$650,000,000 DOWN THE DRAIN

$650,000,000 DOWN THE DRAIN

Well…$1.00 down the drain, but I was prepared to spend $650 million.

Mrs. Cranky bought a one dollar ticket for the record size lottery this week.  We did not win.  While we were waiting to lose, we discussed how we were going to spend the money. 

I suggested as multi (650) millionaires we would have to move from our comfortable but bourgeois townhouse.  Mrs. C disagreed.  We had our first fight in four years.

Mrs. C wanted to give large sums of money to brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren, neighbors and friends.  I disagreed.  We had our second real fight in four years.

Mrs. C wanted a vacation home on the Jersey Shore.  I wanted a palace in Bermuda.  We had our third real fight in four years.

I wanted a new car for everyday of the week.  Mrs. C said those cars would take up too much space in our bourgeois townhouse parking lot (I lost that fight) She wanted a giant SUV.  We had our fourth real fight in four years.

Fortunately we did not win the $650 million.  Our marriage could not have survived the pressure of spending all that money.

Personally, I think she wasted the one dollar on such a foolish pipe-dream. 

She wants to buy another ticket next week. 

We are now having our fifth real fight in the last four years.

CAR CRAZY

CAR CRAZY

Why are men so nuts when it comes to their car?  I know, I am a guy I should know, but it just doesn’t click.  Maybe it’s because my wife is turning me gay.

I like a clean car without dents or scratches.  I clean the Tasty-Pie aluminum plates and gum wrappers from my car floor several times a year.  Sometimes when it rains I will pull my car out of the garage to let nature give it a wash. 

Dirt, dents, and scratches are inevitable.  If you try to keep your car dirt, dent and scratch free, it will become a full time job.  When I buy a new car the first thing I do is give it a small dent and a tiny scratch.  That way I don’t freak out when the inevitable happens.

My neighbor is car crazy.  He washes his car inside and out 2-3 times a week.  He is constantly adding on new stuff; special mats, bumper guards, audio stuff…he adds something new to his car every week.

He has painted his engine red; he replaced all the hoses with red hoses.  His brake pads....covers? Whatever they are called behind the wheels are all painted red and he touches them up whenever they get scratched.  You can barely even see them unless the wheels are off!

This neighbor’s car is not a Porsche, or a BMW or even a Lexus.  It is a compact Mazda or Toyota; not the type of car that anyone would ever give a second glance no matter how clean and tricked out it is.

I guess this car obsession becomes a hobby.  It is an expensive and time consuming hobby.  I don’t get it, but then I spend just as much time on this stupid blog as my neighbor does on his car.  At least he is increasing the resale value of his car. 

I thought my neighbor was overly consumed with his car until last week when I spotted a dude in a parking lot going over his entire little sports car with a huge feather duster.  He was dusting the top, the hood, the bumpers, the wheels and between the spokes of his wheels.  All the while his bimbo, bleached blonde, fake balloon breasted girlfriend was fawning all over him.

Oh…now I get it!

ANAL RETENTIVE

ANAL RETENTIVE

I hate the term “Anal Retentive.”  It describes an overly controlling orderly personality behavior.

This is one of those terms that college freshman started to throw around after their Psych I class in order to demonstrate how educated they were. 

“Dude, you are so “anal fucking retentive.”

I hate the term, but sometimes it is the only way to describe a person.  Well I guess you could say “Dude, you are so controlling and orderly” but you would only be corrected with, “You mean anal retentive?”  So you might as well go right to the AR description.

I might be the farthest personality from anal retentive as is possible.  Clearly I had no traumatic experiences during my toilet training days.  The term really should not be taken negatively.  If there were no anal retentive personalities, the world would be even more chaotic and confused.

My friend Scott (who goes by the moniker Anonymous on blog comments) is an admitted anal retentive personality.  He has been quite successful with this burden.  Scott has a special way to do almost everything and there is always an explanation for his technique.  

Scott’s workshop has rows of labeled coffee cans with nuts, bolts and washers placed in the order of the most often used.  His tools are similarly placed.  He never puts anything back willy-nilly. 

“Everything has a place; there is a place for everything!”

Scott puts an expiration date on things he is not sure he needs.  If something is not used after this date he throws it away.

Scott’s dishwasher has a separate area for flatware.  Every knife fork and spoon can be clicked in so they do not rattle around.  Scott takes much ridicule over his AR method of distributing the flatware in this machine.  Every knife, fork and spoon is carefully assigned in its own special spot.  Scott’s explanation?  “I have to do the unloading.  The extra time to put them in the washer is more than made up with the speed in which I can put the flatware away.” 

Mrs. Cranky and I recently bought a new dishwasher.  It is not as elaborate as Scott’s, but the flatware section does have different size slots so the flatware can be easily placed in its own section.  I have discovered that it takes little time to put the flatware in the washer into their own designated slots.  The time to put the cleaned flatware back in the drawer is dramatically reduced if they are carefully loaded into the dishwasher.

I am not there yet Scott, but I might be slowly moving over to the dark side.