Happy New Year!

This ABBA video is still relevant, 30 years later.

Happy New Year, all.

A quiet Christmas Eve

As usual, we didn't do anything for Christmas Eve... We contemplated going to a candlelight service, or to a children's Nativity pageant, or even to an old friend's house for her regular get-together of tons of people whom we don't know... but eventually we decided simply to go to the beach, watch the sunset and sing Christmas carols.

It would be nice if I could remember more carol lyrics. I found myself humming most of the tunes, harmonizing with my darling wife, who has a much better memory for Christmas songs than I do. ;-)

As for December's worklist:

• Guest bathroom - complete. It looks beautiful. We are quite the tile artisans.
• Backyard fence - complete. It looks even more beautiful, and makes our yard deliciously private. Of course, our neighbor Bob is quite annoyed. He didn't want a fence - he considers it unfriendly. But we consider his dogs running around in our yard to be rude. We warned him several times that we'd need to put up a fence if he couldn't control his dogs. After two years, he still hadn't, so we put up the fence. NOW he's controlling his dogs, making a sincere effort to keep them in his yard, still sans leashes (this means he chases them down and drags them away by the collar - apparently he's never heard of leashes). But it's too late. The fence is up, we're happy, and it doesn't matter if he's not. He'll need to get over it.
• Garage - awaiting permit approval from the county before we can brick up the garage door.
• Master bathroom - will commence next week.
• Lighthouse - maybe work on it tomorrow. Or next week. Or sometime.

Merry Christmas, all.

My Catch-22 check bounced

I checked my account online to verify that I had paid someone, and noticed that the check from the gun shop for my AR-15 that they sold on consignment had bounced five days ago.

I was most unhappy.

I called them up and got one of the desk people (not Fred, the owner). I told them who I was, very nicely, and that they'd recently sent me a check, which was no good, so I now want my money in cash, if you please.

"Hm. You'll need to talk to Fred, but he's out walking the dogs." (Fred keeps adorable dogs in the shop, who are always fun to play with.)

I said I'd hold. A few minutes later, the employee came back on the line and asked if I could call back later.

"Sure," I said. I hung up and reached for the car keys, and drove the 30 miles over there with my paperwork, going over the list of people I would need to call if Fred stonewalled me... the sheriff, the Better Business Bureau, the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (BATFE)...

When I walked in, Fred handed me an envelope with the cash, plus the bounced check fee, and he apologized. He'd been sick, he said, and hadn't been watching the accounts.

I counted the money, smiled and thanked him, and was inwardly grateful that none of the nasty things I had envisioned came to pass. Sure, it was annoying, but at least now I have my money.

And after all, I have only myself to blame. I should have gone over there the first time, and gotten the cash in person, rather than wasting a month and a half dinking around with the mail and a bounced check.

Feeling the presence of a Catch-22

You know how you can feel a Catch-22 situation, where you have a hunch that if you do something, a certain thing will happen, and if you don't do something, it won't? Like, if your car breaks down on a lonely highway. If you wait, no one will drive down that road and find you. If you start walking, someone will come, but they'll probably find your car and not you. Catch-22. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

I had such a situation in the past few weeks.

At the end of August, I put up my AR-15 rifle for sale. I had decided I was tired of it, so I took it to a gun shop that my neighbor recommended, 30 miles away, and put it on consignment.

When I got back from Switzerland in November, I called to see if it had sold. To my delight, they said it had just sold. Did I want to come in and get my check, or should they mail it, they asked? Go ahead and mail it, I said.

Stupid me.

Two weeks later, I called and asked where my check was.

"Oh, it'll go out tomorrow," she said.

A week later, I called again and asked where my check was.

"Oh, we just mailed it," she said.

Two weeks later (now), I was getting ready to go down there, unannounced, and demand my check. I figured they were sitting on my money, using it to prop up their business, since many businesses are suffering right now, and many more are going bankrupt. But I knew, in my heart, that the minute I went down there and demanded my check, it would show up in my mailbox, and I would look like a fool. So I kept procrastinating until today.

Something told me to check my mailbox before I got in the car to go to the gun shop.

And there was the check.

I laughed.