HAH! Survived another weekend!

Friday evening was supposedly going to be a makeup day for Little Buddy to make up an earlier rained out game. The weather had been a bit soupy, but the fields were open, so I gathered up Boy and started out the door with Curious Georgette and Middle Girl and the sack of drinks and snacks we were assigned to bring to the LAST rained-out game. Reba managed to miss the ensuing fun due to having to ferry Oldest Girl to a sleepover.

We made it to the park with about five minutes to spare, and met up with Reba’s mom and dad, who were all excited about seeing Only Grandson play—they had missed all the rest. Boy runs around for a minute or two and it gets to be time to start. Whistle blows, arms and legs, a couple of outs of bounds, rain, lightning, whistle blows, game called. Over in about five minutes. Oh well. Grab snacks and drinks, assorted children, folding chair, water bottle, umbrella and head home. The rest of the evening is devoted to following FOX6’s David Neal (the weatherman Mac Thomason over at War Liberal poked fun at a few weeks back—with extreme accuracy) as he peered intently at hook echoes and rotation indications and watch boxes; and watched breathless reports from Rubenesque Reporter Ronda Robinson at City Stages as she stood outside in torrents of rain and urged people to take shelter.

Saturday was a typical late-fall, early-winter day. Gray, constant wind of about 20 knots, low 40s. I don’t know what it was, but Alabama in May it certainly was NOT!

Everyone back to the park and watch Little Boy get smacked right in the mouth and nose with a flaming fast kick right at the goal. They didn’t score, but Lil’ Mister Head Trauma had to sit down and cry for a bit and get some water. I stayed with him until he said, “I can’t see the game, Daddy.” “Do you want me to go sit back down?” “Yes sir.” I looked back down the line in a few minutes and he was laughing and cutting up again, so I suppose he was okay. He went back in after a few more minutes and did fine, although they wound up losing. This was their last game, so it was kind of disappointing to lose, but they didn’t seem to care because they were going to get to go to the movies. Of course, since Rebecca’s game was at the same time all the little guys were going to the movie, we decided to swap our tickets for a later show.

After we did the ticket swap, Reba took the rest of the crew back to the house, and I set out for one of my signature three-county soccer trips, except this time I left the truck at home. No use terrorizing everyone in Alabaster again with gasoline-fueled bazooka fire. Of course, using the car showed me just how badly I needed to spend money on a set of tires. They have been a bit lumpy for a while, but progressively have gotten worse to the point that Saturday it felt like I was riding along in Fred Flintstone’s flivver. There was no speed at which the harmonic imbalances of four square tires would balance themselves out, so chalk up something else to spend money on. But, I figured (because I am a figuring fool) that I could save some time by dropping it off at the only store in town where you can buy tampons and tires, and then pick it up after we go to the movies. I really need to give up this insane desire to save time. More on that later.

Anyway, we get to the park with about five minutes to spare and fortunately the weather had warmed up to a balmy 45 degrees, with a nice stiff breeze. The girls played so hard this time, and Rebecca especially played well forward and broke up several plays, but alas, they lost once more, 1-0. The lone goal came as the other team was setting up to shoot and one of their girls took a very hard face-first fall. She laid there and didn’t get up and all of the girls stopped playing. The referee didn’t stop play though, and as the other team’s coach started out onto the field, one of their girls kicked the ball into the goal. Score one. Then the game stopped. Somehow, I don’t think I would have wanted to win that way. In any event, as soon as the coach got out there, the girl jumped up and grinned and ran back off the field. Hmm. Whatever.

Back in the car, back across three counties, back home and it was time to turn back around and go meet up with the little guys at Sonic. We sat there for a little while waiting on them to get back from the movie, and were entertained by three of the waitresses chasing a gang of their little brothers around. The boys were so proud of themselves for getting away, and all I could think of is the day when they would want to get caught. Jonathan’s team trickled in after the movie, and I went on to drop off the car.

I like Wal-Mart a bunch, but I had vowed after my last oil change when they screwed up the drain plug on my van that I would not use the auto service department. But the lure of cheap tires, the need for Benedryl and wheel cleaner and SpongeBob bandages, and a convenient location directly across the parking lot from the theater drew me in. I am an idiot. Always listen to yourself when you tell yourself not to do something.

I was met by the same service writer who wrote up my ill-fated oil change. If you can imagine a cross between Keanu Reaves as Ted Logan and Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli, you have set your intellectual meter a bit too high. Super nice guy, but mostly foam twixt the ears. He was helping a new worker take my order with their fancy handheld computerized satellite uplink order-taker thing. I told him I needed four, size P205/75R-15.

“‘K, like, he needs four? Yeah, four tires and so you like put in the number, which would be four, and then you need to put in the size. Do you know what size these tires are?”

“Yes, P205/75R-15.”

“’K, so you put in the size go down here like this where the sizes are—yeah, that’s right” Then she says “P255/70R-14?”

Me—“No, 205/75-15”

“Okay, P255/70R-15.”

Both Spicoli AND me—“No. Two OH five, seventy FIVE”

“Oh, there it is—P205/75R-14.”

“FIFTEEN!”

“Oh wow, sorry, got it, man, sorry about that. Did you like just want just fronts or all of them.”
::heavy sigh:: “I wanted all four changed please.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right, four! Super! You know, this thing really is great, she’s just not used to doing it like this, you know, ‘cause she used to have to like fill in a form, and then put THAT in the computer and it took a lot longer time.”

I shudder to think how it could have taken longer, but I dare not contemplate it too much for fear of my head disappearing. Got my ticket and headed over to the theater and met family with once more, about five minutes to spare before the show. Which we wasted trying to get popcorn. Which meant that by the time we got into the theater, the only place where there were six seats together was down front.

Movie review time. You haven’t seen Attack of the Clones until you’ve watched it at the base of a 20 foot high screen. Brings it into a whole new perspective, so to speak.

It wasn’t so bad, after the crick in my neck went numb. The movie itself is much better than Phantom Menace, mainly because there’s less Jar Jar and more Natalie Portman showing her emotions (which is my code word for skin.) It probably ranks up there as third on the list—The Original, followed by Empire Strikes Back, then this one. Several reviewers have mentioned the interesting bits of stuff they found, and these are some of the ones I saw (look away if you don’t want some spoilers!)

1. There is a cameo by Kermit the Frog and Oscar the Grouch in the Geonosis arena scene—they’re off to the left and Oscar gets his can flipped over. Also, when Boba Fett closes the closet in the Fett apartment on Kamino, you can see a Tickle-Me Elmo in the back.
2.Even though N*SYNC was cut out of the arena scene, they are still prominently featured in the Coruscant city chase scenes—they are playing in the bar, and can be seen with their newest CD in one of the billboards.
3. C-3PO can be heard uttering a vulgar expletive for sexual intercourse several time throughout the movie.
4. In the fight scene between Count Dooku and Yoda, Yoda’s head is briefly replaced by that of Alfred E. Newman.
5. There is a Craft Services table visible in the first scene on Tatooine.
6. When Obi-Wan puts on the clothing of the queen’s lady-in-waiting and admires himself in the mirror, you can see a camera in the reflection right before Padme enters the room.

Overall, it really is pretty good. Did I mention that Natalie Portman shows more emotion in this film? Her emotions nearly reach the point of overflowing during the fireplace scene in the lodge on Naboo. That was good. I say more emotions. The kids thoroughly enjoyed it, so I reckon it was okay. I went back to pick up the car. Yep, four new ones, all the right size. I was shocked. I got my other stuff and headed home, where I looked back over the bill.

“LUG NUT DAMAGED WHEN REMOVED COULD NOT REPLACE W/O DAMAGING BOLT”

::yet another heavy sigh:: Such an ordeal. Got the manager, who decided to put the technician on the phone to ‘splain hisself. “Uh, yeah, when I got it off, it was really bad stripped, and if I put it back on, I was afraid, ‘cause it might get cross threaded or something.” Thanks, now get me the manager again.

“Well, you see, I already understood HOW he tore it up, but I have now been left with a car with a missing lug nut that you didn’t replace and that no one told me was missing.”

Silence.

“We don’t have anything here to fix it with. What bolt pattern does it have?” “Five lug.” “Well, it’s safe do drive like that.”

“Okay, the thing is that even though it may be safe, I really would prefer it to be like it was when I brought it in, and the way it was when it left the factory. I figure if they wanted it to have five lug nuts, it really needs to have five.” I said this with a bit of a laugh, because I knew I was dancing on the edge of being one of those smart ass customers who can never be satisfied. He didn’t seem to take it that way. I could never tell if he was mad at me for calling back about it, or mad at the technician, or mad that he knew he was going to have to pay for this. “Yeah, I KNOW it’s SUPPOSED to have five, but we DON’T have a way to fix it.”

“Well then, what are we going to do about this.”

Silence. I am replaying The Missiles of October in my head.

Tersely, “Take it somewhere and have them put a nut on there and bring us the invoice and we’ll cover it.” “Oh, that’s fine then, I’ll be glad to do that. Let me just copy this down on my receipt—‘Manager says to take to shop and have them replace nut, Wal-Mart will reimburse cost’—right?” “Yeah.” “Thanks, and what was your name?” Wrote that down. “And do you have a place on the computer there on my invoice where you can enter in that you told me that this would be reimbursed?” “Yeah.” “Okay, great, well mark that down on there and I will be in to see you. Thanks for your help!” “Yeah.” It’ll be interesting to see if I can actually get them to pay this without acting like a belligerent moron. Of course, where would the fun be in that?

The rest of the weekend went off without a snag (or much sleep) and then I found myself here. So there you go.
posted by Terry at 1:46:00 PM