The Big DumpTruck

Hey, my poem made their website! Of course, maybe they all do, but I thought I'd brag anyway. I have their 2004 calendar, which is hanging at work. I wrote this one last month.

Magnetic Poetry - Anthology Online

Can I complain for a moment? I mean, I know there are horrible things going on in the world (including Zell Miller's speech) but this is something that's been bothering me greatly for about three weeks now.

It has to do with my parking spot in the garage at work. I've been here for over a year now, and for that entire time, I've parked in the same basic spot (no more than one or two away from that spot). I mean, every day for a year.

And suddenly, there are people in these spots, even when I get there early. I believe I've mentioned before, these are not "good" spots. They are actually kind of deep in the garage, just because I thought it would be good to get a little extra walk. A whole year I parked there, and the same car used to park next to me. And now, because they are hogging those spots, I actually have to park closer to the door. Can you believe it? So anyway, that's my vent. Thank you for listening.

I wanted to write this down before I forgot. And I forget easily.

You're all watching Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, right? Right? Well the "live" show they have around it, "Fridays" is good. Very good. I wanted to praise them for having funny hosts and funny bits that don't make you want to scream for them to get off the screen, the way you often do for the utterly horrendous talentless bunch of awful twitch-inducing "hosts" on Splat!. If Nick doesn't fire that bunch of amateurs soon, I'm going to put a chair through the television.

Where was I? Oh, right. "Fridays" is great. Our favorite part involves a fake spelling bee and "Long Haul the puppet trucker". They have a word of the day, and a child steps to the microphone and says "Can you use it in a sentence". Cut to Long Haul, driving his truck, who uses it in a sentence that isn't a sentence, and then back to the kids where a kid spells it correctly. I'm not doing it justice, but last week's word was "D'oof" and the sentence was "Drivin drivin drivin drivin D'OOF!" Junior and I can't stop saying it to each other.

Fridays - A
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends - A
Splat! - D, if I'm feeling generous

Okay, so Junior survived and flourished on day 1. Apparently his desk is right up front, and the little bugger started his elementary school career by asking "Is there anything I can do to help you?" to the teacher. So she of course used him to do things all day. Way to cement your position as teacher's pet from the get-go! Cripes, I thought I was giving him good advice to get through the day, but this kid needs nothing from me.

Other things:

• Apparently, they use sporks in the cafeteria, and he thought they were the most brilliant invention ever. (My father used to work for the company that invented the spork, so I need to pass this information along.)
• Kids who were in his rec department summer program are also in the after school program at the elementary school, so he is psyched.
• There's another kid in his class with the same first name and last initial. I had already told him that if the teacher shortens his name, he could tell her he prefers his whole name so that it will be that way for the next 12 years. (example: Shortening David to Dave, or Susan to Sue). So he did tell her, and now the other kid is stuck with the nickname. Maybe that kid didn't care, I know Junior just prefers his full name, as do his father and I.
• They don't sell strawberry milk in the cafeteria (Oh, really? They don't? Barbarians!.)

So it was a great day, and he was just as excited to go back for day two. Whew!

There is no better day of the year than the day after the Yanks suffer the worst loss in their history, a 22-0 shutout at home. I'm positively glowing! The only thing that would have made that better is if we had been the ones to hand it to them.

You work in a secure building. Try to find your badge before you get out of the car, and store it somewhere that you can easily put your hands on it. Don't give me a big sigh when I question you as you try to get in behind me after *I* open the door; you know we're not supposed to let in people we don't know who aren't displaying a badge. I mean seriously, I need to swipe my badge at least 10 times a day to get into various parts of the building. Why on earth are you keeping yours at the bottom of your messy purse?

If you see the paper drawer on the printer is open, and you also see a person walking toward you holding two reams of paper from the direction of the supply closet, don't close the paper drawer and start looking in the cabinet under the printer for paper. Because chances are, the reason the paper drawer was open is that someone already looked for paper and couldn't find any, and that the person you stared at, walking toward you with the paper, is carrying it for the empty printer.

Dork.

I know that technically summer doesn't end until next week, when when working Americans celebrate having jobs by not going to them. Or something like that. But Junior takes the bus to first grade Wednesday morning, so this weekend is the last one before the REAL marker of time, the first day of school.

We had our last campout at my sister's house Friday night. It was hot and sticky out, and the mosquitoes had a field day. It was also a very destructive campout, and I wonder if maybe they'll think better of doing it again next year. Items that were destroyed: a piece of their sprinkler system when the neighbor drove a tent stake through the hose/tubing. We didn't know until the next morning when he pulled it out and the water started flowing a la Jed Clampett discovering oil. And then part of my air mattress got caught in my truck latch and was destroyed. And someone backed into (slightly, no damage) Mr. Dump's car. You know, typical Friday night/Saturday morning.

Nature held off on the gross weather until this weekend, so we didn't go up to Canobe Lake Park, as I was originally thinking. I just hate doing that when there's really no place to go to get out of the heat the way there is down at Disney. Plus, there's no way Mr. Dump would have gone with us on a day like this. So it was low key, I did some cleaning, Junior and I took his RC car out for a walk around the neighborhood. It's ghostly quiet out there. I expected to see more people, or at least hear them. There are three in-ground pools within 6 houses of us, and as far as I could tell, at least two of them weren't being used (I couldn't see through the fence of the third, but I wasn't really hearing normal pool sounds). Where the hell is everyone? Am I missing something? Is there a parade? Free ice cream somewhere? What?!

We picked six strawberries from our five plants today. I'm not very good about taking care of them, or even checking output, so when we do it's a special treat. I think I'll plant more next year, just because Junior loves strawberries all of a sudden, so I haven't gotten to eat many of them.

So anyway, that's why I have time to write to you, because it's too hot to do anything outside, and I don't feel like cleaning the bathroom. Can you blame me?