220 miles for spaghetti, sweltering, back and forth, Pirates
So Friday night after work Ali and I pile in the car to drive 110 miles to meet one of Ali’s best friends, her husband and their two kids. I found a Carraba’s that I actually have driven by many times going to volleyball tournaments in Siesta Keys. The drive up was hellish. Where should I begin?
Let’s see, well we were on the road during the tail end of rush hour which meant the road was filled with wall to wall assholes. The weather was bad with intermittent downpours and nasty lightning, which further muddled the situation. I knew it was only a matter of time until we hit a backlog, which first came maybe 15 minutes into the trip. We saw no less than 3 cars off the side of the road, down in the ditch during the drive.
When traffic broke up a bit I was trucking along in the left lane doing 80 mph when I see a 10 year old Taurus come zooming up on the right. He passes me and hits his horn as he is doing it, acting like I was driving 15 mph under the speed limit. I instantly blare my horn back at the asshole and he responds by flipping me off as he zooms away. Of course this instantly flicked on my “asshole” switch and I increased my speed in an attempt to get up to this jerk. However, he was evidently in a huge rush to get off I-75 as he got off a minute or two after flying by me. My blood pressure was boiling.
Then the grand finale of the trip occurred. We just cleared a small incline and were greeted on the other side by brake lights. I had plenty of time to react and slowed down accordingly. As I am scanning my mirrors, I see a Toyota Corolla that also has just cleared the hill but is not slowing down. I am mildly concerned at first but then become extremely concerned as I am watching the distance between this car and us close very quickly. I start to speed up a bit to give the asleep at the wheel driver more space to stop. It was very tricky as I was keeping an eye on the person in front of me while trying to avoid becoming a road casualty. Finally this idiot wakes up and hits the hooks, hard. Their front end dives down and I can hear the squealing of locked up tires. I look in the mirror and the Corolla is RIGHT on my bumper, it couldn’t have been more than inches away. I remember making out the driver’s hands on the top of the steering wheel, gripping the life out of it. I remembered thinking to myself before the trip how we will probably wind up getting in an accident driving this far for dinner. It was a split second away from becoming reality.
Then, with the sounds of squealing tires still present, the Corolla veers to the left, on to the road shoulder. I was waiting for them to veer left, else I would have done it myself to avoid getting smacked. Once it started to turn, the Corolla spun a 180 from having it’s tires locked up. I finally breathed again. I was so f’ing annoyed that I was on the road, subjecting myself to this. I couldn’t believe that we almost got rear ended. Anger flashed through my mind. I thought about what I would have done to that driver if they rear ended me. Oh well, there was no revenge to be had, but I hoped the Corolla had 4 flat spotted tires that could serve as a noisy reminder about the driver’s lack of attention that almost ruined the day of both of us. Over the weekend I noticed a small little scuff mark on the rear bumper, he may have actually been nose to ass with us.
We finally arrive at Carraba’s and have a very nice dinner with our friends. I never met Shannon’s husband before but he was the type of person I got along with right away. Their son carries my name, first and middle, Shawn Michael. He’s a cute little kid. We talked mostly of their week at Disney. By the time we left it was 10 pm, by the time we got home it was bearing down on midnight. Our drive was like living in PA and driving down to the Jersey Shore and back in one night, craziness.
I had a LONG ass list for the weekend, it creeped into a second column, it was that long. One of the things I wanted to get done was to swap out the blades on the Cub Cadet. They hadn’t been changed in awhile. Earlier in the week I picked up a set at Home Depot. But before I worked on the tractor, I wanted to pressure wash the bird cage. So I pull out the pressure washer, hook it up and squeeze the trigger. After a little short burst, I get nothing. The engine is running but I am getting nothing out of the end. I unscrew the end from the trigger portion and I get water out of the trigger by itself. My expert troubleshooting skills then told me the wand end was clogged. I fumbled around with trying to stick something in there to unclog it but had zero luck. Ok well I guess everything has to go on hold until I go to Home Depot and get another wand end.
So I speed off in the truck, get to the store, gasp a little bit at the $40 price for a new wand but bit the bullet and bought it. I run home, attach the wand and bingo, back in business. So I clean the bird cage and then pull the tractor up for the blade transplant. I remove the mower deck and after much straining, break loose the thick nuts that hold each blade on. Then the horrible reality hits me. The blades I bought are not correct. The new blades have a star like center hole, the ones on the tractor have a conventional round hole. Damn it!!!!!!
I give Ali the bad news that I got the wrong blades. So for the second time in a couple hours, I am back off to Home Depot, this time to return the wrong blades and hopefully get the right ones. So I return them and go over to the shelf. I look and I look and I look again. They do not have the correct blades for my three year old tractor. How can they sell Cub Cadet tractors and not have blades for a three year old model??? Lunacy! So now I have to get back in the truck and I drive to a Lowe’s, 20 miles away. Surely they have them.
So I arrive at Lowe’s and examine their replacement blade supply. They do not have the Cub Cadet blades for my model but have a third party brand that was stacked by a tag that said Cub Cadet, although the box said they were for Murray tractors. Well the center hole was round so maybe they also work with Cub Cadet. So I take them home, praying that I finally got what I needed.
I rip them out of the plastic, stick them on the deck and immediately notice that the hole is bigger than the shaft. After some foolish initial thoughts that maybe I could just tighten the nut really tight to keep it in place, I realized that it would be dangerous to even try it. I gave up, put the old blades back on and that was that. I was so annoyed that the two huge home improvement chains did not carry the blades for what should be a very common mower. I have gotten blades before for it with no issues.
I was f’ing pissed. So I dug into more of the list. I spent the entire afternoon outside, picking weeds, cleaning the pool, pressure washing the pool deck, trimming trees and hedges. To add to the misery was the brutal heat and humidity. It was in the mid 90’s with humidity levels that felt the same. The little gnats were driving me insane. Awhile back I bought some OFF at the grocery store. However I didn’t buy the Deep Woods Off I normally get. Instead I got the more friendly “family” version. Well this shit doesn’t work. The bugs laugh at it and continuously dove at my eyes and ears the entire time I was outside. It eventually pushes you to the brink of madness as you start smacking yourself in the face increasingly harder as each gnat you swat is replaced with 5 more. I was wiped out Saturday night.
Even though I busted ass on Saturday, there still was a good chunk of stuff to do on Sunday. The grass still had to be mowed and weed whacked. Even though I didn’t think it was possible, it felt hotter and more humid. I weed whacked first, I was drenched in no time and then developed a sandy/grassy coating from the debris flying around. As I was finishing up, Ali got home from the gym and took up mowing. The bugs were driving her nuts as well and she took me up on my offer to finish up the mowing. I threw a towel over my head in an attempt to keep the bugs away but it didn’t help, they still flew at my face non-stop. I was so annoyed by the time I was done. I will be purchasing Deep Woods Off this week. It probably causes genetic mutations but I don’t care.
Late Sunday afternoon we went to a matinee of the third Pirates movie which we hadn’t seen yet. I had heard many opinions about it, both good and bad. We arrived 20 minutes early. I thought that was overkill and expected the theater to be next to empty since it has been out so long. I was amazed that by the time the movie started, all that was available were seats down front, it was packed. For me the movie was just “eh”. It went on forever. All the effects that were gee wiz cool in the second movie were old hat now. I just didn’t really care for the movie. I certainly could have waited to download the dvd version. C+
After the movie I went to yet another Home Depot, a big one, in hopes of finding the elusive mower blades. Once again, I strike out. The bigger store just had a larger number of the same blades that don’t fit. I expressed my aggravation to the clerk that was helping me try to find them. I said how I couldn’t believe that they don’t stock blades for a three year old tractor. So when we got home I went to old reliable, Ebay, and found them in 30 seconds. With shipping, I probably paid less than I would have walked out of the store with them, yay.
When I do weeding, the first thing I start with is the garden, since it is the largest pain in the ass. Of the 8 or 9 plants we planted 6 or 7 weeks ago, only one is alive now, the pepper plant. The honeydew and cantaloupe grew like crazy and even yielded some quality fruit, however like always, despite my vigilant spraying, they were destroyed by these little green worms that devour the leaves. I have yet to find a solution to these little bastards that derail any attempt I make to become a competent gardener. I need to do some research on how to eradicate these things.
If you can’t tell from the post, the good mood that I posted about on Friday is long gone.