I slammed the door closed to the Explorer last night.
Somehow I managed to hit myself in the head.
So, essentially I slammed my head in the car door.
Dumb car door.
Oh yeah, it hurt too.
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I headed out to pick up a 32 ounce coke from the gas station tonight. I decided to cut across the freshly snow covered yard to the drivers door of the car. About half way there, I slipped and started windmilling across the yard toward the car door.
The good news? I made it to the car without falling.
The bad news? My slipping and sliding came to a sudden halt when I collided with the car. Once I hit the car, I promptly fell backward and hit the ground. As I hit the ground, I kicked my left leg up under the car slamming my shin into the metal car frame.
Damn that hurt.
I quickly picked myself up and scanned up and down the street. Whew, no body was around to see me in action. I opened the door and jumped in the car. Ignoring the increasing pain in my shin, I slipped the key into the ignition. As the car started I was blown back in my seat by the volume of the radio. Yeah, I had it cranked up listening to some old 80’s classic on the way home earlier.
As my senses adjusted, I realized what song was on the radio: “Catch Me I’m Falling.”
Evidently God really does have a sense of humor.
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Monkeyjack.com is now KeithCramer.com.
At least for now.
Let’s see who can find me!
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What would you do if a half-naked skinny white guy named Dan knocked on your door at 5:30 AM when it was 8 degrees outside and the ground was covered by several inches of snow?
Well, he was only wearing a pair of boxers, and maybe some socks. It was 8 degrees outside, but according to the wind-chill, it’s supposed to feel more like -3 degrees.
After letting my two Rottweiler-Shepherd’s say hello through the window of the door, I cracked the door open just enough to say “Dude, what’s going on??” The whole time letting Eko and Cheyenne poke their noses through the crack in the door.
At this point, I realized that this guy was starting to take on a nice shade of blue, and probably was shaking from a combination of the early stages of hypothermia and fear that he was going to be devoured by a couple of unhappy sleep deprived 90 pound dogs.
After realizing that maybe he knocked on the wrong door at 5:30 in the morning, he asked “ummm, can I borrow your phone? I need to call a friend.”
“What happened??” I asked.
“I got jumped down the street. Do you have a shirt I can borrow?”
“What’s your name?”
After a bit of a pause, he answered “Dan.”
So, I told “Dan” to hang on a second.
Of course, I already had the phone in hand. As I was dialing 911, I rushed to the closet and grabbed a towel that he could wrap around himself.
I made sure the door was closed and locked, and the dogs were keeping him company at the window.
I would love to hear the recording of my emergency call, because I think it sounded something like this:
First, there would be a lot of barking in the background of the call.
“This is the operator, where is the emergency?”
“Um, hi, yeah, um, it’s at (enter my home address here). umm, there’s a skinny-white guy standing on my porch wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. He’s asking to use my phone to call a friend. I’m not giving him my phone, and I’m definitely not leaving some half naked guy in my house. Can you send someone over here right away to help me out.”
“What’s his name?”
“Umm, he says it’s Dan.”
“Is he wearing any shoes??”
“I don’t know! It’s dark outside!”
I would have preferred the operator say something like “Help is on the WAY!” but no, I get “Is he wearing shoes?” WTF??
So, by now I’m back at the door giving “Dan” a towel that really isn’t going to do him a damn bit of good. It’s 8 degrees outside, and I’ve just handed him a 3 X 4 foot towel that seems a bit thin. It always seemed plenty big when I would hop out of the shower to dry off, but somehow it seemed a little lacking when it was being used to cover up a nearly 6 foot tall half-naked skinny guy who was slowly freezing to death.
Sucks to be him.
He looked at me and said “thanks” and then asked if he could use the phone again, which he can clearly see that I am talking on.
I told him “no worries, I am getting you some help.”
He then asked me “Do you know Dan Tyler?”
“Is your name Dan Tyler?” I asked back. I think I got a nod to this one, so I told the guy on the emergency line.
Then he asked “Can I come in?” obviously his sanity is starting to slip at this point, because my dogs are still trying to say hello with all of the barking and jumping and trying to get through the crack of the door to “greet him.”
I give him a simple “umm, I don’t think that’s a good idea, my dogs wouldn’t like it much.”
He gave me what looked like a disappointed nod. Obviously being half naked wearing nothing but boxers and crappy little towel in what feels like -3 degrees outside will start to conquer your fear of big dogs.
At some point, he actually realized that I was talking to someone on the phone. “Who are you talking to?”
“I’m just getting you some help.” I told him.
I think there was a little bit more idle chit chat at this point while I was praying for the police to get here. I’m pretty sure he asked me for a shirt again too. It was starting to worry me that he was willing to brave the dogs to get out of the cold.
Luckily within another minute or so, I saw a squad car roll by the house. Then I noticed several people on the street heading our way, including a K9 patrol. I closed the door again, and ran back and locked the dogs in the hallway. I was back to the door in under 30 seconds and the guy was gone. I peered through the window and could see him squatting down on the porch hunched into a ball trying to warm up, and maybe hide. I’m not sure. Right then the police threw a spotlight on him and asked him to step down from the porch, hands on their weapons, and K9 ready to jump. He slowly walked down the steps and was put into the back of a squad car.
Then I heard the emergency operator mumble something about them looking for someone and if they had him in hand, he would hang up now. Which was fine, since at this point I had forgotten I was even on the phone. Then I heard one of the officers say something outside about how he must have been hiding on my porch.
Little did I know, but there was a man-hunt for a half-naked skinny white guy going on in my neighborhood, and I got to be a part of it. That explains how 4 squad cars and 2 ominous looking black SUV’s appeared in front of my house in under 5 minutes.
I think I deserve some kind of award. Maybe a little trophy of a frozen white guy with ice-cycles hanging off his…anyway, what a great way to wake up.
Oh yeah, the dude stole my towel too.
2008 is going to be an strange year.
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We went to the zoo today. As we were walking up to one of the exhibits, I asked Charlie if he remembered what was in it. I was testing him to see if he could remember from the last time we were at the zoo.
He answered immediately and in his most confident voice “There are Leprechauns in there.”
Last I checked, we went to the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo not the Irish Folklore Zoo.
It would be a pretty cool idea actually, they could put one of those little zoo feed machines outside the Leprechaun pen and fill it with Lucky Charms. They could make a little extra for that pot ‘o gold.
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It’s obviously my fault, but that doesn’t matter right now. This is my blog - what I say goes. I know I made a series of mistakes that led me to my current point of pissed-off-ness. Yesum, it’s true, even *I* make some mistakes. Here they are.
Mistake #1:
A couple months ago, I entered into a converstaion with my slightly odd by nice neighbor from down the street. When he approached me that clipboard in his hand I should have worried.
Mistake #2:
I listened to him. He told me all about the horrible situation with the intersection two doors down from my house. Evidently, the cross traffic kept running the stop sign and causing accidents. He was trying to get the intersection changed into a four-way stop instead of a two-way stop and he was looking for my support. All I had to do was sign his little petition on that clipboard I mentioned.
Mistake #3
I signed the petition. There were over a couple hundred signatures on it already. Damn, damn, damn the peer-pressure.
Mistake #4
I didn’t pitch a bitch-fit when the city came out and changed the intersection about a month ago. They didn’t put in a four-way stop like the petition called for, instead, they just switched the direction of the two-way stop. So, now instead of getting to drive through the intersection without stopping, I have to stop and wait for the cross traffic to fly by.
Mistake #5
I didn’t adapt to the change. Evidently it takes my brain too long to rewire my driving habits. I’ve lived here and dealt with that damn intersection for over ten years and I’ve never had any problems, at least I never had any problems until Mistake #6.
Mistake #6
I drove through that new, and obviously evil, insersection without looking, without slowing, and without thinking, but most importantly, I drove through it without stopping. It’s too bad that the guy crossing the other way didn’t have better reflexes. Curse him. Of course, if he had quick reflexes I wouldn’t have had any new content. Nobody wants to hear about how someone ALMOST got into an accident.
So, this will be the most expensive Moutain Dew that I never bought.
Oh, and if you are wondering, nobody got hurt.
It turned out to not be that bad of an accident. The other guy only hit the side of the metal bumper on our van. It’s bent but amazingly his car never touched any of the van’s body panels. Unfortunately, the little plastic bumper on the front of his car was badly mangled. I dont think it served much purpose except to look prettty anyway. I helped him tape it up with some packing tape before he left. So, luckily, there was no real structural or body panel damage.
Now comes the real damage. He’s going to call me with the repair estimate this week. I think the razzle frazzle city should pay for it. grr.
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Sometimes I stop by the office on the weekend to make sure everything is A.O.K. This past Sunday I stopped by with Charlie. As I was doing a quick walk through, making sure everything was locked up, the air conditioner was turned down, and the big freezers were running, Charlie was just roaming the halls.
Shortly before we left, I noticed he seemed to be acting odd and clutching his superfriends backpack a little tighter than normal (he sometimes wears his backpack because he thinks it’s cool.) I shrugged it off as daddy paranoia. He was fine. No problem. We locked up and headed for home.
As we pulled up in front of the house and I began unbuckling Charlie, he commented “Dad, I really really liked it.” He picked up his backpack and held it tight.
Huh?!?
“What did you really really like?”
“It was in Terry’s office, and I thought it was cool.” Clutching backpack even tighter.
Uh Oh, me-thinks my kid has sticky fingers at this point.
“Charlie, did you take something??”
“But, It was cool Dad!”
“Give me your backpack, and get in the house. We need to talk.”
I headed into the house opening the backpack. What could it be, what did he take? I began pulling toys, a change of clothes, and a plastic bag with a wet bathing suit in it (not smelling so good) out of his backpack. I wasn’t finding anything. At this point, Charlie was sitting on the couch staring at me with his “I’m sorry Dad” eyes.
“Charles, What did you take?”
“Maybe it’s in the bottom of my backpack.”
I dig deeper. More clothes, more toys, and then lastly in the very bottom of the bag, a single penny. Could it be? My boy stole a penny? I held it up and showed it to him. “Did you take this?”
“I’m sorry Dad, I really liked it.”
A penny. A 1976 penny. At least it’s an antique!
Well, it doesn’t matter what it is, you’re still not supposed to take something that doesn’t belong to you… Right?
So I went on and explained that was wrong to take the penny and that was stealing. He apologized, and I said I would take it back.
He looked at it and said, “Maybe you’d better hide it so I don’t take it again.”
Poor kid, I’ve given him a complete complex over lifting a penny from someones desk. arg. I explained to him that I trusted him, and I know he knows better now. I showed him that I was putting the penny in my wallet and told him that I would return it on Monday.
If he turns out to be a kleptomaniac, I hope he at least learns to take the silver coins! 
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Ilana Yahav from sandfantasy.com. Very Cool