It’s been almost a week since Daylights Saving Time ended and I just realized I forgot to update the most important clock of them all — the clock on the coffee maker.

I tried to fill my coffee cup while holding the cup upside down.

30 seems like the sophomore years of life.

You’re too old to be a young, but too young to be wise.

So your
20s are your freshman years,
30s are your sophomore years,
40s are your junior years,
50s are your senior years,

After that . . . maybe grad school - MS, PhD.

And, of course, like any sophomore, I have to say,

Sophomores Rule!

One of the reasons Fall is my favorite season is the event I call “The Winter-Coat Dig.” The first time I put my winter coat on, I stuff my hands into all the pockets looking for anything I accidentally left there last Spring (money). This year I was a little bummed out because all I found was a wad of receipts and a tube of chap stick.

However, I had a unique experience this year I had never considered before: digging through my son’s coat.

Among the nicknack’s was one item almost as good as money. . . the mp3 player I lost last Spring.

So, I had a good “Winter Coat Dig” after all.

Laughter helps.

Last Friday, we decided that on Sunday we would go out with the in-laws for our Sunday Night Dinner. I was thrilled because Ci Ci’s is one of my favorite buffet pizza places. I looked forward to that meal all weekend. I went to bed dreaming about the pizza buffet, and woke up smelling pepperoni. I even tweeted about it.

Sunday evening finally arrived and I drove down Providence toward joy (pizza is synonymous with joy). At a stoplight, my enthusiasm bubbled over and I rolled down the window and shouted “I love pizza!” The cop in the car next to me gave me the evil eye. I rolled up my window, locked the door, and hunched down as if I were driving through the projects.

My wife pointed to the light, which had turned green. “We’re going to C.C’ Broilers, not Ci Ci’s Pizza.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

“C.C’s” sounds exactly like “Ci Ci’s”

My heart was heavier, and my wallet lighter.

What Was Jesus’ Budget?

That’s the motto of my family’s finances. It means we try to live as humbly as possible because it forces us to trust God more. . . and that is a beautiful way of saying I’m a tight-wad.

One of the reasons I was excited about moving into a house, was I thought we could save money on car maintenance; our new house has a garage where I could do minor repairs.

When I was at the auto parts store picking out oil and a filter, I noticed one of the sales people watching me. He smiled (in retrospect, I think I remember saliva dribbling out of the corner of his mouth). “You doing an oil change?”
“Yep.”
He handed me a mountain of coupons. “We’ve got a special.”

I was flattered by his thoughtfulness (that’s probably why I ignored the saliva). He even helped me carry my oil out to my car.

On the way home, I started thinking. (I’m not much of an in-the-moment thinker. I’m more of an after-the-fact thinker, and my thought is almost always “Good grief, what did I just do?”)

I just spent $15 on oil and filter.

For the last 10 years I’ve paid the quick oil change places $17 to do the work for me. Plus, they would top off my other fluids, dispose of the oil for me, and once in a while you can find a $5 off coupon and get an oil change for $12. But wait, this deal gets better. While your waiting, you can read a couple chapters of a good book rather than getting covered in oil. Granted, you have to put up with the sales pitch where they try to talk you into flushing your transmission fluid, radiator fluid, and changing the air in your tires, but if you’re strong (or cheap, like me) you’ll be able to say no.

Oh well. I’ve got my work clothes on, so I’m off to get covered in oil . . . my wife just cleaned our bathroom, so pray for me.

Post Oil Change UPDATE
Good grief, what did I just do? I could have returned the oil.

I just bought some new shoes and they are ridiculously white.

There should be a paint called shoe white, and that would be the standard by which all other whiteness is measured; there could be a shoe white, and off-shoe white, and a country shoe white.

To slow down Global Warming we could build a huge barge, fill it with new white shoes, and float it to the North Pole to replace the melting ice caps.

The Meltdown

My tire didn’t just go flat, it exploded. No hope for repair, no future as a tire swing.

I’m a handy guy, so I thought I’d change the tire myself. After my last flat, I even bought a 2-ton jack that I keep in the trunk of my car, most of the time. The only time I take the jack out is if I need the trunk space to haul stuff. For example, if I had just moved into a new house . . .

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at it), I still had the scissor jack with the spare. So, I loosened the lug nuts, jacked the car into the air, took one lug nut off. That’s when I noticed the car shifting.

This was one of those slow-motion experiences. I knew something was wrong, but I wasn’t sure what. I glanced back towards the trunk with my angry face–that’s the natural expression my face reverts to when I don’t understand what’s happening–then I realized the car was falling, and did a weird flop/hop backwards out of the way.

Here’s the kicker. Are you sitting down? The jack sunk two inches into the pavement. If you drive past our local library you’ll notice a huge divot in the ground. That marks the spot where my life as a blogger almost ended (of course, I’d probably also be excused from changing any more poopy diapers . . . no, not worth it).

The Insurance Company and their Outsourced Phone Service that Connects to the Outsourced Road-Side Assistance Company that Calls Someone Else to do the Work

I’ve paid five bucks a month for the past five years for Road-Side Assistance, and this is the third time I’ve ever used them; I think I’m losing that gamble.

I walked over to the library and find a modern miracle–a working payphone. I called my insurance company, gave them all my info, got redirected to the Road-Side Assistance Phone company, gave them all my information, got redirected to the actual Road-Side Assistance company, only to discover the operator couldn’t hear me. Eventually, she realized I’d called from a pay phone and explained that there is some technological glitch with payphones that makes it difficult for her to hear people who call from them. . .apparently cell phones have better connections than land lines. That amazed me, but for some reason it also made me laugh and everything started going back uphill from there.

I was at the library so I checked out a book and found a nice place to read (that’s all I wanted to do anyway).

In about 20 minutes, someone from a local tow company pulled up next to my car with AC/DC blaring on the radio and I had a flash back to high school. The repairman was a great guy, and he changed my tire in about 5 seconds.

The Moral of the Story

If you pay $60 a year for Road-Side Assistance, make sure you also pay $60 a month for a cell phone. Of, course that could probably all be avoided if you paid $260 a month for a new car. And while we’re spending money, let’s throw in $2600 a year for insurance that redirects you three times before sending someone else to do the work.

The Other Moral of the Story

It’s good to be the middle-middle man.

I knew this was going to sooner or later. . .

This morning, when Isaac got up, he said he needed to go potty. I was thrilled. When we first got his potty (he was 18 months), he started using it without being prompted, so I was hopeful-as any parent would be-that he would be easy to potty train. But then he lost interest, and according to the experts, he’s too young to potty train, so we haven’t pushed the issue. When he said he wanted to go potty this morning I hoped he was rekindling his interest. I took off his pajamas, and started pulling his diaper off when I noticed (not quickly enough) that it was heavier than normal and the weight felt different. I was so surprised I tried to hold it out away from me, and wrap it up all at the same time, which resulted in me flipping the diaper into the air and launching the poo across the room.

The End

Great news, Gina found my flash drive!

And I pulled out the trusty old walkman to listen to while I ride my bike.

I’m very angry with myself. About a month ago I lost my MP3 player, which stinks because it’s bike-riding weather and now I can’t listen to my books-on-tape (will we ever call them books-on-mp3?). THEN on Saturday I lost my Flash drive. Stinky!

The jump drive did have my contact info on it so we’ll see if it gets returned. . . . probably not. The embarrassing part is that I had about 3000 words of a story idea on there and I don’t like people to read my stories until I’ve edited them about fifty million times.

Update #1: Found
Update #2: And Found