Looking for writing-related posts? Check out my new writing blog, www.larrykollar.com!

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Back to School — Already???

Yup, Daughter Dearest starts tomorrow. That means school buses will be on the roads tomorrow as well. Suckibus maximus.

The hot item for “Back to School” this year seems to be the TI-84+ graphing calculator. I had to go to three places to find one in stock. It was important enough that I had to endure the soul-erosion of walking into a Wal-Mart… and they were out, too. That was good: I didn’t have to hand them any money. I’ll admit, though, to dropping 35 cents into their vending machine outside to get a bottle of water. It was 96 degrees outside, and I was on a motorcycle, so I needed some fluid.

After supper (spaghetti at Big V’s), I let Daughter Dearest wear the helmet as I rode the few hundred yards up the road to the house — and I had to explain Steve McQueen and Easy Rider along the way. After dropping her off, I went to help Mrs. Fetched’s mom pick and shuck a few bushels of corn. After all, isn’t the best food what you see to yourself?

14 comments:

  1. Morning FAR and Olivia.

    The last calculator I had to have for work, I don't think I ever learned everything it could do. I got to the point I could use it for all the calculations I had to do, but that about it.

    I watched a little bit of Easy Rider on TV yesterday. That bought back some memories. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. What Olivia said!?!

    I have a Wal-Mart story. We shop at a W-M grocery because, well, because my mom is 91 and I'm not going to argue with her. At first, I felt soul-sucked, too. And guilty. Very guilty. Then I noticed most of the customers at our W-M are recent immigrants. It's a smorgasbord of colors and accents. And I thought, "hmm, they just can't be Republicans." Then yesterday in the parking lot, a beautiful woman who was probably in her 80's remarked about the heat. I remarked back. She said, "I feel so sorry for the soldiers over there." Well, I do, too, but I jumped to the conclusion they were the only ones she felt sorry for, and I said, "Yes, and I feel sorry for the Iraquis, too."

    THEN she said, "Cheny and--" She gave me a quick look. "You're not a Republican, are you?"

    I assured her I was not. "They ought to have to live in those conditions," I said.

    "They'd probably get shot," she retorted.

    So I no longer feel as if I've walked behind enemy lines when I shop there, but that still doesn't lessen the guilt because of the other factors.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Morning, er afternoon Olivia. :)

    We used to have a small w-m in town, but it closed about almost 2 years ago. There's a new highway going by a town about 28 miles from here. So they saw more profit there. The only thing that pisses me is that before w-m moved here we had businesses downtown. Hardly anything there now.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Evening FM ... ;)

    That's rough ... wipe out all the small business and then take off ...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow, that's early. Our son won't go back until after Labor Day, after our big trip out west.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hey everyone. Beer & snacks are in the cooler. :-)

    Yup, today's the day. Daughter Dearest is driving herself to school, which means one less thing I have to worry about. She was out the door before we were out of bed this morning.

    FM, I've only seen stills and little bits of Easy Rider. One of these days, I'll have to rent it. And the original Gozilla. And Americathon. I'll have a cheese-fest! I think a lot of small towns are in the same boat as yours, and it's not all Wal-Mart. Not directly, anyway. Maybe the businesses will come back now that the gorilla is gone?

    Nancy, that was a great story. Isn't it great to find a kindred soul behind enemy lines?

    Boran, lucky you, living on Planet Earth. Have fun on the road trip — seems like I heard something about it before, but no details. Wave to Beth as you pass each other on Route 66. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. (sighing, school)

    Tomorrow the Teacher InService Day will be held in our building. With a Treasure Hunt of some sort in the Tech Services Area (luckily a different floor than mine.)

    I was warned, our building will be flooded with teachers tomorrow. Could there BE anything worse?

    Does Daughter Dearest get to come home every night? Or is she off for some-while?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hey KB. This is DD's senior year of high school, so she's still living with us. (It's The Boy who's gone.) Actually, tonight she'll be at her job until 6-ish, but she'll probably be home in time for supper.

    A library full of teachers? You'll have to post pictures or something....

    ReplyDelete
  9. Far, are you writing any fiction?

    This is priceless: An ambulance pulled up at one point, and I thought maybe someone was overcome, but they were just there to help load a couch to take it to the fire station.

    I'd like to see the ad in the Nickel Trader, or the IWanna, or whatever eixsts in your market:

    Two Men and An Ambulance.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Whew, far. I had second thoughts about my post, not wanting to "politicize" anybody's blog--including my own--if that's not the main theme.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hey, green! Far does do fiction--and publishes it in installments here, but it often seems so real and possible that his readers (including me) think he's reporting on his day.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hey folks!

    Green, yes I have some fiction here. It's all tagged, and I put some links up in the top-right corner of the main page. The series that Nancy mentioned (hi Nancy!) is FAR Future, which is really *near* future (five years from now) but I couldn't resist the wordplay.

    Nancy, don't worry about the politics. I think we're all on a pretty similar wavelength in this circle. I occasionally rant on politics; it's certainly not off-topic here.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are welcome, and they don't have to be complimentary. I delete spam on sight, but that's pretty much it for moderation. Long off-topic rants or unconstructive flamage are also candidates for deletion but I haven’t seen any of that so far.

I have comment moderation on for posts over a week old, but that’s so I’ll see them.

Include your Twitter handle if you want a shout-out.

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...