me but I don’t want to be greedy :slight_smile: So Parallax comments on her being like the people that won’t take free pie! We then spent longer than I care to admit debating who the best recipient for the extra free pies would be and weighing their nutritional merit versus the sheer fact that the pie is free.

8

nicked from Parallax’s post

lucky you. i got the Prank Caller From Hell® phoning me up at about 2 am…
Rue, i ran out of duct tape too this weekend. went to stick an FX pedal to the floor of a stage, only i didnt have enough of my favourite tape left :frowning:
and dont forget, if we were’nt supposed to use percussive maintenance, the hammer wouldn’t have been invented ;j

9

I may be a fool welby, but you… you are an idiot. “What kind of pie” indeed! Round pie! Pie is round no matter what lies they foisted on you in jommetry class. It’s a nice round pie. (An’ it has blueberry filling inside!)

Maybe next week, I’ll hold off the MMp until you e-mail me and tell me it’s OK to post it tanook’. Naw, that’s too much trouble. I think you should just brew up a couple pots of coffe and stay up ALL NIGHT Sunday, just refreshing and refreshing the MPSIMS screen until the MMP shows up. Then you could get a jump on it. Now there’s a plan!

Bad news Winnie. As said, it’s blueberry pie. My other choices were strawberry or apple. They were out of the free cherry pie by the time I got there. That might be why people didn’t want their Free Pie. They wanted the cherry and it was gone.

I don’t drink coffe either. Not even if it’s as black as midnight on a moonless night.

I hope the siren you were going to smash was the clock Parallax and not tanook’. Smashing the siren as in extrememly loud alarm would be OK. Smashing the temptress that leads you to your doom wouldn’t be so good. Yeah, I know, there’s the whole “doom” thing, but just think how swell it is to get there.

Maybe your neighbor is leaving the stuck together grass clippings for you as a gift earthpuppy. It’s a bad gift no matter what, but isn’t it “the thought that cpounts”? No, no it isn’t. It’s getting a GOOD gift that counts. The thought is something you couldn’t even sell on eBay, so what good is that?

I gots me a big ol’ hammer too Plankster. Four anna half pounds of whacking goodness. It’s on nice whacking hammer.
-Rue. (with a big ol’ hammer)

10

** Bursts into the thread **

***Ta-Daaaaah!! Did someone say CHERRY PIE ?? !! ***
crickets chirping

11

Sounds pretty kinky to me. Shouldn’t you be doing that in private? :smiley:

12

IDIOT? All pies round? HAH! Somebody’s an idiot here, as well as a fool and it’s not ME!

For example Shepard’s Pie isn’t round.

Nor is McDonald’s apple pie.

And let me point out that this deep dish apple pie isn’t round either.

Yet another example.

And last, but not least, I might point out that Hostess Fruit Pies are not round, they are oblong and squarish and favored by Green Arrow , among other super heroes.

Fie! Fie upon you! I don’t think you actually got a free pie, you just said it to make us all feel jealous.

13

That’s not Shepard’s Pie! Where are the Spaghettio’s ™?

Just to make you all go eeew… I am not joking. When I was a kid this is how my mom made Shepard’s Pie and this is actually really yummy and a hit with most kids :slight_smile:

from bottom to top:

cooked ground hamburger (one pound)
corn (one can)
mashed potatoes (one envelope)
spaghettio’s (one can)
cheese (about 6 slices)

Bake in oven at 350 until cheese is all melty.

(yeah I know my mom’s no betty crocker! you can use fresher stuff and actually mash up potatoes and stuff but that’s how she made it)

14

All right, Tanookie, here’s what a loser I am: the “Damn fine cherry pie” quote is from Twin Peaks. I don’t even like Twin Peaks, I just got the quote from my sister. So I’m quoting a show I never watched. :rolleyes:

AND I went miniature golfing this weekend. On a Saturday night. With my sister and BIL. Yep, Ms. Third Wheel, that’s me.

This is the downside of virtually dating a married man. Welby my Virtual Lover, is busy with his wife and leaves me home alone on a Saturday night. :frowning:

15

stealthily lifted from Rue’s post of literary goodness

i dont get this. cherry pie is just wrong! it’s soooo sweet that it makes my teeth feel like they’re dissolving. give me good 'ol blueberry or apple any day!!!

16

I know this wasn’t a choice but pumpkin pie is the best.

17

actually, now you mention it Parallax…

18

God, I wish I could get that “terrifically inventive and funny creative writing thing” down. This is great, maybe even better than The Horror Of Blimps elsewhere on this board. The hamster is in a stubborn and recalcitrant mood, or I would try to find the thread and give the link.

19

Ha, ha! I know where my duct tape is!
And it’s mine, all mine and you can’t have it.

Unless, like, you really needed it, then, you know, I’d let you have some. I mean, you could use all that you needed, I wouldn’t just let you have some and leave you with a half-duct-taped thingy. But if you used it all, I’d have to ask you to get me a new roll, because I can’t be without duct tape and it’s only fair for you to replace it if you used all of it. Well, if my roll only had a little bit left on it and you used the rest of it, I might not ask you to replace it, although it would be a nice thing to do, I mean, since I let you use the last of my duct tape and all.

20

No, no, no, people! You must NEVER run out of duct tape! With duct tape, a screwdriver, and a hammer, all things are possible!

We’re stocked up on extra-strength duct tape now, it being hurricane season; in fact, Papa Tiger may find himself climbing a ladder in the 2-inch-an-hour rain later today to duct tape the one spot on the back gutter that always sags when it rains too hard so that the back of the house doesn’t get totally flooded by our Buddy Bill. The only thing better than duct tape is HURRICANE TAPE! We’re talking triple-thickness duct tape, so strong and powerful it could tie down Superman when he gets a full head of steam up! But we haven’t been able to find any of that since Papa Tiger left Guam some years back. So we hoard the last half a roll for those TRULY special moments that require only the BEST duct tape.

No pies around here, though. Just fresh blueberries. In cream. Yummmm.