Oh, those words

Some words just roll off the tongue. Like "sausage." Wow, that's a great word. "Sausage." It even looks good. Others, not so much. Slacks. Pants. Davenport. Bureau. Oh, and my all-time most unfavorite word: panties. I hate that word.

And so, I think this sets the tone for my blog. Yikes, there's another one. "Blog." It sounds like a contraction for "barf" and "dog."

"Honey, Spot just blogged all over the dining room carpet!"

Anyway, as I was saying, this post probably sets the tone for what you can expect here. Random stories. Perhaps funny. Probably not. I expect readership in the 1-2 range. That's as in the number of readers, not their ages.

Quick story: tonight I picked up my car from the shop. It seems to be a regular occurance. I've researched Quicken and have discovered that we've could have paid for a small imported sedan with all the money we've spent on auto repairs in the last 20 months. Anyway, I picked up my Volvo station wagon from the shop and drove it, oh, 25-30 feet to the Shell station at the end of the block. I parked it, filled it with gasoline, checked the car to see how the repairs had been done, and then get in to drive away.

I turned the key and... nothing. Wha?? Turned it again. Radio came on. Lights blinked. Car did not start. Again. And again. And again. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I had the car back for 10 minutes, no, 5 minutes and it was already broken again???

The mechanic in the gas station -- not the place where my car was "fixed" -- came out with his portable charger. We hooked it up. I turned the key. Nothing. Turned it again. Nothing again. I tried the other key. I tried flipping the key over and trying again. Was I in park? Yes. Was the gas cap screwed on? Yes. Was I losing my mind??? Yes!!!

So, I locked the doors and jogged to the end of the street, hoping the mechanic who had worked on my car hadn't left for home yet. Thankfully he was still there. He grabbed his portable battery charger and came with me to the car. Um, we tried that already, I thought. But, I played along. I turned the key and it started right up. Argh!

But here's the good part. Really. Mike the mechanic, had me drive back down to his shop, where the lights were off, and he opened things up and installed a new battery. This is well after work on a Friday night. I expected, "leave it here, we'll take a look at it on Monday," or something equally unhelpful. But no, he took a few extra minutes and fixed things up right then and there. Good guy. Of course, I have paid him a small fortune over the last couple years on that car. I hope he names his boat after me. Or his kid.

By the way, I like the word "pantaloons." Weird.