Category Archives: What’s it doing outside?

I Got It For You Girl

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A snowy Saturday. It started out with me laying in bed and hearing the sound of cars going up the street, tires rolling on the snow. Now it’s dark out since it is night time and it’s more than likely freezing over. I slept really well last night even though Bill was in Atlantic City. He phoned once he got there, his bus was breaking down.

I was concerned for him. His passengers got off the bus with no problem. Last I heard he was planning on abandoning his bus, and that was the word he was given from the bus headquarters. Whether or not he did (he probably didn’t) I don’t know. Last I checked he was back home and going to sleep since his drive tonight was canceled.

Less money but there is more safety in staying at home. He will probably be awake tonight when I get home and we can watch Saturday NIght Live together. Maybe it will be as funny as it was last week, but I don’t hold out much hope. At the cigar shack it was fairly busy, good numbers coming in, Bradley and I going head to head with our sales.

I came out ahead, far ahead enough that I wound up throwing sales to Jerry Vale so he can get his numbers up. I do that from time to time. Once I hit my quota, I will throw sales to Thomas or Jerry Vale so they can get their numbers up. It’s probably frowned upon by the corporate overlords, but I do not mind helping out co-workers, my comrades.

The usual rogues gallery were in most of the day. They come in first thing in the morning, when the cigar shack opens and generally sit all day and bullshit. Most of them are decent guys, but there are one or two who seem to think we are there at their beck and call. One particular eastern European guy throws a hundred dollar bill down and states he would like a such and such cigar, even if we are helping other customers, he will just butt in and state what he wants in his heavily accented voice.

Sometimes I don’t mind but today Bradley did mind and supposedly had some words with him. Whether or not that actually happened I don’t know, but Bradley said that it did so I will just have to take his word for it. I am off tomorrow and I am quite happy about that. Don’t really have any plans except maybe hang out with Bill.

Going outside will be another matter and that all depends on what the streets and sidewalks look like. More than likely we will lay about most of the day. I do have laundry to do and right now I am thinking about doing that when I get home but once I get home I might be singing a different tune.

Right now Alternative TV is on, old school UK Punk. It’s been a while…





07 Put A Straw Under Baby

I Go To Sleep Pretenders

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A day off yesterday which was nice and somewhat busy. Bill and I have been problems with our kitchen heater, a gas on gas contraption which has been on the fritz the past couple of weeks. To ignite the thing you need to lay on the floor and hold in the red button, the ignition switch, for a minute and hopefully that would get the pilot light lit. And when the light would be lit, more often than not it would go out after about 5 minutes.

Being on the 5th floor it is usually colder than it is on the street, so when it would get cold, we would have a pot of water on the stove top in a slow boil and when it would get really cold, we would turn on the oven with the door open. It did the job but it was getting frustrating. I contacted the absentee landlord who duly sent his repairman over.

It turned out that the thermo-coupling was loose. So loose that the repairman was able to unscrew it with his hand. A set of pliers fixed that problem and we were able to have a decently heated apartment last night for the first time in weeks.

Then there was the bathroom problem, specifically the toilet. There was a puddle of water next to the toilet bowl and we had been using rags to sop it up. I thought that it was leaking, after 10 years of 2 guys over 200 pounds sitting on the bowl day in and day out, I figured it was bound to leak, but the repairman figured out that it was condensation that accumulated causing the puddles to form.

He took care of that and he was out of the apartment about 15 minutes after arriving. It went much better than expected. Today was a visit from the Hoboken Building Inspector. Our 5 year visit was due. The tenants received a notice that today would be the day and since the absentee landlord has no keys, someone would have to be there.

I made arrangements to come in late and take care of that. The window of opportunity was from 10AM to 1PM and they showed up close to 12:30. Another quick visit. Smoke and CO detectors were functioning, fire escape had easy access and no mold in the bathroom. So all in all it wasn’t so bad.

I expected to be back at the cigar shack by 2PM but wound up getting in at 1:30. It was not busy at all, Thomas texting me to hurry up since they already had 3 customers and they had been open for 90 minutes already. Out into the brutal cold for me, wind whipping around, cutting like a knife. Still I walked up the avenue to save some dosh and that wasn’t so bad.

As long as you’re moving the weather is fine. The minute you stop, that’s when you feel the cold. And I did.



01 Johnsburg, Illinois