Need a chuckle?

A 5 year old's first job...

Here's a truly heartwarming story about the bond formed between a little 5-year-old girl and some construction workers that will make you believe that we all can make a difference when we give a child the gift of our time.

A young family moved into a house, next to a vacant lot. One day, a construction crew began to build a house on the empty lot.

The young family's 5-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in the goings-on and spent much of each day observing the work ers.

Eventually the construction crew, all of them 'gems-in-the-rough,' more or less, adopted her as a kind of project mascot. They chatted with her during coffee and lunch breaks and gave her little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important.

At the end of the first week, they even presented her with a pay envelope containing ten dollars. The little girl took this home to her mother who suggested that she take her ten dollars 'pay' she'd received to the bank the next day to start a savings account.

When the girl and her mom got to the bank, the teller was equally impressed and asked the little girl how she had come by her very own pay check at such a young age.

The little girl proudly replied, 'I worked last week with a real construction crew building the new house next door to us.

''Oh my goodness gracious,' said the teller, 'and will you be working on the house again this week, too?'

The little girl replied, 'I will, if those assholes at Home Depot ever deliver the fuckin' sheet rock.'

Kind of brings a tear to the eye - doesn't it.

A bit O' humor

REPLACEMENT WINDOWS

Last year I replaced all the windows in my house with that Expensive double-pane energy efficient kind, and today, I got a call from the Contractor who installed them.

He was complaining that the work had been completed a whole year ago and I still hadn't paid for them.

Hellloooo!

Just because I'm blonde doesn't mean that I am automatically stupid.

So, I told him just what his fast talking sales guy had told me last year, that in ONE YEAR these windows would pay for themselves!

Hellloooo?

It's been a year! I told him.

There was only silence at the other end of the line, so I finally just hung up.

He never called back.

Guess I won that stupid argument.

I bet he felt like an idiot.

Do mice Pop or Crunch?

I was visiting Lyn Cash's blog post and I had a memory burst.

Did I ever tell you about the mouse that lived in my car? Under my hood?

Yep, my mouse scared the crap out of me while driving.

There I was, driving along a winding country road when out popped the head of the mouse. He climbed UP the windshield and STARED at me!

No lie-- AS I DROVE.

So there it was, with its little beady eyes and nose a-twithin', which I suspect is 'mouse' for HaHa or Boo!.

Talk about the ultimate taunt.

Anyway, a week or so later, I go to pick up my son from the sitter and I had to park in a different spot from where I usually do in the mornings.

There, where one of my tires would have been from the morning was the flattened mouse.

Seems when the car stopped, either the furry thing thought I was home and went to explore for food, or he was coming back from foraging -- either way, I'm sure his little mouse legs were going a mile a minute trying to keep up with the rotation of the wheel before he lost.

Forgive me if I laugh at the visual. I still think it's funny.

And so, I have to wonder. I know that frogs POP when you drive over them, do mice pop too? Or do they crunch?

OK, so I'm indulging in a bit of morbid humor.

TEE HEE

Accident update

Tried to get the police accident report today but it was not done.
Guess the responding officer is a part-time cop and isn't back on the roster for quite some time. Because of the insurance reg's and time table, that report needs to be written up. Although I don't need to give that report to the insurance company, only the other form that I have to write up in triplicate.

You know what? It's a VERY good thing that I documented all of the action the day of the incident on Blogger here. It's going to help me remember things since I wrote them when they were very fresh in my mind. You won't believe all the things you have to fill out for the report. Sheesh!

My back seems to have calmed down so I think it was muscle tenseness from stress.
The kids remain fine. The only injury came from my eldest playing Zombie Attack with his buddy and he jumped off of something and hurt his heel. Kids. Any discomfort from the bumper cars has not shown up. So I hope it never does.

Oh, guess what. I found out from the tiny paperwork the dispatch guy gave me that the truck behind me had to be towed; that the guy WAS transported to a hospital -- good thing I told them he was injured and that they sent an amublance, it was needed, and that the vehicle that plowed into him was a Ford Bronco. Those are big cars! There is NO way that the Bronco was at a stop in line like the rest of us for an impact to have done so much damage. We drove by the site this afternoon and there was still glass on the side of the road. He had to have come up from somewhere else.

It was sort of anti-climactic today to get into the car again. The damage doesnt' look too bad but the entire bumper and back door is going to have to be replaced.
*sigh*

**********************

I called a guy to give us an estimate on roof repair but he hasn't returned my call yet. He was recommended by a friend of mine. I hope things can work out somehow.

You know, this has been a very tense past twenty four hours.

What say you to a joke?


Young Chuck, moved to Texas and bought a donkey from a farmer for $100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.
The next day he drove up and said,

'Sorry, son, but I have some bad news, the donkey died.'


Chuck replied, 'Well, then just give me my money back.'


The farmer said, 'Can't do that. I went and spent it already.'


Chuck said, 'Ok, then, just bring me the dead donkey.'

The farmer asked, 'What ya gonna do with him?

Chuck said, 'I'm going to raffle him off.'

The farmer said, You can't raffle off a dead donkey!'


Chuck said, 'Sure I can Watch me.. I just won't tell anybody he's dead.'

A month later, the farmer met up with Chuck and asked, 'What happened with that dead donkey?'

Chuck said, 'I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $998.00.'

The farmer said, 'Didn't anyone complain?'

Chuck said, 'Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back.'

Chuck now works for the Congress

Accidental Domino

Today started out so well too. The sun was out, I and my kids were going to get hair cuts and from there we were going to bring a buddy home for my eldest to have his very first Sleep Over at our house. Yep, all was going our way. I love my new shorter hair cut, even my hairdresser was surprised how good it came out. I looked at one of those glamour books and pointed to what I wanted. I do love it. Off we went to McDonald's for a quick lunch and then to home. We had a slight delay going home. I was at one of the THREE intersections with lights in our town, (yep, 3), there was a brightly painted yellow crosswalk directly in front of me. There was a young woman waiting and waiting to cross. I had the red light. Both sides had the red light. Mine turned green first and I took my foot off of the brake and then put it back on again because I remembered that a pedestrian in an official crosswalk has right of way. If I rolled at all from taking my foot off of the brake, it was maybe 2 inches. I checked my rear view mirror, the guy stopped, and all was OK. She stepped out, because the other line of traffic was still stopped. She was halfway across the road when my car lurched forward. At first I wasn't sure what happened. It was so fast. In my rear view mirror, there was an older man, maybe in his 60's, in a pickup truck full of cut limbs and tree debris. He was holding his head and his neck and his face mirrored the pain he must have been in. You see, he didn't drive into me. He was rammed into me because someone slammed in HIM from behind. Dominoes. I stayed in my car. The kids were fine, thank goodness, and that is the most important thing. Kids are resilient. They were like, "Cool! We're part of a crime scene!" and "Are we going to be on TV?", and they proceeded to eat their McDonald's lunch. They were agog at the police cars and the ambulance and all the people milling around. I never got out of my car. I was not leaving the kids. I had no idea how much damage my car endured but this is the second time our car has been hit in 2 years. Oy. This is also the first time I've used my cell phone to call 911. And I guess it went pretty quick. I was transferred to my local police department and when asked if I was hurt, I said no, but I said the guy behind me looked like he was in a lot of pain, he was holding his head. They said they'd dispatch an ambulance right away. I would say the response time was five minutes. I am impressed. While waiting for the police to come, the young woman who I stopped for and let cross the street came back over to me an apologized. She was so sweet too. She gave me her name and phone number as well as her cell. She couldn't stay because she was heading off to babysit someone. I figured just her info would be enough if needed. She felt so bad; I think she felt that if I hadn't stopped for her, it never would have happened. Who's to say? The police officer wasn't interested in taking the info even though I offered it. He said that even if I wasn't letting a pedestrian cross the crosswalk, even if I stopped for an ant in the road, ( his words) drivers of cars are supposed to keep plenty of distance between them so if the car in front stops, they retain control of the car at all times. He also told me that the truck sustained heavy damage and the gentleman received injury whereas I and the kids were fine. I only had to provide my drivers licence, my registration and I had to provide him with the names and birth dates of my kids and their friend. I didn't know they would need that type of stuff. As to why or how it all happened, the only thing I can think of is the third driver didn't see break lights on, saw the light was green and assumed traffic was rolling and slammed into the guy behind me. Why else? Just think though. If she was slow stepping into the crosswalk after I stopped -- the momentum of the push sent me into and over the crosswalk -- I would have hit her. THAT would have given me nightmares for months! Thank GOD for many things. My kids and my eldest's friend was not hurt, the girl was not hurt and I was not hurt. Right now, my back is a little sore, but if that's all I have, I'm not going to bother with an MD visit. I should be fine. Now my bumper has a gash in it and my trunk handle is pushed in. I bet you it's going to cost a couple of grand to fix this. I have to go to the police station tomorrow to pick up the report and on Monday, go to the insurance company. Because I didn't get out of my car, I did not get any of the usual information; the names, insurance numbers and all that. And lets face it, the poor guy behind me was in no condition to look for insurance and registration papers. So now my worry is, was I ever at fault? No. Because it wasn't the guy behind me that hit me by driving into me, it was the guy behind HIM. And it is a state law for cars to stop when pedestrians are at an official crosswalk. I was within my rights to stop. The traffic on the other side was still stopped. I was already stopped. She was IN the middle of the crosswalk so it didn't happen because I had made a sudden stop. Enough seconds of time had lapsed for it to be entirely the third drivers fault. But shit, you know? I have a leaky roof, and now I have car repairs to deal with. This sucks. And as I type this, the kids are playing Wii and are shouting and having tons of fun. Ah, the innocence of youth.