In case you were wondering why I haven't updated the blog in several days, I've been busy, sick, or both. I've been in a pickle. Pickle is a word that isn't used much anymore but has been used in my presence by others several times in the last week. That's right, I've been in a pickle. Between work beating me and a summer cold sniffling me, I've been in a pickle. I'm back and vow to quit brining. Enough said.
So, Walter told me that he got into a pickle. No, I am not obsessive compulsive. As Groucho Marx was heard to say on the TV program You Bet Your Life, pickle is The Word of the Day. Pickle, pickle, pickle. Anyway, Walter got himself in a pickle with his neighbor. Evidently Walter had waited a little too long to mow his grass and decided to cut it at a taller height to keep from scalping and possibly killing the grass. He set the mower to the top notch of the mower and cut the yard. What you don't know is that Walter has a neighbor that is obsessive compulsive and does often get himself into a pickle (ding,ding,ding the secret word)telling his neighbors how to keep their yards. Walter's neighbor has made mention to Walter and his aunt on occasions about the condition of their yard in the past. Shortly after Walter cut his grass, the neighbor made mention to Walter's aunt that he thought,to which I shall paraphrase, the grass was too high and should be cut shorter. I'm not exactly sure what Walter's aunt told him but as soon as Walter told me of the conversation with the esteemed gentleman, I knew how I would have handled it had I been in her shoes. With age come tact and diplomacy. I would have told him to wait where he stood, and I would have walked inside and asked Deb to take him a greeting card, from that huge box of greeting cards that sits next to the front door, and give him one. On the card it says, "I would like to apologize for the upcoming actions of my husband and would like to offer you a jar of lubricant as a token of our good faith. My husband has gone to change shoes and will return shortly to put his foot up your butt and would you please use the lubricant as he has lost so many pairs of shoes edificating stupid people like yourself. I'm sure you understand as it can be quite expensive.Thank you for your cooperation." Then I would have gone outside and fulfilled the card's prophecy. Deb sometimes forgets to give out the lubrication, and I wind up having to hop around the yard on one foot until I can dislodge my work boot, but I forgive her and understand. When I was younger, I bought a huge box of those greeting cards but as time as told, I really didn't need them as so many people simply looked at me and understood my feelings in the matter in advance and decided not to utter stupidity in my presence. I am a lucky man. However, Walter's aunt has not been as lucky. So, I plan to take some of my custom greeting cards with the words "my husband" scratched through and the words "Al" written above, so Walter's aunt can use them too. Why should Deb be the only person to benefit from the greeting cards? Deb had some greeting cards made up too. They say "Tell me you didn't say that about The Puppies?." If you noticed the card said puppies and not husband you are a careful reader. She is like a mama bear when it comes to The Puppies. I could just see Walter's neighbors saying something about The Puppies and Deb stomping out with a rolled up greeting card to smack him on the nose. Now that is a vivid image huh. He would definitely be in a pickle (ding, ding, ding).
Last weekend, Deb and myself drove about ninety minutes to Randleman, NC to pick up some plastic reindeer for our Christmas display. You likely have seen these reindeer as they are plastic, light up, are about three feet high, and sit in front of Santa on a sleigh. Plastic decorations of that type are called blow molds. I know several people that collect them. Blow molds are not something that we collect or generally desire, but Deb likes that stupid Santa and the kids do too. It didn't seem right with Santa only having three reindeer, so we now own a full complement of Santa's reindeer. Believe it or not we could not think of the names of the reindeer. Bahh humbug. But what I wanted to talk about was where we got the reindeer which are exact matches for the three that we already have. I got an email from a friend in Charlotte that collects blow molds that some guy had a huge collection of blow molds for sale on Craigslist. It took some painful planning but my friend managed to align several people from North and South Carolina to go together to buy this guy's blow molds as this guy would only sell the entire collection and not piece mill. Last Saturday we drove to this guy's house and spent ninety minutes gathering 100 blow molds from various locations on this guy's property. It was a million degrees in the shade, and I knew one of us was going to get snake bit from the looks of his overgrown property, but we didn't. While gathering all of the blow molds, we lined them up in the yard for identification purposes. You have never seen such a sight in your life. I turned to another friend of mine and commented on how does one person collect 100 blow molds. My friend calmly informed me that he had at least twice as many. My jaw dropped and I quickly picked it up to keep a snake from crawling inside. I was dumbfounded. In the car going to Randleman,I was griping about having to store Santa and his plastic, midget reindeer. I couldn't imagine storing 200 blow molds. Well I am here to tell you that it ain't going to happen to Casa Al and Deb (and Puppies). It would amaze you how much space is already used to store lights and props. I am not in a storage pickle (ding, ding, ding) yet. The new reindeer are cute though.
Aloha Yall,
Al
MontyAndRiley@gmail.com
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