Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Suspicious Character

One spring break while attending the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, I planned to visit my friend, Jim, in Hardin IL. I hadn't finished working on my car yet, so I decided to hitchhike.

I was standing on the edge of Hwy 36 in the middle of Missouri at 6 in the morning when a Highway Patrolman stopped to check me out. He looked at my driver's license and then asked me where I was going. I told him Hardin IL and he said, "Why don't you get in the car. You might be a suspicious character that I need to check out."

I spent the next half-hour chatting with him about some of his Highway Patrolman stories until we got to the next town. He pulled over, stopped the car, and said, "This is the end of my beat so I'll have to let you out here. I guess you're not that suspicious after all. Good luck!"


Monday, December 21, 2015

Easy to Find

One evening after dinner I asked Lan what would be good for dessert. She said, "I put a bowl of cut-up pears in the refrigerator, why don't we just have those?"

"Sounds good, I'll go get them."

No matter how hard I looked, though, I just couldn't find those pears. Finally I said, "Honey, are you sure they're in here? I can't seem to find them."

Lan was getting pretty annoyed by this time and in exasperation, she came into the kitchen, walked up to the fridge, and took out the pears.

She turned to me with a thoroughly disgusted look on her face and said, "You're lucky my pussy's always in the same place or you probably couldn't find that either."

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Optometrist Needed

Yesterday I had one of those really good days. There were no panics at work, I was able to actually get some things done, and the atmosphere was very relaxed.

On the way home, the traffic was not bad and the radio station, KCSM, was playing a long set of Miles Davis' "All Blues". When I got home I was in a really good mood.

I parked the car in the garage, went into the house where Lan was working in the kitchen, and said, "Hi honey. You look really cute today!"

She turned, gave me a "look", and then said, "I think it must be time for you to get new glasses."

Monday, December 14, 2015

Still Alive

A few months ago my wife, Lan, had a routine blood test that returned numbers that were out of the normal range for her liver.

Over the course of the next several weeks she had more extensive blood tests done targeting her liver. These tests were inconclusive, so her doctor then scheduled a CT scan for her. This also didn't clarify what was wrong.

Finally they gave her an MRI which showed that she had a large cyst on her liver. After several meetings with the surgeon, It was decided to remove the cyst using laparoscopic surgery.

The day of the surgery I took Lan to the hospital, got her checked in, and waited for her turn in the operating room. The surgery took about 2 hours and shortly after it was over, the doctor came out to see me. He explained what was done and assured me that everything went well.

About a half hour later a nurse came out to bring me into the post-op recovery room. Lan was lying on a hospital gurney and still hadn't completely come out of the anesthesia. I was sitting on a chair beside her when she turned, looked at me, and said, "Hi honey," And then said almost to herself, "This is really good, I'm still alive!"

She's doing fine now and is almost completely recovered.



Sunday, December 13, 2015

Pressure Player

I had a load to deliver to a large Kroger's warehouse in Louisville KY. I arrived early in the morning and waited along with a dozen other trucks for the gates to open at 6:am.

Kroger's had a policy that they wouldn't start unloading any trucks until all the trucks were backed into the dock. All the drivers managed to get their trucks backed in except for a hillbilly from Arkansas. This guy had the easiest spot to back into since it was right on the end of the dock.

At the time, I had shoulder length hair and was at least 10 years younger than most of the other drivers. My long hair combined with my youth automatically pegged me as a hippy to the mostly redneck drivers who were standing around watching the guy from Arkansas.

After he had made about a half-dozen unsuccessful attempts, I walked up to his cab and said, "Look, why don't you let me back that in for you. If I can do it perfectly in one try, you owe me 5 bucks. If I have to pull up even once, you owe me nothing."

The pressure was on, so he had to agree to the deal.

I climbed up into the cab of that filthy International cab-over. The empty potato chip bags, scattered dirty clothes, and empty coke cans rolling around on the floor combined to give it the ambiance of a homeless camp.

I fished around with the sloppy shifter until I found reverse, put it in gear, and backed that thing into the dock perfectly. As I was getting out of the truck, the guy walked up to me and started reaching for his chain drive wallet.

I said, "That's OK, keep your money. Just remember this episode the next time the subject of hippies comes up."