Sometimes I made snap decisions that bite me in the butt. Like the time a few weeks ago I came home after a typical 10 hour day – and that’s just fighting I-95 traffic on the way home…and I noticed a flap on the bottom of my new shoes loose. Unacceptable. I happened to be standing in the kitchen talking to my lovely wife, and that is when I made the snap decision. I yanked open the kitchen “junk” drawer, pulled out the super glue, lifted my left foot, and squirted a glob under that flap. Then it hit me that i needed to apply pressure to make the seal firm. So, I put that foot down onto the ceramic tile of the kitchen floor and stood on that one leg for a second. Until my wife looked at me with those ‘I married a moron” look. I pulled my foot up, or, tried to. Yep. My new shiny black shoe was glued to the floor. I frantically tried to escape my wife’s wrath, but as I said, my foot was super glued to the floor……

I managed eventually to yank my foot up, and then made another snap decision. I pulled a glob of paper towels and tried to wipe up the glue from the floor. Not the best decision of the evening. Now there was a glob of paper towels glued to the kitchen floor. My wife was rattling about inside the steak knife drawer, so I decided to one hoof it into the den. Picture this – I’m in my dress slacks, tie and sport coat and I’m hopping on one foot through the house as my wife repeatedly questions her sanity for marrying Lou Costello.

It took me about 45 minutes to remove the paper towels from the bottom of my shoe.

There still is a trace of super glue on the kitchen floor.

So, let this be a lesson for everyone. Sometimes snap decisions should be put on hold for a moment. They aren’t always the best decisions.

Although that annoying loose flap on the bottom of my new shoe is still holding firm. Hmm….mission accomplished!

Peace out people.

SCG

As a very small child in the late 1950′s, there was this black and white movie about big robots attacking the earth. It scared the weasel snot out of me! And as you know, very small boys have a lot of weasel snot! I don’t recall the movie, only that the robots were like huge football linebackers, tall, square shoulders, and they had this death beam that would shoot out of it’s head and fry your ass but good. Talk about opening a can of Robot Whoop Ass on ya, these monsters never missed, and one shot was all it took to explode your bones. Man, I’m telling ya, I’m getting scared just thinking about it!

For several years I had a recurring dream about one such robot chasing me around the outside of my house and trapping me, then getting ready to beam me into smitherines. I would wake up right before that happened.

So, maybe that is why all of my life I have had a serious, real fear, a phobia, of robots. Even today I won’t watch any science fiction movie or television show with robots in it. (The only exception I make is when they play Cherry 2000 on the movie channel. But then again, that featured a very young Melanie Griffith playing the part of a android. Not a true robot.

But most of my life, I never worried about this crazy fear. I mean, what are the chances I would ever run into a real life robot???

Well, welcome to 2007 dude! Theeeiiiirrrrrrr heeerreeeeee!

http://world.honda.com/ASIMO/

Just my luck to live long enough to enter the robot age…..

Crap.

SCG

I pulled into a gasoline station to fill up this morning and in the process noticed that the gasoline hose near the handle was leaking gasoline. There was a small pool of very inflammable liquid – unleaded regular in fact, grade 87, forming under the hose. It was very early in the morning and I wasn’t awake yet. I had only consumed two mugs of coffee. I need four to five before I even consider talking to humans. Five to six before I say anything other than “Get away from me or I’ll kick you in the shins!” That’s one reason why I pay at the pump. No human contact. The thought of locking my vehicle and walking inside the mini-mart and engaging another individual about this was as appealing to me as rubbing fist fulls of mayonnaise into my ears. I stood in the early morning grayness and stared at the pool of gas. Not good. I can just see some ass-weasel coming along and pumping gas while smoking and blowing up the entire gas station. Of course, if they were driving a Hummer that would be worth it all. If they were an attorney or a politician driving a Hummer, even better! But I couldn’t chance it. It could be anyone. Some innocent. So, I took a deep breath and locked up my vehicle and wandered inside.

I was born in Miami over fifty years ago, back when bilingual meant you could speak in a southern accent and English too. I have language issues since I was raised by two loving, caring, wonderful alcoholic parents who diligently tried to teach me to speak my first words between throwing back glasses of whiskey. I remember my first day in school the teacher sent me to the office thinking I was drunk. So, learning a second language such as Spanish is out of the question for me. And it is very rare that I have any problems in South Florida.

The elderly short woman in the mini-mart was not very good with English. I told her about the leaking gas hose. She didn’t quite grasp what I was saying. So, I tried to use hand signals, pretending I was pushing a pump hose into my car, and then with my other hand trying to convey drips of gas dropping. I’m not sure what she said to me, but I think it had something to do with a pregnant Pekinese and Tom Cruise.

So, I tried again, this time backing up my pantomime to the point where I would exit my car, close the door, open the gas tank door, remove the cap, pull the gas hose off the pump and insert it into the car, and then with both hands this time, my fingers fluttered indicating drops falling to the ground. Of course, I was talking with her all the time, and to assist in the translation I started yelling real loud, as if the intensity of my volume would somehow break through her brain and translate the words.

She said I had to enter my zip code if I use a credit card.

Ok, this wasn’t working. I tried again, this time being even more animated, and tossing an imaginary cigar onto the ground, and showing a huge explosion! I waved my arms all about above my head and screamed “El Ka-Boom-O!”.

She stared at me. I stared back. I raised my eyebrows as if to inquire “Did you get any of this?” She stuck an index finger in the air indicating “Hang on there bud, don’t go anywhere.” She reached for the phone and punched just three buttons. I had a feeling that she wasn’t dialing 4-1-1. Panicking, I threw at her my entire vocabulary of Spanish. Gracias, Dadata, Gloria Estefan, and then counted to seven, skipping the number four which I never learned. I then tossed a five dollar bill on the glass counter, said Gloria Estefan again, and fled.

So, if you all see a ball of fire and smoke billowing over SW Broward County in the next week, don’t blame me! I tried folks!

Peace out people.

SCG