Foundation Repair, Crime and Carpet-Sniffing

We got a call this morning from Power Lift telling us they would arrive in Kingfisher at my MIL's house at 11:30 this morning.  So Jerry and I took our time getting ready and driving over there.  We stopped by the Ford Dealership near her home to pick up her Ford Windstar that has been on their used car lot since Christmas.  They were supposed to try to sell it for us.  I doubt they tried very hard.  I paid $60 to have the van "detailed".  From what I can tell, they BROKE the seatbelt cord cover that attaches to the space between the doors, and they left enough dirt in it to plant potatoes! 

I drove Mom's Windstar and Jerry followed in his little van over to her house.  We have not been there since December.  It appears that the only seeds that germinated in her yard were weed seeds!  The yard looks awful even though I just had it mowed yesterday.  Leo -- the yard guy who speaks VERY little English -- must have had his mower set up as high as it would go.  It looked like it still needed to be mowed.  The guy is as nice as he can be, but you cannot communicate with him.  Even when he comes to collect his money -- he doesn't know how to speak American money.  I'll say, "How much do I owe you?"  He will say, "What YOU think?"  I'll say, "I think $25."  He says, "I guess okay." 

If I want him to trim the hedges in the front garden, I have to walk over to the hedge and make my arms like a giant scissors and cross them back and forth over each other in mid-air.  He will shake his head up and down and say, "Si."  If I want him to pull weeds, I have to bend over, pull a weed out of the ground, and I say, "Pullo el weedo."  He says, "Si."  One of these days I am going to order one of those learn-a-language CD/DVD's you see on the television so I can learn Spanish.  I know some from high school, but I learned it the craziest way.  I learned conversations.  So, if I'm ever in a school and I need to go to the Library, I know what to say in Spanish.  If I need to go to the Cafeteria and they serve meatballs and french fries, I know what to say in Spanish.  If I ever get sick and I want to go to the fair with my friend Consuello, and my father says I can't go because it is raining, I know what to say in Spanish.  For some reason, I have never been in ANY of those situations!

So the Power Lift people showed up.  A team of five guys.  They ALL spoke English and appeared to have gone to school past the 6th grade.  The boss guy is Blake.  He told us that if anything went wrong, we were to blame Montana.  Right then, a young man popped his head into the kitchen and announced that he was "Montana".  Blake explained that it was going to get VERY LOUD and VERY DUSTY.  They began hanging giant sheets of plastic all over the walls.  Jerry and I had already covered up the few pieces of furniture left in the house with drop cloths.  Jerry decided that I would not do well in that climate, so he suggested that I take his van and come back home.  So here I am -- back at home talking to you!

I did learn some valuable lessons on my way home, however, I will share with you.  I decided to stop at Wal-Mart to buy some allergy meds that my friend Phylly uses.  It is called Allegra D.  They just went off "prescription only" recently.  I found some five year old Drixoral D in my cabinet a few days ago, and I started taking them.  They were working great, BUT I only had two of them.  Turns out they have been taken off the market due to people building Meth labs with them -- or something like that.  Seems the one ingredient in the drug that actually HELPS me, is now illegal.  That figures!  

I walk into Wal-Mart and head straight to the Pharmacy.  I notice a lady just walking away from the counter, so I DASH up there thinking I have really picked the right time to come.  I ask the clerk if they have Drixoral D.  She says she never heard of it.  I ask her if they have Allerest D (wrong name), and she says she never heard of it either.  I ask her if she can look.  She informs me that there is a long line and I need to get in it!  I turn around and look behind me from a different area than the one I entered from, and sure enough, there are five women with baskets in line.  I announce to the five women that I'm sorry, and that I just wanted to find out if they made a certain drug.  They look at me like they don't care WHY I'm there -- I better get in the BACK of the line!  I smile and push my basket through the narrow walkway, tell them I'm so sorry, and I line up behind them.  They turn out to be quite nice, and we begin chatting about allergies and having to sign your life away to even buy them these days and how the drug addicts make it so hard on everyone else.

About that time a large man with big, muscular arms comes up behind me in the line.  He is holding a bunch of things in his arms -- instead of a basket -- and he starts talking very loud to the 2nd lady in front of me.  She evidently made the mistake of making eye contact with the guy.  He starts yelling at her, "I am in insurance, and I have had thousands of claims, and do you KNOW how many crimes have ever been settled in my company??????????"  The lady doesn't say anything.  He doesn't care.  He continues, "I'll TELL you how many -- NONE -- NOT ONE -- NEVER!!!  She says something acknowledging she heard him.  Then he starts telling all of us, "I have a friend who works for State Farm, and they have even more claims than I have had, and guess how many crimes have been solved since he has been there?"  We don't say anything, but he keeps on telling us anyway:  "I will tell you how many -- NONE -- NOT ONE -- NEVER!!!"  "Somebody broke into this house and they stole $60,000 worth of furniture, and not only that, they filled the family's car with garbage and deficated in it, and they urinated all over the walls in the house!!!"  "Do you think anyone ever solved that crime!?"  We all say, "No!"

So all the people in front of me leave to go get waited on, and I am left alone in the line with this man.  I get my cell phone out of my pocket, and I TRY to call Phylly to ask her the correct name of the allergy meds she takes, but the man WON'T leave me alone.  He keeps on talking to me.  He tells me that he took a young black kid into his home for two whole years and treated him like his own son.  He says he took him right off the street.  I'm trying to dial Phylly while holding the phone in front of his face so he can see -- but he doesn't care.  "That's right -- I took him in and I got him a job, and I started him in college."  "Guess what he did then?"  I turn around to face him more so he can SEE I'm TRYING to make a phone call.  He doesn't care.  "I'll tell you what he did!"  "He dropped out of college -- he quit his job -- and his Mother got him on Welfare as soon as he turned 18!"

Finally, Phylly answered the phone, and the clerk called me up to the counter at the same time.  The guy was still talking to me telling me how much the kid's welfare check was every month.  I'm sure half of Wal-Mart heard the whole story.

The clerk then asks me what I want.  I tell her I want Allegra D.  She says, "Do you want the SMALL bottle or the BIG bottle?"  I tell her I want the big bottle.  She brings over the "big" bottle which is just a very small flat box.  I ask her how many pills are in it.  She says there are 15.  I ask if she is sure that is the "big" bottle.  She says it is and that the small bottle only has 10 pills.  I ask if I can buy TWO bottles so it will last a month.  NO!  That is NOT allowed!  This is NOT even a prescription drug.  How crazy!

I decide to go ahead and get some lactose intolerance tablets while I'm there and some Ibuprofen.  I have to go to the main checkout stand to buy those things, however.  I find a peaceful enough looking lane with just one woman in front of me, and the lady in front of her is writing her check.  The lady in front of me sees that I don't have very much.  She has all of her stuff on the conveyer belt, but it covers only about 1/4th of the belt.  She asks me if I would like to go ahead of her.  I tell her thank you but I can just wait.  She says, "It take SO LONG to check all the prices these days."  I don't think much about that comment. 

I stare at the trashy magazines to see if there is anyone I ever heard of getting married, divorced or having a baby.  Only the princess whose name I can't remember right now.  Of course, she would be pregnant!  That's the whole idea isn't it -- to make MORE princes and princesses.

The lady in front of me is now checking out.  I notice her pick up a stack of flyers and some coupons.  These flyers are from Dollar General, Target and I don't know where else!  They aren't even from Wal-Mart!  Every time the clerk picks something up out of her stack, the customer has to look through all the flyers to find the other store's coupon for that item.  NOT ONLY THAT, she has all her own bags, and she must have told the clerk she wanted to load the bags herself because the clerk is stacking everything up to the ceiling waiting for the lady to load it in her bags.  I am thinking to myself, HOW ON EARTH do I manage to always get in the shortest line that is really the looooooongest/sloooooooowest line in town!?  I'm not upset though because I love watching people, but I can't help remembering that the lady did OFFER to let me go ahead of her.

That lady gets all done and leaves.  The clerk had not really spoken to her.  All she did was take all her coupons and stack her things up on top of each other.  I have just a couple boxes of pills but REMEMBER they are for allergies.  It just so happens that this clerk is a ROCKET SCIENTIST of sorts in the field of toxins and allergies.  She tells me that I need to watch a program called ION (I think it was).  Then she begins her lecture series:

"We all are trying very hard to get rid of plastic.  We do a little more every day to help the environment.  Plastic is toxic, you know, and it never goes away.  You are probably allergic to all the toxins in your house!"

"You need to check EVERY rug in your house to see if it has any styrofoam in it!"

"And you should never use any styrofoam products at all because they are toxic and they NEVER go away!"

"And if your house catches on fire, you could die of toxic gasses if your carpets have this certain chemical in them.  You need to walk all around your house and smell as hard as you can, and if you smell something that doesn't smell right, it is because your CARPETS ARE TOXIC!"

"And you need to check all of your furniture.  Your furniture could be toxic too.  Try to smell it, and if it has a funny smell, you need to get rid of it right away in case your house catches on fire!"

As I picked up my bags of pills and was walking away, she was still telling me how many toxins were in my house.  I was hoping that man from the pharmacy would come up there and check out in her lane.  Wouldn't they be a team!

That was all my adventures for today.  Sure did learn a lot!  Be sure to sniff your carpets!!!

Dancing With The Stars is on tonight.  I hate Jerry won't be here to watch it with me.  No TV at his Mom's house either.  He can watch a movie on his laptop though.

Hugs, Joy