If I Hadn't Lived It, You'd Never Convince Me It Really Happened

I'm talking about the day yesterday--Wednesday, April 22, 2015. It all started in the wee hours of the morning, when I was awakened by another one of my cluster headaches--the third one in as many days. No sooner had I taken a pill for that long-time problem than a totally off-the-wall pain hit my left ear. When I say "off the wall," I mean just that. I haven't had any ear pain that I can remember since I was a youth and frequently had ear aches.

Nevertheless, I arose when I heard the alarm go off at 7:30 a.m., signaling it was time for my wife to get ready for her bowling league and for me to get in gear to take my boat to Wayne for one final job before the season kicks into overdrive. Staving off the usual nausea that accompanies my taking the headache prescription without food, I stumbled downstairs and forced down a couple pieces of toast and a bowl of fruit, which took care of the nausea but did nothing for the ear ache that ended up lasting all day.

Within 15 minutes of my wife's departure, I was en route to West Neck to hook up my boat and head to Wayne's place. That much of the day went as usual, and Wayne was all ready for me when I wheeled up in front of his house. A couple hours later, he had finished the job--even took care of a  problem I didn't know I had--so I paid him and was headed back to West Neck. That part of the day likewise went smoothly, and I was feeling pretty good until I parked at West Neck and walked around to the stern of my boat. Bet you'll never guess what I then found laying on the back deck.

It was none other than my wallet, which I had left laying there when I went to hand Wayne his money. I had driven all the way from his house back to West Neck--at speeds up to 55 mph, in that wind--and all that I lost in the process were the four or five $1 bills I had tucked under the wallet while I went to pay Wayne. Guess maybe a kid or two from Wayne's neighborhood may have been smiling as I passed by, with those $1 bills floating through the air. I kinda chuckled as I remembered that old GEICO TV commercial showing the dude on the motorcycle riding down the road with bills coming off him by the handsful.

After checking my wallet three times to make sure everything else was intact, I just had stuck it back in my pocket when the cellphone rang, and it was my wife telling me about a problem she was having at home. Seems she had let a Northstar Alarm Systems salesman in the house, and he wanted to sell us a couple new state-of-the-art keypads. Only problem was that he was (as we'd eventually learn) giving my wife--and me--a bunch of half-truths, along with some outright lies. He was making it sound like we would keep our ADT service, but just have the new keypads, with a slight bump in our monthly monitoring fees. And he was assuring us that these added monitoring fees would more than be offset by the added discount we would get with our home insurance company as a result of having these new keypads.

He "almost" pulled off the scam. Fortunately, though, the service tech didn't get to our place before my wife and I had put 2 and 2 together and agreed we were about to get screwed royally. I told her to shut and lock the doors until I got home. Suffice it to say that, by the time I arrived home, my afterburners had kicked in, and so had a lot more of that old Navy chief venom than I thought could possibly be left after all these years. Upon opening my car door, I immediately jumped in the salesman's face and asked just one question: Are you with ADT? Quickly realizing my mood, he already was backing away (and the scrawny service tech already had high-tailed it to the curb and was putting his tools in the car) when I told the salesman he'd better get the (expletive deleted) off my property and never show his face around here again, or I'd throw him off the next time.

A subsequent quick check of the Internet revealed a long history of customer complaints with Northstar. In short, if you see one of their reps coming to your front door, you'll be smart to slam the door in his face--or better yet, just not answer the door in the first place. The situation we had got my wife so upset she had some breathing problems for a spell, but, ultimately, she calmed down, and all was OK.

In the meantime, though, I received an email from Skip telling me about his fishing day yesterday. He managed to catch this bass and a pickerel before calling it quits about 1 o'clock, but that wasn't the high point of his day. That came as he was making the run back up North Landing after calling it a day. He hit what evidently was a submerged floater in mid-river. Fortunately, there was no damage, except for the "toothpick" Skip was left with in the speedometer hole on the outboard. "She stuck on 40," he said. On the way home, he also stopped at Wayne's house, got the "toothpick" removed, and had Wayne check over the lower unit.

Seems Skip has been having a few problems of his own here recently. In his first outing after having Wayne install a new 24-volt trolling motor on his boat, the switch went screwy. A phone call later, he had a replacement motor on the way, which, as I understand it, worked OK on its maiden voyage yesterday. Looks like he's now all set for fishing this Saturday's tournament out of West Neck.

For that matter, I hope all of us are set for Saturday's contest. Just to be on the safe side, I plan to chain my wallet to my neck and have told the wife not to answer the door for anyone--period.