I hope that everyone had a good Christmas. I am just glad that mine is over.
I had what I called a zero-sum Christmas. I did not buy any presents for my sister's family and they did not buy me any, either. I may be a Scrooge, but it just didn't work out. I was sick much of the month, missing quite a bit of work, and missing the paperwork deadline because I had strep.
My paycheck on the fourth was for four hours. My paycheck on the eighteenth was nice and big, but I was sick again. When I was well enough to think about buying presents I didn't have time to order anything, and shopping isn't great in a small town.
There are endless stores in the Phoenix area. I planned on going shopping as soon as I got down.
Mom announced that we would leave Monday at 5pm. I was ready. I kept asking what she needed me to do.
We didn't leave until at least 8:30. I drove below the speed limit, but thankfully did not see any elk. We did not get to our hotel until after midnight. We needed to do my brother's entire evening routine, which took a while.
I woke up at 3am and couldn't get back to sleep, so I tried to plan my day.
I looked into rentals and went back to sleep.
Mom's alarm went off at 7:45, I got breakfast, ate, and went back to sleep.
I didn't wake up again until 3pm!
Mom and my brother were shopping and when I woke up I tried to figure out what I could still do. The most popular Mexican chain around here is called Filiberto's and there dozens of clones with names ending in "berto's." There was a Filiberto's within walking distance, so I figured that I would get everyone a gift card. My sister's family regularly runs to Filiberto's.
They closed before I got there. I went to some stores with huge selections of gift cards, but none for Filiberto's. I didn't see anything worth giving until we went to Walgreen's, the only place open until midnight.
Most of their Russell Stover chocolates were half off. I grabbed an arm full of the largest boxes, waited in line, and asked the cashier if they were on sale--there was not a price on the shelf.
They were not and, not feeling like spending $168 on chocolate, I put them back.
Nobody at my sister's house said anything about presents, so I guess that I broke even by default, but nobody got anything for my brother, either, and he is a sweetie!
No presents for Mom, either, and she had them for everyone.
I played with the dogs for a while while my family played with their devices. We found a Chinese place that was open and we went back to our hotel room and thought about what we did.
The next morning I lost a crown trying to eat the hotel's waffles. My old dentist couldn't see me until the next day. I think that I got the crown through her originally. My sister's best friend runs her brother's dental office and tried to get someone to come in and recement the tooth.
Apparently he could not make it because he did not finish fixing his truck in-time.
My brother-in-law said that was ironic.
We extended our reservation and I kept asking Mom to make sure that our keycards still worked. Those always seem to expire with the original reservation.
We met up with my one friend for dinner and she had presents for everyone that nobody liked. I gave her a big box of chocolates and so did my brother. Mom wanted to go shopping some more so my friend drove us to Winco, we bought ice cream, and went back to the hotel. I wanted to hang out in the lobby, but for some reason my friend prefers hanging out in the room.
Don't get any ideas, we had my brother.
We couldn't get in and since I was not on the reservation, they could not give me a new card. The girl left seemingly unconcerned that we were locked out of our room. When Mom arrived an hour or two later she got new cards, but we still couldn't get in. The guy behind the counter couldn't get in with his card and he couldn't figure out what the problem was.
He got us another room, but we didn't have our pajamas, toiletries, chargers, etc. My brother asked for a bath, but we would need to buy him new stuff because he cannot use the smelly hotel products.
Then he started obsessing about getting his suit, which we did not need on Thursday, and I took him to McDonald's so he wouldn't disturb anyone else.
Apparently all of the McDonald's reset at midnight and are down until 01.
That sounds like terrible timing. Don't they still have a number of customers at 12? Wouldn't it make more sense to reset at 02 or 03?
So, we went to Filiberto's. Yay! Filiberto's!
Except I do not have any way of knowing what my brother wants. Was I supposed to have him get out, walk through the flooded drive-through, hand him my cell phone with the flashlight on, hope that he didn't drop it, and have him point to what he wanted?
Normally he wants nachos, but when I asked if he wanted some he said "No." Well, that was clear. It might not be right, but at least it was clear.
"Do you want carne asada fries?"
He indicated that he did, but there does not seem to be a good relationship between him saying "Yes" and actually wanting the thing. Maybe he just heard "Fries" and ignored the rest. Maybe I should have asked for plain fries.
He didn't eat the carne asada fries.
I thought that we would drive around until he calmed down, but he kept pointing out turns and he directed me straight back.
He was calm and got in the bath. Then the employee finally got into our original room. He said there was a bit of plastic, like from a plastic straw, that he finally pulled out, and then the keycard worked.
All of a sudden my naked brother opened the bathroom door and the employee ran away. He asked us to move our stuff into the new room in case we had problems with the lock again.
I think that was the worst part of the trip, being locked out of our room until midnight.
I woke up at 0330 again on Boxing Day. I showered, put on clean clothes, and went to Pull-A-Part in the rain. There were huge contaminated puddles everywhere. I wish that I had brought rain boots.
I was there when they opened, but they made me wait fifteen minutes. I could not help but notice that the nearest car was an Accord the same color as mine--and that it did not have a resonator:
There was one v6 on the lot and only one 2.3l resonator on the lot. While I was there I tried to think of something else that my cars needed, but they wouldn't have intake manifolds with integrated catalytic converters, it is extremely difficult to find used cats, so I am supposed to buy an aftermarket one for $300 because of a small crack.
The only thing that I could think of was the Civic's passenger sun visor. Mine has sun rot. My sister once got in, touched the sun visor, and told me that my car sucked, so if I replace that, her attitude will improve, right?
I had my wrench and socket set, but no screwdrivers. I did not need them to grab a resonator and I did not think about the visor. I spent a while trying to find metal that I could use, but gave up. I removed one screw with a key, but couldn't extract the other one, so I put the screw back in a couple of turns and found my way back to the office.
It was $15 before taxes and fees. I need to pay an environmental fee for buying a recycled part? It was $20.28 out the door. I just hope that the rest of the intake components are intact.
I missed the hotel's breakfast, so I stopped to pick up food. That cost more than the resonator!
I tried to get back to sleep, but couldn't. Eventually I realized that my appointment with my old dentist was at the same time that we needed to check out. In theory, we could have checked out earlier, but things never work that way for our family. I packed up and loaded the cart as fast as I could, but all that my brother did was stand in my way. I kept giving him specific instructions, but I do not think he did a single thing.
Then I loaded the car all by myself.
We checked out right at noon and I needed to cancel my appointment. I could have been there fifteen minutes late, but my sister had set an appointment somewhere twenty minutes away, although we were supposed to be there twenty minutes early to fill out paperwork. However, most of it was on an iPad. I filled out all of that in two minutes and then they had a paper about my medical history. I circled no fifty times and finished right at 12:30.
They took a bunch of x-rays and after over half an hour later the dentist said they could not reuse the crown.
Of course they couldn't.
They didn't offer me a temporary crown, they just wanted me to come back in a couple of weeks for a new one for the low low price of $1,556.
I would really rather find somewhere up here so that I drive ten minutes each way, not a hundred and fifty, and snowstorms couldn't be as much of a problem.
They may have wasted my time, but they did not charge for the consultation.
We drove home and drove through a snowstorm for the last hour and a half. My brother insisted on going to Domino's before going home and then to check the mail.
I couldn't get into the driveway. I parked on the street and shoveled the snow.
I was exhausted and it took me way too long to clear the driveway.
On Saturday I asked him what he wanted to do and he came back saying that he wanted a haircut. That was pretty clear.
Sure, just let me eat--then floss--then shower--then dig out my car and shovel the driveway.
There were maybe four inches of snow, but it took me two hours!
He didn't help, not at all. Mom came out and shoveled a little, but she spent more time telling him to shovel the snow.
I saw tons of plows, but all of them had their blades up. I am not sure that my tires actually touched asphalt the entire way to Fantastic Sam's. There were two ladies working there and they had two customers all day. One lady cut my brother's hair and the other kept walking back and forth, but I couldn't get her attention, so I needed to wait for the other lady to finish cutting my brother's hair.
We like to go to the dollar store, but while all of the lights were on, they were closed, although they did not put up a sign, so we drove to Walmart.
Traffic was going 25 in a 45. An employee bought a broom just to clear off her car.
On the bright side, my brother found a two-pack of giant Reece's cups.
He ate both that night.
Well, I have one week to try to make up appointments before school starts back up. I have been trying to write progress reports. Those unlock for my main job on New Year's Day and are due on the tenth.
Today
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