The New Adventures of Old Buffalo

PART ONE: SUNDAY MORNING COMIN’ DOWN

“On the Sunday morning sidewalk,
Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
'Cos there's something in a Sunday,
Makes a body feel alone.”  - Kris Kristofferson

I was only going to be gone for 20 minutes.

Jill is out of town this weekend, and I have been doing all sorts of writing. Well, that is, in between caring for our Jack Russell terrors - I mean terriers. See, Tessa is still pretty young and spry, but our “old man” Taz is now 17 years old, deaf and nearly blind. He’s in pretty rough shape, but we will continue to care for him as long as he lives. He is a member of the family. He raised our children and we love the old boy. That being said, he really is a handful. Or maybe two.

I let the pups out and gave them water. I had thought the night before about running over to Staples to pick up a side table for my desk to hold my MAC laptop. I jumped in the Honda and headed over to the store that is less than two miles away. I knew exactly what I needed.

I went straight to the office furniture section and there it was. I called the store manager over and told him I’d like to purchase one of the laptop workstations. From the get go this guy acted like a full on butt. Maybe he didn’t like working at 10 AM on a Sunday. I don’t know.

He went to the back and returned empty handed.

“Sorry sir. We are out of those.”
“Well, can I just buy the floor sample?” I asked.
“I’m sorry sir, we don’t sell the floor samples,” he replied in a condescending tone.
“You know, I thought you did. Office Depot does,” I said.
“Well sir,” he snapped. “We are not Office Depot.”

I stood silent for a moment, calming myself. “Okay, I said, “I guess I’m off to Office Depot.”

As I turned on my heel, he spoke. “Wit sir. They may have one at the other store. It’s only ten minutes from here.”

So he called the other store. We stood thee and waited for them to “run and look” to see if they had one. They did. I hit the door mumbling about having to go through all this crap when he could have easily said “sure, let me help you load this sample into your CRV.”

I got outside and noticed my left rear tire was very slack, so I went over to Spinx and paid 75 cents for air. That’s right. 75 cents. For air! Remember when air and water were free. Zimmerman was right. The times they really are a changin.’

I knew I had to drive across town to Goodyear to get the tire plugged, so I did. I waited about 45 minutes and the young lady who worked there came over to tell me the news. It had a nail, but could not be repaired. The nail was too close in on the wall of the tire. I had to buy a new tire. Good grief.

After another 30 minutes I was on my way to the downtown Staples. I went in, got the desk thing, and came home, I pulled out what seemed like a hundred parts, laid them all out on the floor and then it hit me. There was no instruction sheet. What?

I went online to the company website, and while they had downloadable assembly instructions, they no longer carried this particular model. Okay.

I went back to the store, where I related the entire day’s tale to the manager Don and the sales girl Dani. Both were nice as could be. Don went to the back, cut open another carton and brought me the instruction book. I thanked him and returned home, where I have just spent over an hour assembling this bad boy. Time now, 5 PM. And to think this all began at 9:30 this morning.

I was only going to be gone for 20 minutes.

Keep it Real. Keep it Southern.
Buffalo

Photo "Taz Goes Swimmin" 1999
 

related tags

Read More...

Comments

Please login or you can to leave a comment.

If you aren't registered, Register Now to start leaving comments.