Daily

Toney called around 11 this morning, and said she’d be home for lunch.  She wanted me to put some hot dogs on the grill, and have ’em ready to go when she got here.

So, doing as I’m told, I went out there and flung a lit match into the gas cloud, and cut open a new package of Ballpark franks.  And roughly a quart of some kind of nasty-ass liquid came rolling out, hit the floor, and splashed halfway up my legs.

I’d taken a shower only moments before, and was now doused in wiener water.  Simply fantastic.

After I got the dogs going, I went into the kitchen and ripped off two or three paper towels, ran a little water over them, and started scrubbing my shins.  One of the Secrets walked in and gave me one of those “What the shit??” looks, and I just grunted at him.

Then I realized:  I very rarely wash my shins; they don’t get much attention at all.  In fact, I can’t ever remember lathering up my shins or ankles, during my entire life.  Is it the most neglected part of the male body?  I bet it is.

Anyway, I think I can still smell it.  I believe I’m still funking of wiener.  Excellent.  Perhaps I should just embrace it all, and dab a little Vienna Sausage jelly behind my ears before leaving for work?  Yeah, maybe I’ll do it.

I forgot to mention it yesterday, but the t-shirts are finally on their way.  Except, of course, for the two that were ordered today.

I even sent one to Clive Bull.  On a whim I emailed him, and told him I’d like to give him a shirt.  And he actually wrote back.  A pleasant surprise.

So, Clive will soon have one of our leaping catfish t-shirts.  I like the idea of it, very much.  Pass the beer nuts.

If you’d like to order one, here’s yer link.  I’ll probably be making another post office run on Friday, so order away!

Metten and I each posted a new Mockable this week, here and here.  Check ’em out.  And don’t forget about our Friday Guest Mock.  Send us your own home-grown venomous rant, and we’ll most likely publish it at the site.

Our email address:  mockable [at] gmail dotcom.

And since I have to cut this one VERY short, I’ll leave you with two Questions I previously asked at Twitter (or was it Facebook?).

First:  Is a York Peppermint Patty the most effeminate of all candy bars?  What do you think?  Also, which one is the manliest?  Tell us about it in the comments.

Second:  Would you ever eat a flavor of ice cream called Barnyard Gravy?  A local shop is offering it, but I can’t bring myself to order it.  I’m sorry, but it brings to mind bovine diarrhea.  What do you think?

If you were to open an ice cream shop, what kind of novelty Ben and Jerry’s-type flavors would you offer?  Anything to do with cow shit?  Help us out, won’t you?

And I’ll post a real update tomorrow.  I promise.

See ya then.

Now playing in the bunker.

We moved into our current house in early 2000, and have had plumbing problems on a semi-regular basis, almost from the start.

In fact, there was a significant hidden issue even before we bought the place.  We had it inspected by a company with a good reputation, and prices to match.  And they let us down, big time.  The pricks.

The upstairs toilet was leaking underneath, inside the flooring, and within a month or so water was dripping through the ceiling downstairs.  When the contractor tore it apart, he said the thing had been leaking for many months.

We had to rebuild the entire floor in that room, replace the tile, and all manner of fantastic fun.  It cost us a lot of money, and we weren’t happy.  We had some cash saved to set up our new home, and a big hunk of it went, almost literally, down the toilet.

We tried to go after the inspection company, we even saw a lawyer about it, but their “guarantee” had more holes in it than our main turd-transport pipe.  It was worded so they were almost completely protected, and didn’t really have to perform much of a service.

Anyway, fast-forward to 2009, and guess what’s happening?  That’s correct, water is leaking through the downstairs ceiling again!  In the exact same place.

On Friday we had a plumbing contractor look at it, and, among other things, he surgically removed the water spot with some kind of saw, and stuck his head up in there.  It’s that toilet again, and all the wood underneath is super-saturated – just like in May 2000.  Grrr…

We’d talked about replacing that crap-catcher, because there was something not-quite-right about it.  But we never got around to it.  Now we’ve got a mess on our hands.

The good news?  When we refinanced our mortgage last time, they talked us into buying a home warranty.  I think it was free for the first ninety days, then they added twelve dollars a month to our payments, or something along those lines.

And they’re actually going to pay for about two-thirds of this fiasco.  I’m shocked, if you want to know the truth.  I was braced for a long list of reasons they wouldn’t “be able” to cover our claim.

So, this time we’re doing it right.  That old Lyndon Johnson toilet is being put out to pasture, and everything’s going to be new.  Everything from the sub-flooring on up.  I’m tired of monkeying around with it.  By this time next week we should have a commercial-grade toilet in there, so powerful it’ll suck the intestines right out of ya.

And it’s not going to cost us a ton of money, either.  We’re going to have to pay for the upgrades, but the main work is covered.  Considering everything we’re having done, we’re getting off easy.

They’re starting on Wednesday morning, and will be blasting out the tile with some sort of air gun, or whatever.  Mildly concerning…

Yesterday we decided on the new fancy-pants flooring, and they’re going to bring three toilets to our house(!), so we can spend a little time with each before making our decision.  Heh.  I’ll be wanting to take all of them for a test-drive; a new toilet is a big deal, and shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Yes, it’s already been a memorable experience, and promises to get even better.  Here are a few random notes from My Friday With a Plumber:

When he stuck his head inside the new hole in our downstairs ceiling, he howled in protest and said there was a “bee’s nest” in there.  Inside our house??  What the?

He flicked it a few times, and nothing happened.  So he just casually plucked it out of there, like he was picking an apple.  I nearly dropped a rectal plate.  I’d never seen a person grab a hive like that.

“Bees were living underneath our toilet?” I stammered.

“Apparently,” he answered.  “That’s a new one on me.”

“So, a whole swarm of yellow jackets could’ve flown straight up my ass?”

“Ha, that would’ve been something to see…”

He rigged the toilet so it wouldn’t leak in the short term, but warned me not to allow anyone to sit on it, unless there’s an emergency.  “If someone’s on it, and starts hearing an unusual noise or feels the toilet tilting, they need to abandon ship – right now!”

Gulp.  I guess I’d better stay away from Starbucks for the next few days…?

He told me one of his customers had paid a company to do a complete remodel of her bathroom, and after about two months the toilet started sinking into the floor.  He said the thing was radically unlevel; the people were shitting on a slant.

Baffled, he cut into the floor, and found a piece of plywood and all the usual stuff.  But below it were cardboard boxes.  The builder had cut corners by using cardboard boxes as shim material!

Have you ever heard of such a thing?  I’m having a hard time believing that one…  I mean, seriously.

He also said a “large” woman had a water leak in her living room, but they couldn’t find the source of it.  There were no pipes where the water was coming through the drywall, and they didn’t see any problems in the upstairs bathroom.

He said he and his team spent many hours there, trying to get to the bottom of it.  He wondered if the size of the woman might have something to do with it, and quietly had his biggest helper stand inside the shower.  Nothing.  Nothing was leaking.

Eventually, after several return visits, he met the woman’s boyfriend – also morbidly obese.  Between the two of them, he said, they must’ve weighed 700 pounds.

He went about it delicately, but finally got her to admit that she and her boyfriend like to take showers together.  They were doing it a couple of times per week.  So, he loaded up the shower with three or four people, approximately the same weight as the couple, and the mystery was solved.

The drain started leaking, the water traveled downhill slightly, and exited straight through the living room ceiling.

Yes, the guy’s a hell of a storyteller.  I wouldn’t mind having a few Yuenglings with him someday.  I have a feeling we’ve only scratched the surface of the tip of the iceberg here.

So stay tuned.

And since we’re getting ready to drop more than a thousand bucks on this crap, I’ll try to turn it into a Question…

Use the comments link to tell us about the last time you spent more than a grand all at once, for one particular thing.  Was it more exciting than a new toilet that won’t go crashing through the floor following a violent Burrito Supreme blowout?

I seriously doubt it, but who knows?  What did you buy the last time you spent more than a thousand dollars on something?

And I’ll get back to the normal stupidity tomorrow.

See ya then.

Now playing in the bunker.

I was in Wendy’s a little while ago (#1 with cheese, no pickles, and a Coke), and the woman in front of me wasn’t prepared when it was her turn.  This is an infraction, as detailed here, and I was sighing to beat the band.

Then, to add insult to fast food injury, she started using a phrase that bothers me.  Oh, it bothers me a great deal.  Here’s approximately how it went…

Her:  Does the 99 cent bacon burger come with onions?
Cashier:  No, only lettuce and mayonnaise.
Her:  Then I’ll do one of those.  And do you sell chocolate milk?
Cashier:  Yes.
Her:  OK, I’ll do two of those.

Do??  How does a person do milk?  And then she started phrasing everything as a question…

Her:  And can I do a fish sandwich?  And maybe an order of fries?  And can I get a small root beer to go with that?

What the hell?  Was she asking the cashier for permission?  I have a feeling ol’ Snaggles couldn’t have given a shit, one way or the other.

This went on for upwards of five minutes.  She eventually DID about twenty dollars worth of food, and each item was agonized over.  By the time she was finished a huge line had piled up, and everyone was staring at her with agitated expressions.

A little longer and all that negative mental energy would’ve likely compounded, and the woman would’ve burst into flames.  But, unfortunately, we came up a bit short of our goal.  Dammit!

A few days ago I asked for your funniest funeral stories, and, as usual, you guys didn’t disappoint.  Lots of hilarious tales.  But I forgot to tell you mine…  How’s that for scattered?

Back in the late 1980s or early 1990s one of my grandmother’s sisters died.  The service was held outside, under a giant tent, of sorts.

The family was sitting in the front row — mostly other sisters and assorted spouses.  And when one of the sisters (the biggest of the litter) flopped-down, an entire row of people went over backwards!

The chairs were hooked together in some way, and shared armrests.  And the next thing you know there’s a loud gasp, and nothing but a row of dress shoes sticking straight up in the air…

God, I’m about to soil myself just thinking about it.

On Monday they were going to bring in a ton of ice cream at work, and have a “social” for the employees.  They do that sort of thing from time to time, which is nice.  I’ve worked for companies that didn’t do anything extra, whatsoever.

Anyway, I’ve been bitching about the traffic on I-81 South for the last couple of weeks, and think some of my co-workers believed I was exaggerating.  Most of ’em live within five miles of the place, and don’t know anything about the interstate nightmare in their own backyard.  Which, of course, doesn’t stop them from having an opinion, anyway.

But guess what happened?  That’s right, the truck with all the ice cream inside got stuck in one of those big cluster-fucks, and everything melted.  Completely and absolutely, we heard.

“Told ya,” I said, and walked away in smug triumph.

Is the Surf Report a blog?  What do you think?  For years I’ve resisted believing so, because that word is stupid and I didn’t really want to be associated with it.  But I think I’m softening on the position, and might allow the phrase to be spoken without retribution.

Any opinions on this most pressing of issues?

And while we were having our deck feast over the weekend, Toney brought out a gigantic bowl of watermelon cut into chunks.  Yum.

I dropped my booger-hooks in there, and grabbed holt of one.  Then I snagged the salt shaker with my left hand, and started putting salt on the watermelon.

And Toney hollered, “What in the name of the Holy Savior on a hand truck are you doing?!”  Or something along those lines.

But I was baffled by her question.  What did she mean?  I was merely salting my melon (not a sexual euphemism).  What was the problem?

Apparently this isn’t a common practice outside the motherland of West Virginia?  I don’t know.  And it seems a little strange that it’s never been discussed, during sixteen years of marriage.  But it’s never come up, that I can remember.

We started talking about it, and she wanted to know what other “weird stuff” I put salt on.  It’s a difficult question to answer, ’cause none of it’s weird to me.  The best I could do was pepper on cantaloupe.  That also blew Toney’s mind.

What do you think about that?  Are those things weird?  I mean, seriously.  I’m mildly offended.

Also, have you had any similar conversations, about salt or pepper on “weird” foods?  A regional thing, or just a personal preference…?  Tell us about it in the comments.

And I’ll leave you now with a few requests:

Please consider writing a Friday Guest Mock for mockable.org.  Metten and I would like to turn it into a weekly feature.  Taiwan On has written three so far, and I posted one of his today — a day early.  Why not join him?  Just email it to mockable[at]gmail dotcom.

Also I’ve got plenty of t-shirts remaining, so get your orders in.  I’m fixin’ to make a post office run, so now’s the time for a lightning fast turnaround.

And finally, if you’re on Twitter, I’d be much obliged if you could start following my tweets (and I used to have a problem with “blog”??).  Here’s my page.  Follow me, and I’ll follow you…

That does it.  You guys have yourselves a fine weekend.

And I’ll see you on Monday.

Now playing in the bunker.

On Saturday I took the boys fishing, at a nearby lake.  It’s quality father/son time that doesn’t include board games, or the chasing of a ball, so sign me up.

Last time we used some kind of ridiculous bait they’d found at Wal-Mart, which I think was meant to lure ocean creatures, like octopus or possibly the elusive sea camel.  I don’t know.  But, as predicted, we didn’t catch a freaking thing.

Therefore, I insisted we go back to the tried and true:  grub worms.  They’re not as nasty as night crawlers, or minnows, or things like that.  Plus, they work.  What a concept!  I’m not really a fan of the continuous, unnecessary experimentation.

So, we went to a bait shop way out in the wilderness somewhere.  We’d been there before, and purchased grubs from them; they were our super-secret, always-reliable grub hookup.

When we pulled onto the parking lot some kid came careening out of my peripheral vision on a bicycle, and rode straight through the store’s front door, which was propped-open.

I’d never seen a person ride a bike into a convenience store before, especially at such a high rate of speed.  I expected to find someone inside with their head driven through a Doritos display.  But, unfortunately, it didn’t happen.

Turns out it had been a girl, approximately twelve years old, all tomboyed-up.  And, while standing next to her at the counter, I noticed she could’ve used the following:

• at least one additional hygiene product
• a support garment

I asked the guy behind the cash register if they had any grub worms, and he told me they’re hard to find this summer.  What?!  What does that mean?  How could it be??  I always got them when Bush was president, so it must be Obama’s fault, right?

He sold me a tub of night crawlers, which I’d gone out of my way to avoid.  I reluctantly handed him my money, sighed theatrically, and the l’il (stinky & pointy) Jodie Foster said, “Hope y’all caitch somethin’!”  Thick-ass Southern accent…

The whole thing was quite disconcerting.

We went to the lake, and it was way too crowded.  We were practically standing shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers, and everybody’s lines kept getting crossed.  It wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but I kept my bitching to a minimum.

The night crawlers were huge, and the older Secret started cutting them into sections with a pair of scissors from the tackle box.  Cutting the bastards like ribbon, while still alive!  The poor things.  They’d probably been minding their own business in a field somewhere, and now some kid was dismembering them, impaling ’em with a hook, and repeatedly flinging them into deep water.

And I sometimes complain about my day?

We didn’t caitch anything, and nobody else did either.  Fish aren’t THAT stupid.  I mean, there were probably two hundred people around that lake, all attempting the exact same scam.  I suspect the fish were way out in the middle, shaking the front one-third of their bodies in amusement.

After we gave up on our fishy dreams, I asked the boys and Toney (she’d taken a walk while we’d gone John Wayne Gacy on the worms) if they wanted to go to a nearby ice cream shop.

This place is WAY off the beaten path.  It’s on the grounds of a dairy farm way up an obscure road, and is kind of a dump.  But the ice cream is incredibly fresh and good.  It’s well worth seeking-out, and we’ve been there many times.

So, we each ordered a cone with a freakin’ softball-sized scoop on top, and took a seat at one of the picnic tables outside.  Ahhh… there’s nothing quite like eating frozen dairy products while smelling the shit of the very cows that produced it.  Mister, that’s livin’.

While enjoying our cones, a car with New York plates pulled into the parking lot, and an enormous man emerged.  He was wearing shorts, flip-flops, a Gilligan hat, and nothing else.  He had no shirt, and his torso was just an avalanche of cascading flab.

He waddled around for a few minutes, snapping photos and plucking the legs of his shorts out of his crotch.  His pants rode up in the middle, fully and completely, with every two or three strides of his massive sausage legs.

Finally he went inside the shop, and the four of us started making bets about what he’d buy.  And I was the winner, I’m proud to announce.  The dude came out with a gargantuan $5.95 banana split.

That evening Toney and I each enjoyed a full ration of the golden elixir, while preparing a holiday deck feast.  We had more food than was necessary, which is the only way to go, and ate dinner outside.

After dark the boys went into the backyard and detonated about thirty dollars worth of shitty Grade C fireworks.  But they enjoyed it, and Toney and I watched from the deck.  With frosty Yuenglings in-hand.

It was an almost perfect 4th of July.  We had a great time, and the weather couldn’t have been better.  It turned out to be what you always think a holiday weekend will be like, and almost never is.  Know what I mean?

What did you do for the holiday?  Anything exciting?  Tell us about it in the comments.

And I’ll be back tomorrow.

Now playing in the bunker.

I’m still experiencing site issues, and have been emailing my webhost back-and-forth all morning.  We (they) identified and fixed a couple of Big Problems, but another remains.

I’m now able to make changes to the sidebar (Further Evidence, etc.), and it allowed me to upload a photo to yesterday’s update, but I still don’t know EXACTLY where my WordPress files are.  Can you believe it?  They’re out there somewhere, ’cause the site is up.  But I can’t see them via FTP.

But we’ll get it all hammered-out eventually.  And it appears the site is moving much faster.  It was really dragging over the past few weeks, but is all cranked-up now.  So, their “improvements” are causing me to lose some stomach lining, but have also improved performance a great deal.

I guess I can live with that.

As I type this Michael Jackson’s “golden casket” is reportedly arriving at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.  I’m not watching it on TV.  How are they bringing it in, via helicopter?  Horse-drawn carriage?  Maybe I should turn it on?  Or maybe not…

Not to be insensitive (ahem), but didn’t he die a long time ago?  Like two or three weeks?  Or is that just my imagination?  It sure seems like a lot of time has passed, doesn’t it?  And they still haven’t buried him??

Of course, at this point it probably wasn’t even necessary to embalm the body.  There’s so much plastic involved, it’s probably dishwasher-safe.

Hello?

I haven’t mailed the t-shirts yet, but I’ve set Thursday aside for the task.  Sorry I didn’t get to them last weekend, but there was some kinda cluster-copulation going on… which I can’t now remember.  But they’ll go out on Thursday/Friday.

And, of course, if you want one, order away.  I’ve got plenty.  Sweet sainted mother of the Litter Indian!  I think I might’ve slightly… over-ordered.

Metten posted another hilarious animation short at Mockable yesterday, and I forgot to tell you about it.  So, here it is.  Extra good stuff.

And if all goes right, I should have a free gift for you guys by the end of the week.  It’s not ready yet, but almost.  I’m excited about it, and think it’ll be very cool, indeed.  So, stay tuned.

This isn’t much of an update, but I found myself in one of those situations where I had to choose between “skip a day” and “post something half-assed.”  As you can see, I went with the latter.

For lack of a proper Question, why not tell us your funniest funeral stories?  Use the comments section below, if you have anything on this morbid subject.

And I’ll be back tomorrow.

Now playing in the bunker.