I’m writing this late afternoon Thanksgiving Day. So, it’s an appropriate time to relate some of the things I’m thankful for in this memorable (for mostly wrong reasons) year of 2020.
First, I’m thankful for our family. Everyone is still healthy and has kept the CV at bay.
Second, I’m thankful to still live in the good ol’ Constitutional Republic of the United States of America — and I’m hopeful of our ability to keep it that way.
Third, I’m thankful for a warm home and a fully belly. Lots of folks in America and around the world aren’t nearly so lucky.
Fourth, I’m thankful that I live in rural America — in the Kansas Flint Hills — where the air is still fresh, the nights are quiet and the Milky Way bright, the sunsets are beautiful, the people friendly and and patriotic, and the wildlife a pleasure to watch from a window. Not many urbanites can boast such blessings.
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Well, folks, you know my penchant for exposing the foibles of all my friends, acquaintances and complete strangers. That’s why I’d be a hypocrite not to tell you about two goofy, old-geezer foibles that happened to me this week.
I hadn’t been into town for more than two weeks and I needed chicken feed and a couple of items — an aerosol can of foam to finish weatherproofing my chicken house and a new hook for a broken log chain — from ol’ Nutsan Boltz’s hardware store in Strong City.
I bought my stuff from Mr. Boltz first and dutifully wore my CV mask into the store. When I came out, I took my mask off and drove to the feed store. After I bought my feed, I got into my pickup and took my mask off again — and I thought I felt the expensive hearing aid in my left ear get flipped out of my ear by the elastic on the mask.
“No problem,” I thought. I checked my ear and the hearing aid wuz gone. “It’s gotta be here in the truck.”
But, I couldn’t find the danged thing. I looked on the floorboard. I looked between the seats. I looked in the console. Then I carefully opened the truck door and stepped out. I emptied the front pockets of my ever-present overalls. No hearing aid. I felt inside my overall bib. No hearing aid. I even took off my gum boots and checked to see it the hearing aid had slipped down the front of my bibs and clear into my boots. No hearing aid.
That’s when I began to wonder if I’d lost the hearing aid when I came out of the hardware store. So, I drove back to the store, went to my parking spot and carefully looked over every inch of sidewalk and street. No hearing aid. I cussed my being dumb and careless. I dreaded the thought of a couple of weeks waiting to get the hearing aid replaced — let alone the expense.
Then, as I walked back toward my pickup, it wuz a chilly day and I stuck both hands underneath the bib of my overalls. And what do you think I found hooked around one of the buttons of my shirt? Yep, my expensive hearing aid. I couldn’t believe my luck and still can’t. A higher power pitied me.
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But, the hearing aid snafu proved not to be my last of the day. When I got back to Damphewmore Acres, I decided to finish winterizing the chicken house. So, I took my freshly-bought aerosol can of expanding foam and thought, “This won’t take long.” I only needed to put a bead of the foam in the narrow space under the windows.
However, as I’ve related before I’m non-mechanical and all thumbs when it comes to handyman work. The aerosol can came with a little trigger mechanism to screw onto the top of the can, plus, a little plastic straw to put over the nozzle to direct the foam where you want it.
I put both in place and prepared to dispense the foam. All went well for the first window. But on the second window, the pressure kicked the plastic straw off the nozzle and onto the chickenhouse floor. I cussed my luck and picked up the straw. It stuck tightly to my right hand. I pulled the straw off with my left hand and it stuck tightly to it. I tried to put the straw back onto the nozzle to no effect but to get more “stick’um” on to both hand.
Both hands were so sticky now that I thought I might as well finish the job without the straw. When I pulled the trigger on the aerosol can, a big bead of foam swished out. I pushed it into place with my left hand.
From there, folks, it looked like the humorous plot of a Looney Tunes cartoon. My hands stuck to everything I touched. So, finally, I used my elbows to drive my utility vehicle to the house. I kicked on the door to get Nevah to open it. Ol’ Nevah tried a plethora of “grease cutting agents” to get the sticky off my hands — WD-40, alcohol, vinegar, hand lotion, and, finally, acetone fingernail polish remover — which worked the best, but only got probably half the sticky off my hands.
Eventually, the gunk dried on my hands and I spent the rest of the day applying hand lotion and picking off small scales of “sticky” off my hands.
I finally got my hands back to normal. The chicken house is winterized but the job looks like a 7-year-old did it — not a 77-year-old. Such are the foibles of old age.
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Words of wisdom for the week. If you wear hearing aids, be careful when you take off your CV mask. Also, if retired, never do a job today that you can put off until tomorrow. Hope you had a better ‘un than I had.
