The jacket, the weekend, another viewpoint

We had a good weekend.  One of the things on the docket was the monthly cleaning duty which for August was the spare bedroom/hobby room.  This was the same room that we did the bug removal on the weekend prior so it helped cut down on what had to be done yet.  We pulled almost everything out of the room, dusted, vacuumed, sorted, threw out and put the stuff back in with care.  The room once again looks habitable. 

It’s funny to compare the carpet in that room to the rest of the house that sees heavy traffic.  The carpet in the main living area is beat down and stained all over from various pet excrement accidents over the last 5 years.  In this bedroom that hardly sees a footprint the carpet looks nice and fresh like the day we moved in.

As we were putting stuff back in the closet I took a minute to notice what was hanging in there, basically coats.  I have a 6 year streak of never wearing a jacket since I moved to Florida, even on days when it was clearly foolish to go without one.  It’s just a thing I have going.  Well anyway among the coats I saw in there was my favorite jacket of all time, my Reading Rugby jacket.

My dad played rugby for many years, he started in his early 30’s and played well into his 40’s.  I never played but attended a number of games.   Well one year they had these awesome, professional looking jackets made that were black and had READING RUGBY printed on the back in big, you can’t help but read me letters. My dad got me one. I wore that jacket as much as possible.  I loved it and seeing it hanging there in my closet almost made me yearn for a climate where I could adorn it again on a semi-regular basis.  The once big letters on the back are starting to show considerable fading, chipping and wear as the entire jacket is but I would still wear it all the same.

I think wearing the jacket made me feel like I was an athlete, it called attention to me in some way that I liked.  It also was the cause of my only adult physical altercation.  I am a tall guy and during the last 10 years or so a tall and beefier guy so generally people don’t want to F with me.  When I am in public I sort of carry an almost grumpy, disinterested aura with me. Well one time my favorite jacket overrode all those factors.

My 1st wife and I had just left the Spectrum after watching a monster truck show.  Yea I was a real motorhead in my younger days and stuff like that really appealed to me. (It still sort of does) Well you can imagine the crowd was filled with true white trash rednecks, drunk ones at that.  Well as we are walking along I hear a voice yell out “Reading Rugby PUSSY!” I instantly spin around, spot a shorter guy with a “yea, I just called you a pussy” look on is face.  Instantly the switch flips in my head and I give him a look of hate as I return with “F*ck you asshole”  Well then it was on, the gauntlet was thrown down and he had no choice but to escalate the situation or else be deemed a pussy himself.

He comes over and gets in my face, we are exchanging insults back and forth and then all of a sudden his buddy steps in.  He is more normal sized and actually seemed calmer.  He and I tried to talk things down all the while the little man was off to the side ranting and raving.  I told him that his buddy initiated the conflict and asked him if he would do anything different if he was me.  He agreed and I thought that he was going to shuttle his buddy away and that would be the end of it.  By now there was a crowd around us because even though we were calmer, it was still loud and you could cut the tension with a knife.

Well out of the corner of my eye I see the insitigator take a few steps towards me and then in a blink of an eye I am down after he plows me in the face.  Instantly one of the guys that was standing by jumped on the little f’r and separated us. My wife was hysterical and had started running towards the lot. I made a split second decision to go after her instead of trying to get my hands around the neck of that little bastard.  The shot to the face hurt a bit but nothing I couldn’t shake off.  I got to my wife and calmed her down.  I did the “reasonable” thing and we just went to the car and left.  I often regretted not going back and evening the score, however it just would have lead to more badness.  I have nightmares sometimes about me being in a fight with someone and my rage gets uncorked.   So anyway, I like the jacket.

Saturday night we went to dinner at my favorite place, Carraba’s.  I figured a rainy Saturday night, it could be pretty full but luckily we only had to wait 10-15 minutes.  I hardly had time to enjoy the 2 for 1 happy hour. Ali and I had some enjoyable dinner conversation, more in depth than normal.  I lamented that the waiters that had worked there for a long time were no longer around. Ali explained they probably moved on to bigger and better things. I reluctantly agreed.

After dinner we went to see Talladega Nights.  I’ve heard time and again how funny it was and indeed it did look funny from the clips. However just like about every Will Ferrell movie I have ever seen, it disappointed.  Yea it was amusing and funny at parts but overall it just fell short for me.  Maybe I am just picky when it comes to comedies.  It gets a C.

Ali recently has joined my mother as a psuedo regular blog reader.  She even chimed in with her own comment on last Monday’s entry.  I encouraged her to comment whenever she likes, it will add a different viewpoint to a situation.  Her comment on this one was pretty funny.

Our Sunday was low key.  We got up and busted out what had to be done yet in the hope that Ali could spend the afternoon just hanging by the pool.  However less than a half hour after she got out there, the big clouds rolled in and it rained for the rest of the day, bummer.  Ali spent a lot of time grabbing stuff for her Ipod.  She was about to buy a bunch of stuff on Itunes when I suggested to her that she let me try to find the stuff and save us the money.  I finally got off my ass and listed a shitload of stuff I had laying around the house on ebay.  I put 10 things up and already 4 things sold.  Not for a ton of dough but at least it is out of my hair and not cluttering the house anymore.

We are now a good 7 weeks or so past the installation of our pool cage and I have not yet received a bill for the balance due.  I talked to Ali about it and asked if I should feel guilty about not paying a bill we did not receive, yet one that I know I am responsible for?  Should I be the one to call them and say “Hey you didn’t send me a bill for 12,000”  The answer we came up with is NO.  The guy sat on 5 grand of my money for 7 months to do a job that took exactly one day to complete.  He completed it 2 months later than he said he would, f it.  If he is too disorganized to bill his customer that is his problem not mine.  He has my address he has my phone number.   That being said, the 12 grand sitting in our account earmarked for this expense will never be spent in eternal anticipation of that bill appearing in our mailbox same day.  Well maybe if it goes like a year or so I would feel safe, dunno. Feel free to chime in your opinion on this. What would you do?