Time Burglary and Not Pictureds

The best days are the ones when I (a) don’t go to Home Depot and (b) don’t need anything from Home Depot that I’m just kidding myself into trying to do without because I’m tired of going to Home Depot. FWIW:

• About the third day after I moved into the house, I started getting this rash on my left arm. It covered most of my forearm and then spread to my right arm and lower abdomen. It’s just now going away. I’m thinking it’s an allergy to dust, 52-year-old varnish, crystalized cat urine, polyurethane, latex, humidity, Pittsburgh, or a combination of the above. I’m hoping it’s not Pittsburgh, that would be awkward.
• There was one afternoon last week where Home Depot was hounding me about returning the drum sander — that I’d returned a week earlier. They warned me that it was accumulating charges by being checked out so long etc., etc. It turns out that they couldn’t find it because they’d checked it out to another customer.
• Closest Home Depot with tool rentals is out in Monroeville — about 25 minutes, depending on the tunnel.
• Had to go pick up my repaired laptop one afternoon last week in Cranberry — about 45 minutes. It was covered under the nVidia recall. The repair, I mean.
• Went to campus to meet with my faculty advisor last Monday and to discuss a Scholarly Article that I’d read and written a couple of pages about. Took about a half a day.
• Guy from Verizon came on Friday to hook up my FiOS, which took four entire hours during which I did nothing productive.
• Week and a half ago I went go kart racing out in Beaver Falls. They kept giving us more and more practice laps, qualifying laps, heats, and final races, which was good from a value perspective. Came home with badly bruised ribs that make it hard to reach up (with, for instance, a paint roller) or sleep on my left side.
• Couple nights ago at about three in the morning I was woken up by sirens. They were apparently next door. Kept seeing a red light oscillating through my window. I’m guessing ambulance.
• One of my neighbors came over to tell me that if I park my truck too close to the stop sign, another neighbor will call the police.
• Tried to go to a church function last Monday, but after driving around the park twice, gave up. The second time through I saw a sign that said to turn right, but when I turned right, there were no church people. The park was about 20 minutes away from here.
• Driving back from the paint store, didn’t realize I needed to be in the left lane until it was too late, so instead I ended up turning right and acting like I’d meant to go to Walgreens all along. Getting out of Walgreens parking lot there was no left turn allowed, so I had to drive up the road, turn onto another road, then flip a U-ey using someone’s driveway, which I’m sure is way better than letting someone make a U-turn out of Walgreens’ parking lot.
• Drove the guy who chaperoned me during my Pitt fly-out and his wife to the airport. She forgot to pack her contact lenses, so I broke into their apartment, found them, and FedEx-ed them to her the next day.
• Getting my roof replacement and kitchen wall tear-down estimated required six phone calls, four in-person visits, seven text messages, and two emails. Work on the roof started today.

bkd