Category: Humor

…But Goodies

~ riggledo ~ 2 Comments

After my mother, brother, sister and I moved from Ohio where my father lived with his wife and step-kids to Oklahoma where my mother’s best childhood friend lived with her husband, their four kids and successful real estate business, my visitation with my less than perfect father was limited to every other holiday and summer vacations.  Eight hundred fifty miles separated the town my father lived and worked in and the town we had moved to without paternal objection because he felt, however rightly or wrongly, that he didn’t have any right to object.

Fortunately, my father and his wife loved to take road trips (and apparently required little sleep) and he usually opted to cover the distance between us by automobile, driving twelve hours to pick us up, spending an hour or so at or near our home where he would load up the additional baggage of three kids spending a period of time with their father and hit the road again for the twelve-hour drive back to his house.

On some of the shorter visits, or perhaps because we were getting older and would choose working over traveling to visit the old man, he would get a hotel room, or a cabin at a lake and spend the time in Tulsa, instead of dragging us back to Cincinnati.  I always dreaded getting into the car with my father because on one of his first visits, he discovered a radio station that he loved.  They played the music of his youth and apparently a better mix of it than any station he heard around his neck of the woods.  I hated the music of his youth, it was all so outdated and boring and the station was very aptly called “the oldies station” (said with a sneer and a mocking tone, of course!)

Today, as I was on my way to pick up my lunch, I was driving down a frontage road along side the ridiculously crowded highway and I noticed a billboard for a local radio station.  I immediately grimaced at the idea of the station as the billboard brazenly described the station as “classic oldies…”  I mean, ho-hum, right?  How boring!

Wait!  What did that say?  “Classic oldies.  All the best hits of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s! ”

What happened to the 50’s?  And since when are the 80’s oldies???  Pretty soon it’ll be best of the 80’s, 90’s and the aughts!

I’m beginning to feel the need to drive with two feet, carry a cane and shake my head as I tsk, “They just don’t make ’em like they used to” while Lil’B sits in the back seat and cringes at my terrible taste in music!

Dirty Old Man

~ riggledo ~ 5 Comments

Alex was the curiosity of the EMT class.  Of latin descent, he has tan skin with thick black hair and gorgeous brown eyes.  It’s clear Alex works out and for good reason.

What made Alex the curiosity of the class was that we never knew what he would be wearing.  The first night of class, it was about a quadrillion degrees outside and he wore soccer shorts and a t-shirt; typical college kid attire.  “Nice,” I thought, “that look is working for him… and for me.”  The next few classes he wore sweats, fairly ordinary.  A couple of weeks in, however he came to class wearing flannel lounge pants and a hoody.  By this time, giving Alex a once over was a routine practice for Jafet and me.  We looked at the pajama-ed spectacle and then we looked at each other in disbelief.  (Why do people leave the house in their jammies?)  (Why do grown bloggers use words like “jammies”?) (Anywho)

Most classes Alex came to school in work pants and a T-shirt emblazoned (you should pardon the pun) with his fire academy logo.  “Now I know why he always looks so fit,” I thought.

One day Alex blew us all away arriving to class wearing black wool slacks, a purple dress shirt and coordinating tie.  The clothes fit him nicely and flatter his physique.  You have to know the whole class, including Mr. William’s, took note of how he was dressed!

Alex is very gung-ho!  One night the guy who runs the concessions stand got mugged and hit over the head.  We called 911, but Mr. Williams treated him while we waited for the responders.  Alex was right there in the thick of it helping with the assessment… With no gloves on; the number one rule of EMT-ing.

In my opinion, Alex was one of the best in the class.  Better than me in skill if not in knowledge.

He showed up at school Wednesday night, I guess to pick up his course completion certificate, but he stayed to help the students with skills.  While Mr. William’s was giving lecture to the class, Alex and I were out in the hall inspecting the equipment we would be using and talking about our future plans.  The subject of Ambulance Driver Licenses, and the cost of insurance to the operating companies came up.  That’s when he said it.

“I’m 18, so I probably won’t be getting hired for a while.”

I almost dropped whatever I was holding as I stared at him, mouth agape.  “I’m sorry,” I began, “did you just say you are 18 years old?”  He confirmed it.  “When is your birthday?” I couldn’t believe he could have been a “child” in class.

“March,” he answered.  “I’ll be 19 next month.  My plan is to be a medic (paramedic) by 21.”

“I can’t believe it,” I said a little too emphatically.  “I knew you were young, but I had no idea you were this young!”

I kinda had a secret crush on him.  I mean it’s not like I had many any lacivious lustful thoughts or anything but damn!!

I’m a dirty old man…

10,000

~ riggledo ~ Leave a comment

After the non-stop, pouring rain on Saturday, we had four days of clear and beautiful, if cold, weather.  So naturally, yesterday, the day I had an unexpected opportunity for a second get together with Heather, it rained all afternoon and evening.  Once again, I did not care.  I would drive through hell and – well, I practically did drive through high water – to get to her.

Heather had an early dinner with her family, and then I picked her up for another movie and dessert!  We went to see No Strings Attached, which was a cute movie.  And then we hung out at Cheesecake Factory for a little while, and ate pizza.  Ha!  Just kidding.  We had Cheesecake, of course!  I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but I LOOOOVE cheesecake!

I drove home in the rain, white knuckling the steering wheel most of the way.  When I got home I pulled something very exciting out of my mail box, before running up the stairs and out of the rain.  I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a day or two for that story.  Sorry.

Something happened on the way home, though, something that, while it shouldn’t, sort of changes the way I feel about my car:

Did I mention it's been cold?

This is the first brand new car I’ve ever owned.  Before this, the newest car I had owned was my 2000 Nissan Altima which had just over 18,000 miles on it when I bought it, so there was something about having four digits on the odometer that was special, something that maintained it feeling like a new car.

It’s still a nice car.  It’s still get’s great gas mileage.  I’m still very happy to have it.  I still don’t regret my decision to buy it.  But now?  Now that it has 10,000 miles on it?  It doesn’t feel new any more.  It doesn’t feel quite so special.

It’s a little sad.  (But I still a great evening!)

The Olden Days

~ riggledo ~ 2 Comments

My television died yesterday.  I’m sad.  Now I have to replace it and money that I was going to use to pay off another credit card has to go to replacing my TV instead.

Discussing this on-line with my mother today lead to the following conversation:

Kevin says (3:45 PM):
So I’m getting a new TV tonight.  My one that I’ve had is kaput.  I’m not happy (except that I’m getting a new toy and that’s always fun).

Mom says (3:46 PM):
Sounds like fun to me.  Do you have one picked out?

Kevin says (3:47 PM):
Yes.  Vizio 37″ LCD HDTV.  Pretty much the same thing I already had.  I’d like bigger, but the cost is too much and since I wasn’t in the market for a TV to begin with…

Mom says (3:48 PM):
OK.  That means nothing to me, except the 37″ part.

Mom is not especially tech savvy.  I helped her to buy a TV on-line late last year and she pretty much just looked at the price and listened to what I had to say about the unit and took my word for it.

Kevin says (3:48 PM):
🙂

Mom says (3:48 PM):
well and the HD part

Kevin says (3:48 PM):
Pretty much the same as what you’ve got, except, I think yours was 32″?

Mom says (3:48 PM):
yep

Kevin says (3:49 PM):
I thought I was going to have to get a 32″ which probably wouldn’t really be that bad, except I’ve been looking at 37″ screen for four + years.
I think I’d notice.  But then I found this TV and with my Target Visa card I get 5% off so that’s not bad either.*

I’m getting a big enough income tax refund to more than cover it so I’m not really “charging” it exactly, but my refund will probably be another 7-10 days.

The part I’m unhappy about is that I planned to use that money to pay off another credit card.

Sigh

Mom says (3:50 PM):
Things are tough all over . . .

Kevin says (3:50 PM):
🙂
yeah

Also, I paid over $700, only four years ago for the TV that died.  Meanwhile, the 19″ tv I bought at Foley’s in 1994 is still going strong.

AND, the company that made the newer TV went bankrupt and was sold to Ericson who says right on their website, they don’t care about the old products and the people who own them.

Throughout the first half of my childhood we had a series of hand-me-down televisions in our house.  Several of them were cabinet units as big as a couch.  One of them was a mahogany monstrosity with sliding fabric panels that covered the screen and lift up doors in the top under which were an AM/FM stereo with 8-track player and a record player!!!  That one was nice while it lasted.  Back then no one had ever heard of such a thing as a “cable ready” television and each of these successive televisions had rabbit ears with aluminum foil flags at the ends that periodically had to be adjusted by someone for better reception.

And by “someone” I mean the youngest child.

And by “the youngest child” I mean me.

Three guesses whose job it was to change the channels…

In the mid 1987 my mother finally decided to use money from an income tax refund to buy the family a new color television.  She bought a brand new RCA model that must’ve been no more than 19″ and quite possibly smaller, but it was color with working volume and it came with a remote control!

Mom says (3:52 PM):
There’s a lesson in there somewhere,  Probably a history lesson.  They don’t make things like the used to!

My previous TV lasted, I’m not even sure how long.  Many many years

Kevin says (3:54 PM):
Oh, yeah.  You had that since… Shortly after we moved to Tulsa, I think… We didn’t buy it before we moved, did we?

Mom says (3:54 PM):
No, but it was soon after we got here.

Kevin says (3:54 PM):
Remember how excited we were, to have a brand new COLOR tv WITH a remote control?   Tiny little thing that it is.

Well, anyway I remember how excited III was, to have the remote control…

Mom says (3:55 PM):
Yes.  Hard to believe we used to actually get up and walk across the room to change the channel.

Kevin says (3:55 PM):
We?
😛

Mom says (3:56 PM):
Hey!  I was watching TV a looong time before you came along!

Kevin says (3:56 PM):
You had two other kids, too.

But yes, there was a time when you had to get up to change the channel.

Not long after I moved to California and my mother had no more tech support children at home she called me one afternoon and told me she had rearranged the furniture in her living room but now she couldn’t get her TV to work.  After asking some leading questions I determined that the television was coming on but that she was receiving no channels.  Back then, you had to “program” the channels in by allowing the television to “surf” through the frequencies looking for channels that came in tune.

I still remember the day you called me in San Francisco ’cause you had rearranged furniture and needed to reprogram your tv.  I told you to go push the “program” button or whatever it was called and you said you couldn’t find it on the remote.  I told you it was on the front of the actual television and you said, “You mean I have actually walk over to the TV???”

Mom says (3:58 PM):
Huff puff and wuff.

*For the record, I am receiving no compensation or consideration by Target, Vizio or Visa… Darn it.

Seriously???

~ riggledo ~ 4 Comments

I took Lil’B to see Tangled yesterday.  Nothing terribly interesting to say about that.  It was a cute movie.  Zachary Levi does his own singing.  I was impressed with that.

What was memorable about the experience was this commercial that played before the show started:

At the end, when the logo hit the screen, the entire theater groaned!