ROE INTENSE

Once upon a time in a kingdom somewhere around 24th street, there was a man. He was rather silly and weighed down with debt. He took work delivering cheese-like food three nights a week for tips to free himself and his family. His taskmaster was kind and knowledgeable. His fellow delivery folk were smart and fun and a little strange. They helped him much. And what was better, the King of pizza was always available. At first this man would arrive on the doorsteps of his customers with said food. He would smile wide, provide extra condiments and ponder the tips that were rightly his. He would say thanks out of courtesy. Then he would leave, count his money and judge his customers and himself. Sometimes he was sad, saying the customers were not thoughtful or considerate. Sometimes he was glad, saying he was exceptional at deliveries. Other times he was confused, wondering if he had done enough.  Thus tossed to and fro, he grew more and more tired . He reported thus to the King of ...

Whew! Felt like I was on vacation. I took Friday and Saturday off last week. The Boy Scouts had a winter campout on Friday the 13th. We got there, unpacked, put up tents, and lit the fire. The rest of the evening was spent staying warm. One scout made Ramen noodles. They proceeded to put them on hot dogs. A co-leader remarked that the noodles looked like sauerkraut. I cut sleep short at about 6 AM the following morning. I packed up and headed out. I got home by 7:30. The wife and I took the kids to her parents, then enjoyed a Valentine’s breakfast at Dixie Quick’s . It’s a charming restaurant. I guess they used to be in the Old Market in Omaha. They moved to Council Bluffs when Iowa legalized same-sex marriage. Every business has a story. Their French toast and eggs benedict were awesome. Back to last night. I was delivering pizzas again for the first time in a week. It was busy. I made decent money: $44. The interesting place – and topic of today’s post – hearkens back to my earlie...

“Honey, have you seen that dark spot on the driveway?” Amazewife asked some weeks ago. I opened a mental command prompt. I navigated to the “stuff seen in driveway” folder. It was nestled in the “miscellaneous” directory I keep in my mind. You know what I’m talking about. You also have one on your computer. Don’t lie. I then issued the command to scan the contents of the “stuff seen in driveway” folder and added, “Make it snappy.” My search engine crashed somewhere after that and all I got were old fishing pictures and a copy of ‘ PCDownloadFIXITturbo.exe’ . “No, I hadn’t, honey. I will take a look at it,” I said. Turns out there was a dark spot. And it was big. I couldn’t tell what kind of fluid it was. I wondered if it was motor oil. Time passed. The snow truffle-shuffled into town. The small blanket of white gave a better glimpse of what the spot was. It was red. Transmission fluid. The transmission in the Ford started clunking while coming to a stop that day or the day aft...

Sometime yesterday, fat nasty flakes mixed with misty rain descended upon the tiny hamlets of Omaha and Council Bluffs. Princess #3 was pattering around the shop where I work full-time. Her sisters were watching Ella Enchanted while I finished some computer reloads. Half-melted kit-kat plastered itself in layers to parts of her coat while she cried, smiled, sneezed and whined while eating the delicious tidbit. I knew it was time to go home. The flakes started to get fatter. Not majority-of-Americans fat. More like Truffle Shuffle fat. I appreciated the increase in fatness. See, I can’t figure out why the motor on my wiper fluid doesn’t work. There’s an electrical short somewhere. I can’t spray fluid. I must wait for it to Shuffle down from the heavens. And boy did it shuffle. Then it changed to the most beautiful powder I’ve seen since Beaver Mountain . Overnight we got 9”. I know it’s 9” because I took the girls’ sled out after they went in to warm up. No I did not frolic and dan...