I Am Not Your Mother

Okay, I’m really tired and I’m having trouble making accurate sense of my observations.

- The guy at work who turned on a dime as soon as came around the corner while taking my lunch to the microwave was not avoiding me, just probably someone who forgot something at his desk.
- The telephony services van driving through the parking lot, occupied by two males, was probably not a tactical team meant to stalk me, but rather just doing work on the building.
- The guy at the grocery store moving the pallet jack of A&W Root Beer was not trying to impede my movement, he was traversing the soda aisle.

Of course I took all of these potential threats seriously, as you would if your life depended on it. But typically my point in time judgment is a bit more accurate.

Speaking of the grocery store, I’m making pasta carbonara for dinner. I sort of lied in the comments section of that link. I couldn’t wait until the weekend to try the dish. And I don’t know Carla personally, but anyone who lists sharp knives, cast iron, and small dogs for cleaning as topics of interest wins a spot among my blog bookmarks.

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At Least It Wasn't Raining

Sometimes your days just don’t go as planned. Today, I woke up at my normal time, took a shower, poured a cup of coffee and got ready to drive in to work. Everything was going along just fine until I went to get in my truck. Someone, it seems, decided that my GPS, residing inside my vehicle, would be much better suited belonging to someone else. The only thing between them and my GPS was the locked door and the driver side window. The window proved to be the path of least resistance and, apparently, didn't put up much of a fight.


My neighbor had just detailed his car yesterday and said he had hand prints on his windows, indicating that the perp’ had gone from car to car looking for a nice score. This, for any tax paying citizen, would be a small comfort because it indicated that I had not been targeted directly and had just gotten unlucky.

Well, for me, I’m not ready to jump to that conclusion. It is now hyper-vigilance o’clock from now on.

I filed a police report, which they completed over the phone. Apparently they didn’t need proof that my truck was broken into. They’ll be fine taking my word for it and adding it to their stack of paper. They said that my daily transaction number was ‘077.’ Does this mean that, as of my call at 7:50 AM, I was the seventy seventh person to require police assistance? That’s not exactly comforting.

At least I was insured for this. Zero dollar deductible and no increase in rates for theft or vandalism. The window guy came by mid afternoon, made my truck significantly less drafty, and departed without any out of pocket expense.

The boss-man was okay with me working from home today, considering the circumstances. Surprisingly, I got a lot done. Corporate work, nothing for Mother.

I ate an ungodly amount of seafood stew for dinner. I’m ready for this day to end.

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A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

As you can imagine, I’m a bit skeptical of packages left on my front porch. I hadn’t ordered anything in awhile. So great, this is either a bomb or someone’s head packaged in dry ice.

The odds of it being a bomb are slim. If you were the target of one of my operations, somehow was left alive, then figured out that I was the one who was responsible, and then tracked me down through my maze of cover stories, you would have to be smart enough to know that I wouldn’t fall for the old ‘bomb in the box by the front door’ trick.

Ok, so whose head is it?

Wait, a return address from Banjo Jim? Anyone who knows Banjo Jim, and isn’t dead because of it, is a friend of mine. He lives down state, below the canal, where things tend to lag a few decades behind the rest of us. He’s a man of peculiar wit, possesses an encyclopedic memory of crossword answers, and as a result of his time spent in the Navy, besides receiving a tidy monthly pension, has a pretty substantial network in the import/export business. Every so often a shipment of something useful gets diverted to me.

Today it’s a pair of black tactical gear bags, a letter, and a black t-shirt. Yes, a t-shirt. A black, size large, Fruit of the Loom t-shirt. I know I mentioned his ‘peculiar wit,’ however I want to go back and reemphasize the ‘peculiar.’

My scanner has decided to take the night off, so I had to take a digital picture of the actual letter.



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Didn't Shake Me, Didn't Even Stir Me One Bit

I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home. I was out of Coke Zero. Come about 1 PM, sometime a man’s just has to get his caffeine fix to make it through another meeting. In order pinch pennies where I can, I’ll buy cases of it at a time and bring it in to work instead of frequenting the vending machines.

As I was making my way through a busy aisle, a man suddenly stopped and started to count the items in his cart. He was waaaay over the limit for the express line, so I had no idea what he was doing. When you’re in a tight area with a lot of unknown subjects moving about and suddenly your mobility is hindered, you prepare for an ambush or you ready yourself to die.

Instinctively I grabbed a can of tuna fish off of the shelf. This, or any other canned item, can either be used as a bludgeoning device or as something to hurl at your attacker’s brow in close quarters. With the blocker ahead of me, I backed up against the right side of the aisle and checked back down to my left. This was previously my 6 o’clock. I did this for two reasons. The first, the attack would probably come from behind me. Secondly, the stupid old blocker caused enough congestion so that if the assailant was coming from that direction, they’d be impeded for long enough for me to recognize the attack.

There was no threat. As it was, I needed some tuna anyway. I exchanged the one I had in my hand for another brand that was on sale, proceeded to check out, and made my way back home.

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