Thread: My Day Before My Morning Shave - Sigh... Really - No Fiction Here

Well, this morning I decided that before I shaved with my Dovo SS that I would make a short run to Home Depot to pick up some lumber, etc. to build the workbench in my man-garage that I keep talking about. No problem. Got home. Oh, I forgot to mention that the wind is really blowing hard from the south. Since my garage door faces north, it was drifted in and hard packed. I don't like drifted snow. It's tough to shovel because the spicules on the individual snow-flakes have all being broken off, leaving just the round little pellets and they…pack…hard.
So I opened the garage, put the car in, got out my three shovels & broom, and closed the garage door. I always close the door to retain as much heat as I can so that, when I go out to smoke a bowl later after my shave I'm not starting to heat the garage from -10C or something. Yada, yada, blah blah. You know the drill. Oh, did I mention that I put my house/car keys on top of my toolbox IN the garage? No? K...
I hit the control pad with my wife's four number secret code that was the four number secret code that the previous owners programmed the control pad with. Why didn't I change it, you ask? Well, that would be fine with me. I can remember a new set of four numbers for a secret code for the garage door pad thing - no problem. However, SWMBO can't. Like, you know how for all the forums, email addresses, passwords, etc., we all have for various things, right? My wife has one secret code that she has used for her secret code for everything for the past twenty years. She has one secret code because she would never remember any other special secret code or password. I think it's a female thing. No, don't call me a gender basher. It's the truth. Let me explain. My wife is not suffering from any form of Alzheimer’s or dementia. On the contrary, she has a phenomenal memory and is by far and away extremely intelligent and logical. But, and this is a really, really, really big but.
Why can she remember every single family member’s - including extended families’ - birthdays, anniversaries, day their goldfish died, the first time I farted in her presence . . . but she cannot remember something as simple as a four digit password? Can someone explain that to me? So the keypad remains the same. Where was I? Here is another example or, if you wish, a wife-ism. One day on holiday in Hawaii, I was sitting in a restaurant one evening in Honolulu with my wife, daughter and son-and-law. Waiter comes to take our order. My wife looks at the waiter giving him her dazzling, grandmotherly smile and asks, "Can I please have a blue-cheese salad without the blue-cheese?" My son-in-law chokes and splutters on his water, I stare at my wife and think, God, no! Please God, no. Let me wake up and be anywhere but here. Now! I promise I will stoke hell's furnace for all eternity if you will please grant me this one wish or I will shovel your driveway. Your call.
The waiter looks at her and I can read what he is thinking - oh yeah, I can read him. Are you mucking with my head lady or what? My daughter, bless her intuitive self, puts her hand on my wife's (AKA her mother's arm), looks at the waiter and says, "What she is really asking is if she can have a garden salad. Please.”
My wife says, “No, I want a blue cheese salad without . . . why yes, I would love to have a garden salad. Thousand Island dressing please.”
Anyway, where was I? Shoveling snow.
So I'm done shoveling and want to go back inside. I enter the secret code password and the garage door only comes up about six inches. OK, punch in code again, hit enter, door goes back down. Repeat. Still no go. Repeat this several times. Garage door is making strange noise and top panel has buckled outward. WTF??? moment.
Push on top panel. Nothing. Push hard on top panel. Nothing. Pushhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh harder and swear as I push on the top panel. I hear a popping sound.
Oh good, that must mean it's fixed. Lower door.
Try to open, goes up about eight inches. Progress.
No problem. I'll just go around to the front door and unlock the door and . . . Oh #$%#!!! My keys are in the garage on top of my toolbox! Temperature outside isn't too cold relative to HOW cold it could be, but it's still too cold standing around in what I consider to be a 'get in the car and go to the mall kind of jacket, not a let's build a snowman in the front yard jacket. It's
-10C.
I go back around to the garage door. At least it's facing north and out of the south wind. It could be worse. It could be -20C and the wind screaming out of the north.
Work key pad, comes up to the eight inch or so mark.
I'm getting cold. Hands and fingers are getting numb. I'm getting angrier.
I drop to the ground and tried to wiggle under the open door. No luck. Wait! I know! I strip off my coat, gloves, scarf, toque and lined boots, drop back down onto my stomach - son-of-a-puppy, that’s cold - and I start to wiggle again.
Now have you ever taken a pulmonary function test where the doc tells you, 'Now when I count three, I want you to exhale right down until you feel your butt-cheeks puckering together and then give me a big BLOW!
Exhale until my procologists fingers go numb. Got it.
Wiggle under door. I can't wiggle any further. On three. One, two . . . You know if I get stuck here, I could hypothermalize certain parts of my anatomy that I really still need. My arms, fingers; the important things. This was a really dumb idea Chris thought, skips through my mind. Please, please, please neighbors, if you are watching this through your window, don't tell my wife. Ever. I will wash your car or cut your grass for the rest of my life, if I have a rest of my life.
Threeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Exhale. I hear a sucking sound from my backside then it stops and I figure, vacuum state. Move forward! POP goes the weasel!
I scramble up, grab my coat and pull it on my shivering torso and then look at the garage door while standing in my sock feet. I have a light bulb moment.
I see that the bottom panel of the garage door is hung up on the back bumper of my wife's car and that I hadn't pulled the car forward far enough. Why hadn't I pulled it up far enough? Because I moved the small piece of 2x4 that I leave as a front wheel choke, to tell me that the car is in the garage far enough that I can both close the garage door and get to the stairs going into the house. I reflect that it might have been a wise move to go around to the backyard and get enough pieces of scrap 2x4's to put under the garage door so that, if a 'what if' moment had happened, I wouldn't have been grape jelly.
What is the moral of this story? The moral of the story for me is dirt simple. Never, ever leave home without a cob and a bowl or two of Irish Flake in my coat pocket. That way I can sit in the snowbank, puff a bowl and think what I should purchase for my next RAD moment.

That, my friend, was a bloody odd post.

An entertaining read, and as I live in Iowa can empathize, but none the less, very strange .

Remind me to tell you the story of how my dad found the old hand crank winch in the back of Tim Modeland's welding shop back yard.

Well, maybe you wouldn't want to. Weird story.

LOL. What were you smoking in that bowl again???

So what is it worth to you for us not to forward your post to your wife's email?

I hope you enjoyed your shave, a bowl or two, and that your day got better.

Originally Posted by criswilson10

LOL. What were you smoking in that bowl again???

So what is it worth to you for us not to forward your post to your wife's email?

I hope you enjoyed your shave, a bowl or two, and that your day got better.

Actually, I often write these mostly useless anecdotal events in an attempt to bring a smile to my kids, and grandkids faces. My oldest daughter and son-in-law enjoyed the reminder of the blue cheese salad scenario and my wife recognizes that it's all in fun. One day when I am dead and gone and my wife has made an egg timer out of my earthly remains I hope the kids and grandkids can sit around the kitchen table sipping their coffee's and exclaim, "Hey do you remember when Dad," Or "Hey do you remember when Papa did such and such?" and then they will all laugh outrageously, or smile as they think back on those special moments and that will have been worth it all.

You have it too good man. This whole week it has been like -15, -20C and I rode my bike to work all week. Thats about a 20 US miles roundtrip. didn't have have any bowls either.. When it gets below -25C then I'm not riding.

Originally Posted by jigane

You have it too good man. This whole week it has been like -15, -20C and I rode my bike to work all week. Thats about a 20 US miles roundtrip. didn't have have any bowls either.. When it gets below -25C then I'm not riding.

You the man! I tip my hat to you!