I’ve recently taken to parking on a different side street near the Trevose station to shorten my walk, and for the last two weeks, every time I return to my car some 200 year-old unfuckable hag in a house dress yells at me for parking on the street.  I point out that it’s behind the no parking here to curb sign, and she swats at me for being less than ancient.  Today, that didn’t happen.  Maybe it was the 60 atlatl darts in the back and the “I’m a Gun Owner and I Vote” sticker from borrowing my brother’s truck, in any case, it works.

I’ve recently taken to parking on a different side street near the Trevose station to shorten my walk, and for the last two weeks, every time I return to my car some 200 year-old unfuckable hag in a house dress yells at me for parking on the street.  I point out that it’s behind the no parking here to curb sign, and she swats at me for being less than ancient.  Today, that didn’t happen.  Maybe it was the 60 atlatl darts in the back and the “I’m a Gun Owner and I Vote” sticker from borrowing my brother’s truck, in any case, it works.

If atlaltry had a church I would be its high priest, or at least sit up front where no one else does except for families whose kids are really churchy to the point where it annoys the parents but they don’t say anything about it because other parents think it’s a good think and kind of enjoy being pretentious.  Anyway, a troop I commission was doing atlatl activities in the Dan Beard and doing quite well except for dart retrieval.  I gave each Scout six darts, the Scouts fire the darts, and then I issue the instruction to retrieve six darts, regardless of who fired them, then the firing line would rotate and a new group would get the darts and repeat.  Oddities: One kid would run out and collect as many darts as possible, pick out six, and leave the rest in a pile in the middle of the field only after the rest of the kids had returned with three darts.

One kid would launch all six darts about 25 feet and then at dart retrieval, would find five, miss the sixth and start looking in the woods 250 feet away for the last dart.

One kid blamed his short casts on the fact that some darts had broken tips.

One kid insisted on taking a running start, coming to a complete stop, and then casting.

On Wednesday, I woke up late and missed Finance 3103.  That day, I passed the Finance instructor six times and I was able to avoid him three times, but the other three he gave me this death stare that said “skip my class will you!” with that angry Indian unibrow of his.  He walks into class, apparently having assigned heinous amounts of homework I think he was trying to make a lot of this, and as he calls on people slowly homing in on me for the last question that apparently involves determining how many accountants can dance on the head of a pin.  He finally makes eye contact with me for question 14 of 14 and points at me when the dullard idiot in front of me raises his lummoxing head answers the question in its entirety before the teacher can stop him and promptly plops his head back down on the desk.

While I hate the duck, it does fill a waste disposal niche that has gone otherwise empty.  Max will eat most anything that’s sweet, meat or fat.  The cat takes care of some odd stuff like making sure soup cans are cleaned out and eating used q-tips.  When we had gerbils that was the excess newspaper disposal as well as sensitive document shredding. The duck takes care of bulk carbohydrates and most lentils.  While having a “we have no food” fight with my brother, we stumbled upon a package of lasagna noodles, from November 1995.  Unsure of what to do, we mashed the cardboardy material up into pieces and presented it to the duck.  It was rough at first, but now instead of a trail of bread crumbs to get the duck back to his cage, a trail of retardedly stale pasta.  I hope he goes through all the preserved beans before Thanksgiving.

I get home at 5:00 PM thinking I have enough time to do my Act Sci homework, I set out the books, calculator 1 (financial calculator), notepad for good copy of homework, notepad for bad copy of homework and a chilled 2 liter bottle of Diet Mountain Dew, the official non-alcoholic beverage of the Society of Actuaries.  But alas, calculator 2 is gone!  Normally, I wouldn’t fret as calculator 1 can do everything but requires Reverse Polish Notation to enter data.  So instead of AOS where cos (6pi)^2 would be entered from right to left, this calculator would require 6*pi Cos squared.  Fine for simple stuff, but evaluating  (1-(1-e^-.05t)(1-e^.03t)) can get annoying.  So, I go to OfficeMax and and find they’ve been evacuated of the TI 30xIIS calculator.  I ask, they say why not the 34XIIB which is a better calculator, I say it’s not an approved calculator for my class exams or actuarial exams and can’t use it.  I leave.I try to resume work but immediately encounter a mathematical clusterfuck that’s beyond my puny handwrought calculatory powers and think, that I could return the extra motherboard I got from CompUSA and try to pick up a calculator at a store near there.  Aha!  I grab the motherboard and depart for Mt. Laurel.  I stop at Staples.  No calculator, 34XIIB recommended and refused.  I stop at OfficeDepot. No calculator, 34XIIB recommended and refused.  Looking at the clock I realize I have 20 minutes to return the motherboard and make it to the OfficeMax across the way.  I walk into CompUSA and think providence is on my side as I approach what appears to be a clogged customer service line, a new lane is opened, I throw ethics to the wind and dive in front of the infirmed man trying to return Victory at Sea.  I present the board, it is immaculate.  But am rebuffed as the receipt hasn’t been reviewed by their tech folks to make sure I wasn’t trying to pull a fast one.  I go to the tech people and they take 12 minutes looking at it after I tell them it’s a return.
Tech Lady: Sir, we’ve reviewed the product, and there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with it.  How is it defective?
Me: It’s not.  I fact, it’s better than fine, it improves my socioeconomic status just by holding it, but in any case, I need to return it and I need you to sign off.
Tech Lady: Oh.   Okay.
Then she puts an “X” next to the item on the receipt.  A FUCKING X, I waited 12 minutes for a fucking X.  On top of that, they gave me the motherboard back.  I wanted to fish all the software out and keep it as karmic justice but chose not to.
I book out of CompUSA and run/turbostumble into OfficeMax where I see the calculator display completely empty except for one Casio.  A Casio, that’s like someone running out Cadillacs and offering a Kia as a substitute.  I take the Casio, ask if the calculator of choice is in, nope.  They offer the 34XIIB, and after having done this four times already today yell “It is forbidden!” and run the store.  Realizing I have no calculator, I emit a gutteral scream, scaring the trailer tornado bait white trash mulling around the sidewalk bargain bins and dart back in, steal the Casio from the approaching clutches of a smallish child (how could she possibly have needed trig function?) and windmill slap the calculator on the register counter, I pay, I leave, I get gas, I cry.  I crush my homework.  Yeah, I got it done, but I did it with a Casio.  Professionally, it’s proven to be a bit of pyrrhic victory.

My mother is taking a creative writing course and was asked to introduce herself.  She told the class that she was formerly a skydiving instructor and that she retired after injuring her wrists.  Everyone believed her.  The pudgy Irish court-reporter claiming to be a skydiving instructor.  I hope kids are still this gullible 40 years from now when I tell them about the time I arm-wrestled Bush to stop him from saying “nucular”.  Singlehandly won us the Civil War it did.