Caulk Sucker

Incorrect

A week ago my tenant informed me that the caulking around her bathtub was coming loose, so I promised to repair it right away. I lied. I hate caulking, it scares the shit out of me because I have never been able to wield a caulking gun with any expertise what so ever. So for a week I kept trying to avoid her, knowing that I had broken my promise of a quick fix. Finally I couldn't hide any longer, so yesterday I dug out the caulking gun, along with a tube of caulk, and went over to do the job. I also grabbed a giant roll of paper towels, a sponge, and a large garbage bag. Scraping the old stuff off of the tub was easy and made me feel somewhat confident. I then cleaned the area and began caulking. Slowly and gingerly at first, it seemed to be going just right. And then I twitched. A huge gob of caulk bulged up from the seam between the wall and the tub. No problem I thought, I'll just come back and fix that when I'm done. Again I twitched and nervously tried to bring the tip of the caulking gun back in line, causing it to squiggle up and down. When I got to the corner a huge blob of caulk squirted out and up the wall. Fine I told myself, when I do the finger swipe down the line of caulk it will all work out. No, it did not work out. As I slid my finger along the gooey caulk it squished out in every direction. Before I knew it caulk was on the back of my hand, on my arm, and smeared up and down the wall. The more I tried to clean up the mess and straighten out the caulk line, the more caulking found its way to where it wasn't supposed to be. I now had caulk on my pants, shirt, and my tenant's shower curtain. It spread like a disease. The more I wiped, the more it spread.

            I certainly hope my tenant enjoys her newly caulked bathtub. I think it is acceptable, but then again I'm blind as a bat. I'll have to ask her if it passes inspection. If not I can do it all over again, because as I usually do, I looked it up after the fact. How to caulk a bathtub, it is right there on the internet and looks pretty straight forward. Which means I can probably fuck it up easily.

Correct

Well, Excuse Me!

      Yesterday afternoon, Mark has dragged me to the mall and is now finishing up grocery shopping at the Publix Store. We pull into one of the checkout counters and I unload our stuff as the cashier finishes with the lady in front of us. She's a forty something bleached blonde and is accompanied by her dumpy, tee shirt wearing, husband/boyfriend/baby daddy. Her groceries have now been bagged and put neatly in her cart as she now digs, digs, digs, in her purse for the means to pay. Finally she has finished her transaction and the cashier starts checking us out. Beep, beep, beep, the cashier is efficient and all the groceries have been rung up. At the end of the counter the bag boy is swiftly putting it all in the brown plastic bags, but he cannot put the bags into our cart. The cashier is done ringing us up, but Mark cannot move forward to the debit card doo-dad to pay. Miss Bleached Blonde is still blocking the end of the counter with her full grocery cart digging, and digging, and digging in her giant purse. For what I'm not sure, but in a lapse of judgment I blurt out two words.

            "Excuse me."

Miss Bleached Blonde looks up from tunneling through all the crap in her purse and says.

            "Patience boys. I'll just be a second."

            "It's already been a second, it's been minutes." I replied.

            "Well you'll just have to wait." She snipped as she continued fumbling with the purse. Finally she pushed her cart a few feet away and continued with her purse. As I push our cart out past her I look straight ahead, not wanting to keep the unpleasantness going. Behind me a few feet is Mark and from back there I hear his voice loud and clear.

            "Fuck you!"

It seems that as he walked by Miss Bleached Blonde, she called Mark a fruitloop.

            What has happened to this country? When did people start behaving like boorish lunatics? Why do so many feel that they can say whatever they want, to whoever they want? Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Miss Bleached Blonde had a gun in that oversized bag. Guns make people feel invulnerable and free to stand up to people when no standing up is necessary.  But it can't just be the guns. Possibly it's the cable news networks that feature people insulting and yelling at each other all the time. Or, it could be the internet where trolls on news sites spend hours in the comments section calling each other names. Anyway, I'm sorry that she didn't call me a fruitloop and saved that for when Mark walked by. Because I had a comeback all loaded and ready to go, and it was far more pithy than Mark's "Fuck you". I was going to call her "Trailer Park" if she had opened her big yap at me...  or c##t. I might have called her a c##t if I had a chance.

Ebaby

Mark has really slowed down his shopping on Ebay lately. Fewer and fewer packages have been arriving. In fact he asked me to help him get rid of some of the crap that he has bought. So I decided that it came from Ebay, it should go away through Ebay. The only problem is that I have never bought or sold anything on Ebay and had no idea how it worked. So there were some old parts from my 1950 Studebaker sitting around gathering dust, and I thought I'd get my feet wet by selling those on Ebay. I'm not sure what Ebay stands for, but I'll tell you, after signing up, giving them some very detailed information about my banking, and putting my first item up, I learned that the E in Ebay does not stand for easy. I found it very complicated and confusing. First there is the setting up of a PayPal account. That's where you give them access to your bank account, and you give yourself some acid in your stomach. Finally I was ready so I took some photos and put my first item up, but not before I had to figure out shipping costs. This turned out to be another confusing mess because now you had to deal with the United States Post Office, not known for efficiency. I went to the USPS web site to figure out packaging, and price of shipping. What a circle jerk that was. So I kind of figured I needed a flat rate box, but wasn't quite sure how priority shipping was different from priority express. In the end I posted a shipping fee of just over five dollars for the item. It turns out I was wrong, very wrong. After shipping and paying Ebay their cut, the 1950 Studebaker tail light bezels that I had put on Ebay for $40, ended up netting me less than $22. But I guess that was the point of my first sale, to learn how to do it. I fucking learned alright. I quickly raised the shipping cost of my next item by more than a hundred percent, and it won't be shipped by 'Priority Mail'. Screw the post office, it's going low class.

Open House

When I was a kid and my mom was giving birth every two years or so, my parents realized early on that the two bedroom home they had bought wasn't going to cut it. So every once in a while they'd pack us all in the car for a Sunday drive which always seemed to culminate in a visit to a new housing development. We would all pile out of the car and tramp through the model houses, oohing and aahing at the modern amenities, and smartly decorated dream homes. Each of us kids would quickly claim a bedroom just in case this was the house Dad would ultimately buy. In 1963 our model home shopping came to an end when Mom and Dad decided to buy one of the houses we had looked at. Not only did they buy a house from the developer, but they bought the  very model home we had looked at, furniture and all.

            I have carried on with that tradition of "window shopping" houses. I love going to open houses, especially in our neighborhood. It's fun to see the inside of neighbor's homes, to see just how they've been living. Most often what I see is that they live much better than I do. Mark on the other hand does not enjoy going to open houses. I'm not sure why, it's not like they don't want people in there. They've got signs all over the place begging us to come on in. Besides, I really enjoy the faces of the real estate people when that skinny black man walks in. I only wish we could bring along about a dozen little black kids.

Pasta Pasta

There are places you go to eat late at night, when you are drunk, that at the time seem quite good. White Castle comes to mind. Who hasn't scarfed down half a dozen sliders at four in the morning? When Mark and I visited Saint Louis we stumbled across a place called Eat Rite, where at three in the morning it was filled with drunks guzzling down something called The Slinger. The Slinger was something piled high on a plate consisting of two sausage patties, two eggs, grilled potatoes, cheese and a bunch of other crap, drowned in chili.

            Wednesday night Mark went out, as usual, and ran into somebody at his favorite bar who was singing the praises of a place in Fort Lauderdale called Pizza and Pasta. He gave Mark a card from the place so he would remember to go there. Fast forward to Thursday evening. Mark and I are sitting in a bar, well lubricated with vodka, and Mark suggests we go to Pizza and Pasta. Assured that it was the best place in all of South Florida for said pizza and pasta, I agreed. Here is what I remember. Walking in the door I was overwhelmed with the smell of burnt pizza dough. Not the worst thing. I've smelled that before and had a fine meal. However, one of the worst things you can see when you enter a restaurant, is the owner in shorts and a dirty tee-shirt, sitting at the front booth hanging out with his buddies. This restaurant featured just that scenario. We sat down in a booth that appeared to have never been cleaned or refinished in the last forty years and were greeted by Louise Lasser, televisions Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. It might not have been her, but it sure looked just like her. Louise plopped down a bowl of "garlic rolls" which were nothing more than Parker House rolls with a bit of chopped garlic dumped on top.

            "What can I get you to drink?" Louise asked.

            "Ummm.... " Looking at what was available, I chose water.

            "Okay, I'll be right back." Louise said as she walked away with a bottle of Windex and a dirty rag in her hand.

When Louise got back we put in our orders. Chicken Piccata for Mark, and calamari with spaghetti for me. Here is what we got. A piece of rubbery chicken with some kind of lemony goo on top of it for Mark, and a huge, and I mean huge, plate of fried calamari for me. What stood out most about the calamari was that it was gray. In all my life I have never seen any deep fried food come out looking gray. I took a taste. It tasted gray. So for about ten minutes Mark and I sat there in that dirty, old, smelly restaurant looking at our food. I even picked at the calamari a bit before I got nauseous. After watching Louise Lasser clean a couple of tables with the dirty rag and the bottle of Windex, we asked for our check. So how bad was the food? I offered the leftovers that we brought home in the big Styrofoam box to Chandler and Bette. They turned it down flat. Dogs who usually will have restaurant food halfway down their gullet before they even realize what it is, turned it down. I sure miss White Castle.