The Life of Riley is a weekly post that details my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 322): Raking And Snaking

I decided that we should go over to the house and rake out the leaves that haven’t been touched in over a year because of the timing of our house’s transition into our ownership. We only had one rake available because all of our stuff is stashed away in storage, so we went to the local home store to pick one up. I had seen two garter snakes (that could’ve been the same one), but I had to kill it so that #1GF! would be able to continue raking. I felt bad about killing it because I felt like the snake couldn’t help that it was born a snake, but unfortunately, the snake took one for the team.

After filling up half of our leaf bags, we went headed home thanks to #1GF!’s large iced coffee. We grabbed a quick sandwich, and returned to fill the rest of the bags. It was late afternoon by then, so we showered and went out to an early dinner. There’s something about showering before dinner that made it feel like summer was on its way. It was still early when we were done, so we drove around the town looking at people’s landscaping to get ideas for our uneven (but raked) slice of heaven.

Monday (Day 323): Removing Fence Posts

I set up an appointment to have my car detailed, talked to the cabinet place about the possibility of bathroom cabinets, and called the water company about my water bill. It seems that Aquarion water will charge you $84 in service fees even if you don’t use a drop of their water. This is a service fee, and there’s no way for them to waive it even if they provided you with no service that quarter. The only way to avoid the fee, I was told, is to have the company come out, shut the water off at the street, and remove the water meter. That means it costs $84 just for the privilege of being an Aquarion customer. Did I join a secret water club or something? Do other companies do things like this?

Once I was done with my phone calls, I drove to my parents to grab a couple of shovels. I grabbed a quick sandwich and headed over to the house to remove six fence posts that ran down the middle of our property. I figured the job would take about an hour, since removing the chain link only took me about a half hour. When I arrived at the house, I poked my head in to check on the plasterers, who were just sort of standing around on break or something. It was an awkward minute of staring at each other before I threw on my headphones, and headed out to the yard to start digging.

Three hours later, I had the fence posts piled in the back of the yard. Thanks to my walkman, I missed the plasterers leaving, so I couldn’t thank them for the small pile of blue board that they threw out onto the lawn for me to clean up. The dumpster was a mere twenty feet away, but I didn’t tell them who I was, so maybe they thought that I was a day laborer who was paid to rip up fence posts and clean up their shit. They were half right, because I wasn’t getting paid.

I went home and scrubbed off the grit, and spent the rest of the day writing the weekly Life of Riley post while people power washed our apartment building.

Tuesday (Day 324): Aggravated At Nothing

I went out to breakfast with my parents, called the contractor, and then went out and did the food shopping. While standing there, I noticed that the heavily retarded bagger was constantly wiping the drool from his chin, and watched it go all over my groceries. I was torn between “there’s spit all over all of my groceries” and “He’s doing the best that he can with what he’s got”. Ultimately, I just thanked the guy and convinced myself that actually catching something from someone’s spit being all over my food was remote.

On the way out, I tried to imagine a person who would’ve freaked out about it. I imagined her as a blond in her late 40’s in a black coat and wearing sunglasses inside. I hated that imaginary woman for being such a bitch to that poor guy. Then, just hoped that everything was dry by the time I got the bags to the car, or at least into the house.

Everything seemed pretty dry when I got the bags in the house, but when I put the hot dogs away, they were soaked. My first thought was, “Too wet. Can’t be drool. Must be condensation.” I didn’t know if I was doing a good job convincing myself or not, but I was going to believe that it was condensation because if there’s no proof either way, I try to believe what makes me happier. That’s when I realized that the hot dog package had split along a seam, and what was all over the place was neither drool nor condensation. It was old hot dog juice.

I think I popped about then, and got irrationally mad at the hot dog package makers because this had happened before. Oscar Meyer makes hot dog packages that split near the resealable seam. I threw the whole package into the sink hard, and it made a loud enough BONK, that I thought that I shouldn’t have done it. I thought about taking the package back to the store, but it was a 30 minute ride for $3 that I wasn’t willing to make. I chucked the hot dogs hard into the trash, which which I gained even less satisfaction from, but was happy that it made less noise.

I couldn’t put my finger on what was really bothering me, so I decided to put together some landscaping ideas in Google Sketchup, and ended up making a new site header for K in Inkscape (even though she didn’t ask for one). She actually used it on her site, which was nice of her because I felt sort of like a dick for sending her a new site header out of the blue.

Wednesday (Day 325): K’s New Unsolicited Logo

K was having trouble with the logo I made her because she was converting it from png to jpg, which pixelated the image pretty badly. I walked her through how to fix it, and it seemed to work out for her. From there, I played with landscaping in Sketchup, and did some tutorials on photo retouching.

For some reason, I was still a little down, so I shaved off my beard to shock me into a new attitude. I didn’t get as many beard types as I had hoped, and ended up leaving a tiny, barely noticeable goatee under my chin. It sort of looks like Shaggy from Scooby Doo, but a lot shorter.

Once #1GF! got home and stopped flipping out that my beard was gone, we went out cabinet shopping for the bathroom. We thought it was a matter of simply picking out the cabinets, but we didn’t find anything that we liked in our price range, so we struck out again. I promised that I’d look into more cabinets the next day and give her a status update on what I found.

Thursday (Day 326): Tiny Cars And Bad Magic

I went out to price cabinets in the morning and then went out to test drive some Toyotas. I drove a Prius, which was surprisingly peppy for a little car, although the hybrid part of it freaked me out. You don’t have to put the key into the ignition, and to start the car or park, you just push a button. I had a hard time seeing around the rear view mirror because the windshield was so small.

Because the Prius doesn’t come with a sunroof, so I tried a Corolla. It would’ve been a nice car if my head didn’t stick out the sunroof. I’m not a big guy, but I didn’t bother taking that car off the lot if I couldn’t fit into it. Next up was the Camry, which was big and boring as hell. No style. No cool features. No great gas mileage. It was made for grandpas to haul around their grandpas guitars in. Toyota was a strikeout, so I headed home.

When I got home, I put together yet another couple of logos for K (even though she was already using the one I sent over and hadn’t asked for another), which she liked even better. #1GF! had gone out to dinner, and I was sick of the PC, so I turned on the TV to watch a complete bullshit show called Breaking the Magician’s Code. It was so secret that the magician revealing the tricks had to hide his identity lest other magicians seek him out and kill him.

I cannot tell you what a load of horse shit this show was. Is there anyone on the planet who thinks that women really get sawed in half on stage? What about assistants who disappear from boxes with huge curtains under them? Are these really tricks that need to be explained? They should’ve called this show How To Trick Seven Year Olds Who Accidentally Time Travel From Isolated Villages In The 1700’s or The Secret Tricks of Unhirable Magicians. Within ten minutes of that garbage, I was happily watching people get creamed on Japanese television shows like Ninja Warrior and Unbeatable Bonzuke.

Friday (Day 327): Bad Detail Job

I dropped my car off in the morning to be detailed, and drove #1GF! to work. Once I got home, I did price comparisons on cars based on how much they cost versus their gas mileage to see if hybrids are economically justifiable. Some cars that I thought were good deals ended up taking between 6 to 10 years to break even with the purchase of lower cost regular cars like the Conda Civic. It was surprising, and it might be worth a post.

Late in the afternoon, I picked up #1GF! so that we could go pick out some cabinets, and the detail guy called and said that my car was done and would have to be picked up within 20 minutes. We had to turn around and go get my car. The car still had road tar on it and the painted calipers were coated in brake dust. My calipers are red, so it’s not like the dust wasn’t noticeable. There were still swirls in the paint, which I was told could only be fixed by compounding the car. I wasn’t happy. What the fuck is a detail these days? A car wash? I can get a fucking car wash for $15 that leaves swirls in the paint and leaves my car half clean. The reason to get a detail is to have every DETAIL of the car cleaned. The guy gave me $50 off, but it was still a massive waste of money.

Most of the time, I just pay the people and never go back if they do a shitty job, but I couldn’t let go of how similar my detail was to a simple car wash. The more I thought about it the more I thought that I’d been had. I really thought that I should open a detail business and actually detail cars. There is no conceivable reason that I couldn’t kick ass in a business like that with the couple of shitty details that I’ve had. That is, unless the average detail customer doesn’t notice things like dirt and paint swirls.

I stewed in the car almost the whole way over to the cabinet place. The kitchen people, who have never seen me without a beard, didn’t notice that I was no longer sporing my unruly lumberjack look. That was odd enough to snap me out of my disenchantment with the detail business for a short time. Once we were done with the cabinets, #1GF! had to go back to work because tech people are white collar slaves who are expected to work uncompensated nights and weekends. Any time a business person shits on something, a tech person is expected to be on call with a mop and a smile.

On the way home, #1GF! suggested that rather than go home, I should go out to dinner with my parents and she’d pick me up when she was done. I called my parents, and they agreed to the idea. During dinner, I realized that I was argumentative about situations that I knew nothing about, and tried to stop myself from being a jerk. I’m not sure if I was successful. I think that I may have too many little choices to make, and my lack of employment leaves the question of money always floating in the back of my mind. I’m not worried about running out quite yet, but I’m always aware that there isn’t any coming in, and I let it make choices frustratingly more signifigant than they need to be.

On the way home, #1GF! and I argued about getting a new car, which she thought was a decided deal, and I keep thinking makes less and less economic sense. I hate having to think about what makes economic sense. That’s a benefit that you get with having a decent income, bitches. There is fun to being unemployed, but not having to think too hard about money can make life more pleasant, too. When we got home, we went right to sleep. #1GF! was tired from work, and I was tired from the lack of it.

Saturday (Day 328): Counters And Car Issues

We got up early to pick out our counter tops, and I got to see what a shitty detail I got in the sunlight. I got aggravated again because I could feel the grit clinging to the car. Then, I started thinking about the cabinets we picked and started second guessing our choices. I am driving myself crazy by overthinking things over and over.

By the time we got to the granite place, I felt a lot better, but the whole picking experience wasn’t what I thought it was supposed to be. I thought you went in and looked at a stone, and if you don’t like it, they use a crane to move to the next piece to see if you like that one. When we looked, the guy showed us one piece of granite and then took off. when he came back, we told him that we didn’t like that piece, and he said that he had three other slabs, but they were all the same. I thought all stones were unique, but I guess not. They come in lots, and the lots are pretty much the same, they say. We thanked him and went to two other places that ranged from the very northern part of the state to the very southern.

At our last place, we ended up tagging a piece just to tag it, but we really weren’t crazy about it. On our way out, #GF!’s car alarm remote died and she couldn’t open the car. #1GF! had no idea where her alarm kill switch was, so we switched batteries with a guy with a similar remote who worked at the place. It still didn’t work, so I eventually, I just opened the door and put the key in. Everything started fine and we got out of there.

When we got home, I made #1GF! dinner and we watched Reservation Road and Resurrecting The Champ, which were both steaming piles of crap.

What I Learned

• Having money constantly in the back of your mind sucks the life out of things.
• Some people will take a new logo from you even if they didn’t ask you for one.
• I’ll never buy Oscar Meyer Weiners again unless they fix their packaging.
• I’m thinking too much and acting too little.
• I learned a lot more about photo retouching.
• A chain link fence post will take 30 minutes to get out of the ground with a shovel and some rockin’ tunes.
• A lot of the time, hybrids don’t make economic sense.
• Most cars still get 20-22 MPG in the city. That’s pretty sucky mileage considering cars should be flying by now.
• I learned more about photo retouching with GIMP.
• I need to get over this sourceless aggravation.

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Posted in Leisure