White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Hmmm, where to start, where to start. Such an adventure I've had ... INDEED! I went to the Local Home Depot Temple on my lunch break (all 15 minutes of it) and picked up a new splitting maul with a fancy yellow 'unbreakable' handle. Yep, I'll be busting that one too in no time. I did that with a 7lb sledge hammer of the same mythical description. Yep, in my ham-handed grabby-grubbies, nothing is unbreakable unless I am trying to break it. While there, I HAD to stop of at the lunch counter and get a kielbasa with kraut and onions ... because they make the best damn dogs in the world there. Probably not, but the blue-collar guy in me cannot resist the smell of a good sausage in the afternoon. That and they have Dusseldorf mustard and that sends me over the top every time. The poor thing barely lasted 3 minutes before it was nothing more than a beige smear on a napkin and a hint of halitosis on my breath.

Back at the manor, I gave the new tool a test run on a couple pieces of wood. Mmmm, shiny metal tools, glistening in the sun. Ok, it was more overcast and sticky than anything, but the hefty wedge of steel did the job but I managed to mince the rubber neck protection ring fairly quickly. I'll have to get a more robust protector that will withstand the abuse I'll be heaping on it. Buy the time I got a second round of wood, I was already sweating uncontrollably. I made an abrupt, but correct, decision to halt the activities and go cool down before picking up the kids for practice.

The rest of the evening is fairly mundane. Jake cannot stand still at practice, Alexis acts studious but is really looking for weaknesses in her future victims, the Mrs arrives home from her NYC Expedition. Practice ends, I start the short but congested trek back to the manor but today is pizza night. I've already ordered the pizza 5 minutes before practice ends and it'll be 15 minutes before I arrive. That's 20 minutes ... I'm a math wiz dont-cha-know. The pizza is not ready ... new cook, blah-blah-blah, 10 more minutes. Yeah, I'm not in the mood to debate the obvious faults in the excuses. It's a PIZZA ... large with extra cheese. It does not matter, if it is not ready it is not ready and no amount of blather will make it arrive any sooner. I drive the .35 miles to the Manor to drop off the kids and let the Mrs know that I need to go back to the Pizza Joint. She reminds me that she offered to pick it up and I grumble about some nonsense. Fifteen minutes later, the pizza is not ready. Something about a rip in the time space continuum and the effects of time dilation at the speed of light. Yeah. So I head over to Coyote junction and buy a box of cigars. Shocked, aren't you? Well, I'm getting them mostly for the box. The kids need a treasure box and cigar boxes (the nice wooden ones) are the best. I'm getting 10 Cohiba Toro with individual humidors that will make for nice mini-gifts for my cigar aficionado associates. Sad situation arose from this. Now, we have one box and two highly competitive children. I guess I'll have to get another box. Well on my way to being a stinky old smarmy man.

I spent a bit of time sitting in the garage looking out at the rain. A rather ordinary thunderstorm had rolled into the area and was giving us a pretty decent washdown. Not the flooding kind, but the slow steady plod that actually soaks into the ground rather than washing away all the livestock. I sat there with a glass of Glenfiddich Scotch in one hand and my smoldering cigar in the other. The trees were swaying ever so slightly in between muffled firecracker thunder and the occasional flash of dim lightning. Now if I just had a worn out Barcalounger and an old radio, I would be set for the evening. Well, I did have the radio but there was nothing of interest on the NPR station I had it tuned to. The tobacco product was burning quite slowly and nearly an inch of ash was suspended against the pull of gravity by sheer will. I snuffed it out, slid it back into the aluminum humidor and took one last swipe at the scotch. The family was waiting inside for me and I would not let them be denied ... 15 minutes of mindless absorption was enough for the night. Time to go make some kids giggle.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 8:37 AM