I love Colorado. Okay, that’s a bit of a “Captain Obvious” kind of statement, but I do. It’s mid-May and a chorus of birds is loudly singing and squaking outside my window and it’s snowing the dime-sized, sloppy-wet snowflakes. Yesterday it was 70°.
your thoughts? [2]
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Scrapping (picking up and recycling metal) is big business in Denver. I see people driving around with old washers and dryers, etc. in their pickups fairly often.
The old water heater I replaced has been sitting in my basement for quite some time so my friend Ben helped me move it to the alley.
He asked if I needed to pay to have it removed. I told him a scrapper would come get it and if they didn’t within a few days I’d call the city for a large item pickup.
Less than three minutes later a weathered-looking Mexican man in a big white cowboy hat came by in a small pickup truck and took it.
your thoughts? [2]
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I’m five bites into my morning oatmeal when I reach for the electric kettle I used to heat the water for said oatmeal. I grab it and prepare to pour the excess into the sink when I notice that there a dead spider clinging to the inside of the pitcher just below the pour spout.
I think to myself, “dump the oatmeal and start over? Naw. You’ve already eaten some of this thing. Drive on spider oatmeal.”
your thoughts? [2]
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I’ve been up since four AM since I had to open the store today, so needless to say I’m ready to be home at two in the afternoon.
Five blocks from my house I witness a rear-ender accident (from about five feet away).
I stop to ensure everyone’s okay and they are so I tell them to move onto the next street to get off the main thoroughfare.
The fire dept arrives about five minutes later and everyone is still fine, but while the 60 ton fire engine (no joke—I asked one of the fire fighters how heavy the truck is) a truck comes around the corner, not fast mind you, and clips the fire truck, making it rock!
In disbelief, having heard the sound but not believed my ears, I asked one of the fire fighters, “Did he just hit your truck?!” He says the guy did and I tell him they should put some lights on their engine (ha ha). He said it happens more often than you’d believe. Well, once is often enough for me to believe it happens. After the truck swiped the engine they took out some beat up orange cones and blocked off one of the lanes of traffic on the main road to prevent a repeat offense.
Why are the low tech solutions always so effective?
your thoughts? [1]
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I’m talking to my dad on the phone the other day when I hear this squeaky ruckus from outside. I look out the window to see a man standing in my very small garden. I think he may be messing with my gas meter so I set the phone down and go outside to find out what the deal is.
A Mexican man who speaks hardly a lick of English, and who is working on the house next to mine, is stealing water from my spigot. I asked what he was doing and he manages to get the word “plaster” out so I can understand it. He says he needs only a little (finger and thumb held a half inch apart). So, in the interest of being neighborly I say okay. He procees to take a FIVE GALLON bucket full! I assume this is the end of it.
A few hours later the same man is standing in my garden, as I scoul at him, his finger and thumb indicating what must stand for five gallons in Mexico.
I tell him the water is not free, in Spanish, though I mean to say “gratis” but actually say “libre” instead, meaning the water is not liberated. Well it’s not now because I removed the knob from the spigot.
I would have been totally cool with it if the owner had come over, introduced himself and said, “Hey, I don’t have water over there yet, can I have 10 gallons?” In the spirit of being a good neighbor I’d have said yes. But the presumptuousness of just taking it (actually, stealing, yes … according to the law, stealing it) really got under my skin. This is not a good start, new guy.
your thoughts? [4]
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