FML

I have to transfer a car title. That means that at least one weekday I will have to be in Memphis so that I can go to the DMV and get a new title and tag. As long as I'm going to have to do this, I'm thinking of applying for a personalized tag that says "FML" - I wonder if they'll give it to me? You have to list 3 options in case your first choice isn't available. I'm thinking of listing the following -
1) FML
2) OMG FML
3) WTF FML


Monday I was in my pump class, sweating like a pig, huffing like an ashmatic rhinosaurus, and clogged with snot by my stupid allergies, while all around me hot women were huffing and puffing, too, but oddly never sweating. My sinuses were clogged to the point of being useless, which meant that I had to stop and put my weights down so I could blow my nose. I hate blowing my nose in class. People always look at me like I'm the Elephant Man. But if I don't do it then I can't breathe, so I have no choice. But this being me, of course, it all went horribly wrong.

I blew my nose as quickly and quietly as I could, wiping the disgustingness off my face and stuffing the handkerchief back into the pocket of my workout shorts - yes, I have to wear shorts with pockets, which makes me look freaky. I thought I had done a pretty good job of it, all things considered. But then I thought I heard the sound of a group of females going "eeeewwwwwww." It may have been imagined or it may have been real, I don't know, but I quickly wiped my face with my hand to make sure nothing disgusting was hanging out of my nose or anything. My face was clean. Then I looked down at my shirt. There was a big nasty booger on my chest that had somehow exploded past the handkerchief and escaped. I was a walking, sweating, panting, pumping, nasty human booger. Awesome. FML


Tuesday, as I was driving to lunch, I noticed a police car in a side parking lot driving like a maniac through the lot and heading towards the road with his blue lights flashing. I was in a group of cars all going the same speed. None of us were doing anything unusual, smoking pot, shooting at each other, surfing on the hoods of our vehicles, or driving naked. The cop skidded out onto the road and came up behind me. I pulled over, nearly running up a curb in the process, and he pulled in behind me. WTF?

He got out and came up to my window, demanding to see not only my license, but also my proof of insurance and registration, which no veteran cop ever does anymore, so I knew he was a rookie. I had to dig through piles of papers in my truck to find all that crap because NO ONE EVER ASKS FOR IT. He took my license and insurance card and told me if I find my registration to bring it back to his car. Great, if he were just going to yell at me he wouldn't be taking my license to his car to sit down.

I dug out every receipt I had received in the last 2 years, every old, expired insurance card, and 3 years worth of old registration documents before I found this year's. I took it to him. He said I was doing 55 in a 40 zone. I said, "no, I wasn't." He just looked at me. I went back to my truck. I'm old enough to know what a waste of time it is to argue with a cop about much of anything. Tell it to the judge isn't just something TV cops enjoy saying because it sounds coplike. It's just how it is.

He came to my window and handed me a ticket. He said if I wanted to do traffic school I'd have to appear in court and ask the judge. Oh really? And pay the court costs, too, right? I see how this works. I took the ticket and watched him drive away. Then I read the ticket. According to him, I am 5'6" and weigh 160 lbs. I was also born in december of 1959 and my social security number is 518-86-7048. The fuck? Whose ticket is this?!

So I'm thinking he pulled someone else over and started to write them a ticket, but something persuaded him to stop mid-ticket and let them go, at which point he needed someone else to slap it on since every ticket has to be accounted for. And he chose me. 5'6" sounds like a girl. So maybe he pulled over an ex-girlfriend or a hooker and she gave him a blowjob to get out of it? But wait, 5'6" and 160 lbs - I think not. Not unless he was desperate for that blowjob. Maybe he pulled over his own mother? He pulled over his own mother and started to write her up. But she threatened to kick him out of the house if he did, so he stopped and let her go. Yeah, that sounds about right. And then he gave her ticket to me because SOMEONE has to pay this thing. FML


My post from the other day was totally fucked up, and it's all my fault. I've done "Wordless Wednesday" before and I know how it works. You post a photo and no words. Well, I had meant to crop out all the words from that photo and simply post the wordless picture, as you are supposed to do. But I've been stressed and busy. I forgot. I posted a wordy photo for Wordless Wednesday, which is just unbelievably stupid. FML


Tuesday after work, as I was pulling out of the parking lot in the pouring rain, the DJ on the radio was giving a traffic report. The DJ was informing us that we were under a flood warning, which I could clearly see for myself as everything around me was underwater. The DJ then said that a cop was stuck in the median on the very same road where I had gotten my ticket earlier that day. Witnesses had called to say that his blue lights were flashing and he was spinning his tires in the mud, sinking deeper and deeper. I wondered, could it be the same cop who gave me a ticket meant for his own mother earlier that day? As I drove past, I looked and saw him. Indeed it was the same cop, and he was in a ditch filling with water, looking rather angry at his predicament, and as stuck as he could be. I imagined I could hear him saying, as I drove out of sight, "FML"



Speaking of fucked lives:

Biggest Loser

I live in a nice neighborhood (now that we've moved.) I have nice neighbors. They have nice things. My things? Not so nice.

Take, for example, our lawn mowers. My neighbors don't even have lawn mowers. They have 'lawn tractors'. And I use the term 'tractor' only because that's what the dealer calls them. I call them BMWs for your yard. My neighbors lawn 'tractors' cost more money than my minitruck. I shit you not.


Lawn Tractor
When we first moved into this neighborhood late last year, we were mowing our 1 acre of yard with pushmowers. It was a lot of work, obviously, but moving is expensive and we had no spare money to go out and buy a lawn 'tractor'. In fact, we still don't.

The neighbors, seeing this, felt sorry for us. They offered to let us borrow their BMW, I mean, lawn tractor.


I said they were nice. See?

Winter came and we didn't need to mow anymore. My brother-in-law, married to my middle sister, heard me talking about how embarrassing it was to have the neighbors feeling so sorry for us that they offered to loan us their exotic lawn sports cars. As it happened, my brother-in-law had an old riding mower that he no longer used. He had inherited it from his parents, who had been refurbishing it and using it for about 100 years or more. He himself had put a brand new motor on it when he got it. He said it worked fine. Plus, it was free. So we took it.


Free riding mower
So now it's spring and the weeds are growing. Not in my neighbors' yards, of course, because they have a lawn service that comes and sprays their lawns to prevent the weeds. But apparently as we have been informed, the people who owned this house before us were trash, I mean, more frugal with their lawn care dollars than the rest of the neighborhood. They never, ever had anyone spray anything on this lawn and they never did anything themselves, either. So it's a green carpet of weeds and wildflowers, all mixed in with lovely bermuda grass. This means that my lawn was the first on the block to green up and need mowing. Yay me!

I took this greening as my first opportunity to break out my lovely new riding lawn mower.

I looked it over, got the jist of how it worked, checked the oil, filled the tank with gas, and began trying to start it. But it didn't want to start. Maybe I was doing it wrong? I worked on it for an hour or two. No luck. It won't start. I went inside and decided to read up on it and see if I could find what I might be doing wrong. I found nothing. So I went out again the next day to try again. For no particular reason, it started. But then, of course, it immediately stalled again.

"You bastard!" I shouted intelligently for the benefit of my neighbors. And back I went to fiddling with the engine before starting it again. This time it ran fine. Happily, I jumped on and put it into reverse, ready to storm out onto my beautiful 1 acre lawn of green weeds with enthusiasm.

Then I noticed that the front tire was flat. "Ahhhhh daaaaaaammiiitt!!!" Again, I shouted my intelligence to the world.

After much searching, I came to the inescapable conclusion that there is not a replacement wheel and tire assembly for my mower in all of Memphis. In desperation, I bought an innertube and jammed that into the tire. It worked, and I was able to pump it up and mow with it.

When my neighbors mow with their gold plated BMW lawn tractors, you can hear them start up their motors, with the dual overhead cams and 4 valves per cylinder screaming carefully tuned notes of raw horsepower. They mow their entire yard in 15 seconds flat. You can see them flying around their houses, doing the front and back all in one giant circle of flying grass and fury. Some of them wear helmets and racing gear for safety's sake. One of my neighbors wears a full firesuit and has a rollcage, but his lawn tractor can cut 1 full acre in 5 seconds flat, so you know he needs the extra protection.


The Neighbors' Lawn Tractor
My riding mower is a Snapper. It's got an 11 horsepower Briggs and Stratton replacement motor and the transmission slips. First gear just won't engage at all. No one knows why. My cats walk casually past me when I'm in the lowest gear. In the highest gear I am very nearly moving along at a reasonable pace, at about the same speed as I walk with my old pushmower. Ah, but I'm not walking, I'm riding. That's the beauty of it! Stylin' and profilin'!


Mine
But you know my life would not be complete without the regular doses of humiliation, right? Of course. So, as I rode around my lush estate-like lawn, cheap cowboy hat on my head, very nearly fitting in with the neighbors on my big red Snapper, something happened. Something went BANG. Something fell off. It was big and red and had a bolt hole on one end and an open ended pipe at the other. I looked at it and looked at the mower, but could not figure out what the hell it did to save my life. And the mower just kept going. It apparently didn't think it needed this thing, whatever it was. So on I went, hoping to God nobody saw that.

Later, as I rode around and around my house in the blazing hot sun, I made the mistake of stopping and putting the big red Snapper in reverse. It didn't do anything. I put it back into a forward gear. Again, nothing happened. WTF? I was just going along with no trouble a minute ago and now it won't go into gear? And of course this couldn't happen in the back yard, where no one would see. Oh no, it was dead center of my front lawn, and all the neighbors were out, quietly commenting to one another about my cheap-assed, slow-as-Christmas riding mower and my cowboy hat. And there I was, stuck for no apparent reason.

I shut off the blades and flipped the mower, still running, up onto its' side so I could look underneath and try to figure out what was wrong. I believe this was the first time I had ever actually looked under there to see how it all worked. The transmission looks to be nothing more than two old metal wheels rolling against each other with a little rubber on the edge for traction. They were all covered in dust and grass, so I brushed them off and flopped the mower back down again onto my foot. I tried to act like I was cool and not in any pain as I climbed back on and put it into gear again. Ah, blessed success!

On I went, mowing again, only now, because I had flipped up the carbureted mower and engine while it was running and filled with gas, it began to sputter and stumble. Now, not only were parts falling off my mower, and the transmission stranding me in the center of my front lawn, but the engine was sounding like something from a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

The neighbors tried not to stare. I tried to pretend I didn't notice the sputtering.

And then, at last, and somewhat predictably, it just broke down. And it didn't just break down. No, it broke down dead center of my front yard, where the whole neighborhood could see. Again.

Here was my final embarrassment. Yes, because now came the part where I had to reveal just how old and low budget my new riding mower really was.

All my neighbors, when they climb into their exotic Ferrari lawn tractors, they flip a switch, turn a key, and ZOOM, they're off in a roar as the engine starts automatically for them. My Snapper? Not so much.

I had to climb off my mower and walk around to the back, where the engine is. There, sticking out of the side of my cheap old replacement engine, is a pull rope. Oh no, there's no starter. There's just me and the rope, standing in the center of my front lawn, in front of all my brand new neighbors with their shiny Formula One lawn tractors that do zero to 60 in 3.5 seconds, pulling a rope and cursing as I tried in vain to get my big red Snapper riding mower to start up again.

But of course it wouldn't start.

And so, like an idiot, I had to put it into neutral and push it around back to my shop to try to figure out what was wrong with it. It wasn't enough that I have a Snapper. It wasn't enough that parts fell off it. It wasn't enough that it stranded me in my front yard in full view of the entire neighborhood. It wasn't enough that I was forced to reveal the secret of my pull-cord engine. No, that wasn't humiliation enough for me. I had to endure the final humiliation, the pushing my broken down Snapper to the backyard in total defeat.

Oh, I'm making a BIG splash here amongst my new neighbors. Between my banana yellow hearse in the driveway, my flyers in their mailboxes for a missing cat named Spongebob Stinkypants, and my big red Snapper, you just KNOW they're all very impressed.

I'm The Shit.