THE LONG SAD SAGA OF THE DRYER

Ann's folks got us a washer and dryer for christmas (Yeah! Ann's folks!). For some unexplained reason, a gas dryer was being held hostage in Houston and negotiations for it's release had stalled, or, according to Anns post a few days ago, some guy was schleping it on a hand truck all 157 miles to our door. Apparently, gas dryers are a premium in this economy, so after much deliberation and tribulation, we opted for an electric one. One being the operative word, this store had one in stock...one. In the city of Austin, where this company has at least 3 locations in a city of over a million people.They had ONE electric dryer of this particular model.
So, said dryer was delivered today...the guys hooked it up...and the drum turned, but, alas, no heat. There was one more damaged electric model available (kind of like the 102nd dalmation...the one you never see) that they would let us use until they got another one (2 weeks or thereabouts). OK I said.
They returned with the gimp dryer and samey-same...drum turned, no heat. Apparently, our 220 plug was missing one of it's legs...legs being 2 110 volt hots connected to one plug = 220 volts.
As luck would have it, I was talking to my foreman on the phone, regaling him with my dryer drama. He asked me about my breaker panel, and we soon decided that the the breaker was in the wrong place, being it was a GE panel, and where the breaker was, there wasn't room for the second leg. The breaker needed to be moved.
Since my tools and meter were in our truck, I couldn't do anything about it.
So...the guys disconnected geek dryer and put the original one back in place. My foreman is coming tomorrow to help me move the breaker, and hopefully we will have a working dryer.
There it is...an incredibly mundane post about domestic upheaval...if you made it through, here's your reward.

THEY SMASH MAILBOXES, DON'T THEY?

When I was a junior in high school, after a night of lone star pitchers and weed, my friends and I would return our "hood" ( a suburban area in the remote hill country west of austin) and smash the shit out of mailboxes from the back of a pick up (we all had pick ups) with a 12 pound sledge hammer. Mailboxes rode in a row at the head of a street, and depending on the length of the block, we could potentailly kill 6 to 10 boxes. WOHOO! Talk about your good times. One night we had killed about 50 mailboxes and were heading back into town, when we got pulled over by the county sheriff, who had recieved reports of 4 youths in a white mid 60's chevy truck smashing mailboxes with a sledge hammer. That would be us, of course we denied it, and considering we were heading in a direction that would point to us as not the truck in question, we managed to bullshit our way out of it and they let us go. Now...how many white chevy trucks with 4 filthy hippy freaks with a sledge hammer in the bed were out on bee cave road at 11ish on a friday night? I suspect this sheriff had a similar misspent youth and cut us some slack, but I'll never know for sure.
By the time we got home, we were fucked up. My parents busted us as we came in "quietly", after we passed the 20 questions, my mom asked if we were hungry. I should have known by then that my mom was well versed with feeding her drunk and stoned charges shit that would make us sick, but having the munchies we said yes. She fixed us "western sandwiches"...scrambled eggs with peppers and ham and some magical shit that would make you puke your guts out later in the night. We ate the confessional sandwiches...I had mine with a side of rice krispies and tons of sugar, which probably explained why I tossed beets and Bill didn't. It's hard to hide the essence of lone star beer and egg, pepper and cheese vomit with a side of rice krispies...hey, I was hungry after all that mailbox destruction, what can I say?
So the next day, as my mom gave me that look as she pushed a runny bowl of oatmeal under my nose for spite, the phone rang. It was for me...it was our bus driver, who lived in one of the hoods we had smashed mailboxes...we had obliterated his mailbox, and he had recognized me...my flowing long blonde locks and hell's angels like denim jacket left no doubt in his mind that it was I who had killed his mailbox. He was quick to tell me it was a federal offense...10,000 dollars a box. He would not turn me in if I promised to never do it again and confessed my sins to my parents. I readily agreed.
When I saw him at school, I told him my parents had grounded me for a month. He was satisfied and let it go.
The next weekend I shoved my hair up in a watchmans cap and caught a ride in a '71 LeMans and smashed his new mailbox to bits.
You don't fuck with the westlake outlaws. But that's a story for another time.