humor

Karma and Irony are our friends, Trailer Park Awards for May.

~ Ron Walker ~ 36 Comments

I have been slacking in my posting lately. Projects here at home have kept me challenged but I am finally victorious!

The trailer park has been blissfully quiet for the last 2 weeks. It’s therefore time to chronicle the last major event. One that was unexpected, but welcome. Some of you will remember the mean, grumpy guy down the street. The one that argues with his neighbor all the time about her dogs.

There was a flurry of activity down his way for several days. The court had mercy on him and didn’t impose a sentence on him for the warrant that his neighbor signed on him. It probably helped that he arrived in a wheelchair, one amputated leg, pushed by his elderly father, who claimed to live with him and take care of him. They should get a Trailer Park Oscar. After the court appearance, he started doing things to aggravate the neighbor that had signed the warrant. Now they only have about 20 feet between his tiny camper and her fence line which is about 15 feet from her front door. So he wheels his dilapidated BBQ grill over to the fence, and burns obnoxious trash in it for 2 days. Plastic, rubber, dog poop.

During this time, Karma and Irony both must have tired of his antics. Your in deep trouble when Karma and Irony come for you. The county deputies came to his house one day on a call about a man and woman and 2 children in his house that refuse to leave. Then we hear of another call to the back row where his parents live, you remember, the ones that fly their confederate flag also and asked their neighbor not to have Negroes (they used the N word) visit him. The next day deputies arrive and take him off to jail. He’s been gone 2 weeks.

What better irony, than the ones that helped keep you out of jail by lying for you, signing a warrant on you. We are all thinking of throwing a neighborhood party in honor of his present residence in the county jail. You know, maybe we should give bozo a name. Let’s Call him Johnny Reb from now on if we have to write about him.

Official Trail Park Ass-hat Award
  • Awards:
    Johnny Reb and his father (and the wheel chair) get a Court Oscar for their performance of “Pitiful Redneck”, that kept him out of jail.
  • Johnny Reb also receives recognition, and official status, of “Ass-hat” of the trailer park. (Applause)
  • Karma and Irony deserve special mention for dumping so hard on Johnny Reb.
  • We would also like to thank his parents, who somehow managed to get fed up enough, they decided to sign him up for an all expense paid stay at the county facility, where he can relax, have his meals delivered to him, and play volley ball in the sports area. (Thunderous Applause!)

We are back to quiet days. Only the early morning put-put-put of the maintenance man’s riding mower, as he trundles down the highway to the service station for a cup of coffee. The sound of the neighbor 2 doors down, working in his forge making knives out of old steel.  Oh yes, and the lady next door, dog-cussing her fur babies till they finally get tired and come in the house. Life is good…

Comments always welcome,

We shouldn’t complain, but I think I will. Some days are just fodder for posts.

~ Ron Walker ~ 32 Comments

After all, laughter is the best medicine.

What’s the old saying? “I could complain, but it wouldn’t do any good”. Sometimes it can be fun to complain, groan, moan, bitch (pardon my french), or otherwise let it all out. It can be a type of therapy. Especially if you’re as twisted as I am in the brain pan. The best thing is to look back over the day, appreciate you are here to have witnessed it, and try to laugh at it, or yourself. After all, laughter is the best medicine. There are a couple of links here referencing some past posts new followers may enjoy.

Yesterday we had a 40% chance of rain, according to the weather guessers on TV. So naturally we had thunderstorms and 2 inches of rain in one hour, on top of all the rain that had fallen.

Thought I saw Noah’s Ark

Now I live in a fixer-upper. You can’t beat the price with one of these deals, but you do get a surprise from time to time. Last night was no exception. The roof is old, and I have fixed a couple of leaks over the last two years. Last night during the storms, the wind reached about 40 mph with torrential rain, as in 2 inches in an hour. I thought I saw Noah’s Ark glide by, but the rain was too hard and I couldn’t see plainly through it.

Shingles, not the itchy kind.

This morning I discovered we had sprung a leak right over the dining room table. Not on the right, not on the left, but dead center. The good part? The double wide is not level, so it ran mostly to one side and soaked the carpet, instead of all around. If I had known, I would have placed the flowers that reside on the covered porch on the table and saved watering them. I could of also pre-soaked some laundry for today. Checking outside I find that there are numerous dark rectangular objects laying about. Yep, they’re shingles alright. On the bright side, I can now build the dog house and not make a trip to Home Depot for shingles, it appears there are enough to cover it. Now what was that insurance deductible?

Roadkill anyone?

Time for breakfast. My mother-in-law stays with us as she is in poor health, which I think has led to my poor health, but I digress. She decides to cook breakfast, which usually ends with the smoke detector going off. No, I’m not joking. Sausage and gravy over biscuits. Canned ones thankfully. Last time I ate her homemade ones, I nearly had to have a tracheotomy because they would not, go, down. The sausage she likes is good once it’s cooked. While it’s cooking, it smells like it might be roadkill 3 days old. I usually get nauseous and open windows. I went to the front door this time and opened it and the screen, and just stood there to get some fresh air. It appeared someone had rang the dinner bell for the flies that showed up, not a full minute later. Yes, go ahead and call me stupid. I was hungry and the smell had wafted on out. I should know better because usually if she cooks meat in anything, I wind up with an ailment that rivals the results of preparation medicine, for a colonoscopy. Michelle says I never learn not to eat her Mom’s cooking. Let’s just say I pulled the pin on that breakfast grenade, we’ll see what happens later on.

“Hey! Here’s lunch on me!

Reboot, where she likes to sit.

As if the gods, didn’t hate me enough. My sweet, lovable cat, Reboot. Jumps up on the

desk and assumes her spot she takes at times, in the space between me and the keyboard. Apparently, she doesn’t feel well. After a couple moments, she gave one funny sounding wet burp, and then expelled undigested kibbles. No gloop gloop, I’m going to throw up, best sit me on the floor warning. This gave me the fleeting urge to show her mine, but I resisted with great effort.

Nothing funny about a roof leak, wet dining room table and carpet, shingles blown off, or breakfast by the enema queen, but if I put it down in a humorous context, it makes it all better for me and I can smile at it.

Have a great Sunday, comments always welcome.

Weekend Started with a Bang! (Trailer Park Tales)

~ Ron Walker ~ 26 Comments

Our weekend starts on Friday around these parts. Some Park Denizens get an early start by calling out of work, that way they can start the happy juice consumption early. It has been active since yesterday with different things occurring.

I’m normally a calm person. My situational awareness has always been excellent, probably due to the years in police work. You normally can’t sneak up on me and startle me, loud noises don’t bother me. Since Friday, there has been a weird feeling, almost like some dark energy is hovering over the Park. For the first time in years I have been jumpy. It may be one of the new medications they started me on, or I’m just not as “cool” as I once was. Even my dogs are conspiring to see if they can contribute to the jumpiness.  So let us get started.

Friday morning, shouts from down the street, and spinning tires, caught my attention. The scanner on the desk revealed that the strange guy two doors down, that has the rebel flag in his yard, had called reporting there was a man and woman in his home with 2 children refusing to leave. I don’t know if they were relatives, or friends.

Friday evening another call goes out from a mother, in the back area, of the park, that had signed a warrant on her 27 year old son. He had returned to her residence and was arguing with her. Her Son takes off running down the street just as deputies arrive. He only makes it to the Dollar General Store where he is captured. Maybe he was looking for cheap justice. I could hear my ex-partner in my mind saying, “Don’t run, you’ll just go to jail tired.”

Later Friday night a call about someone burning obnoxious smelling material. The caller told 911, If they didn’t send someone out, they were going to kill the offender. Deputies came, no one killed.

That keeps you on edge, I don’t have to listen to the scanner, but if there is weird stuff happening, then I want an edge if some crazy that has just been in an altercation, bangs on my door frantically wanting to borrow the phone. That was enough for one day.

This morning, Saturday, I’m sitting here reading blogs and a HUGE boom is heard right outside. Something about that awful sound put me on edge, I was full-blown fight or flight. My first thought was someone fired a magnum sized pistol, or shotgun very close, or it was a huge impact of vehicles on the highway outside. Or, it could be 2 doors in the other direction where they man makes knives on a homemade forge. It may have blown up. Turns out it was a power transformer that blew the fuse on the pole. For those that don’t know. The “link” in the line is opened by the firing of a 410 shotgun shell charge that forces it apart to break the circuit.

I get back inside to the safety of my office and try to relax. Max and Midnight our male and female Shepherds are tussling on the floor behind me. I admonish them a couple times. Let me set this up some, I have a donated office chair that the MIL didn’t want after buying another one. It’s a nice chair, it has one little thing wrong. It has a pneumatic shock that you can adjust up and down for comfort. The lever is located on the right side under the seat. With age apparently the locking spring has weakened. You are supposed to set the height, push the lever in, and it locks in a notch so it can’t be bumped to let all the air out of the shock at once. Apparently they didn’t design it for rambunctious large dogs playing near.

They had once again started the wrestling match just behind me. I sat back in the chair and was about to shout at them to stop, when the world apparently dropped 10 or so inches. I swear I thought it was 10 feet. One of them had managed while wrestling below the chair, to strike the lever just right, unlocking and lifting it releasing the compression fully.

I decide to sit down in the living room and watch some TV on the 50inch. I lean back, let out a deep breath as I relax, and I turn it on. It winks/blinks at me and goes dark after selecting different. I check it as best I can, and can hear Doctor McCoy of Star Trek in my head saying “It’s dead Jim.” I suppose I can take comfort that it didn’t give a loud pop and smoke when it went out.

I’m recovering somewhat as I post this, but I swear,  if it gets any crazier around here, the laptop and I are going to the closet. Michelle can slide snacks under the door.

Comments welcome,

I’m 105 years old, who knew.

~ Ron Walker ~ 27 Comments

Ever had one of those weeks, where everything was eerily quiet, almost boring? That was my past week. My brain devoid of thoughts to put into type.

Then the morning started.

Looking back, l should have seen the wee hours incident as a portent to this morning. I was awakened by Michelle shouting in her sleep. She’s facing away from me, so like a loving husband, I gently take her shoulder and pull her to roll towards me to comfort her. She looks at me, then releases a blood-curdling scream. After she apparently reaches full awake, I ask what is wrong.

“I opened my eyes and looked at you, you looked 40 years older!”

Now I’m stumped, it’s around 2 am, I was just awakened by loud talking, my wife looks at me and screams. She scares the bejesus (is that even a word?) out of me, and probably the neighbors two doors down. The 2 little dogs that are sleeping in the bed scatter in different directions barking loudly, Reason? “I opened my eyes and looked at you, you looked 40 years older!”

Okay, so, I’m 65. Some say I look more like 50 but they are being kind. I was either good-looking in her dream, or I REALLY look horrible at 105! Either way the crisis is resolved. She’s back to sleep in 30 seconds, I lay there 30 minutes wondering what I look like at 105. It can’t be good.

The morning finally arrives. It’s Saturday, 6:30 am.

Picture blurry due to window glass, screen and distance.

I usually awaken around 5 am, on this morning I must have been enjoying some much-needed sleep, after the rapid aging I suffered in the night. There is what sounds like an industrial car crusher operating outside. Stumbling to a window I find out it is “David” our maintenance man cutting grass early. I have spoken to him and find him a simple but likable man. He works hard around the trailer park. On this morning he is operating his riding mower that is pieced together from many parts. He did however forget one part, the muffler!

The sound of a pet retching, should be an alarm sound.

The morning is going well as I sit here in the man-cave-computer room reading blogs. I’m trying to be very quiet this morning, since Michelle is recovering from having injections in her back yesterday. Then there is the sound. I have mentioned before how the sound of a pet retching, should be an alarm sound. Nothing will motivate you faster than to hear that while you are sleeping. Reboot is sitting on a very large guitar amplifier, making pitiful sounds like she has swallowed a plunger, which is trying to bring something up from her depths.

Max, our German Shepherd is showing his concern but poking her with his rather large noseMax. She answers with a swipe of a paw, which elicits a loud yelp. Staying quiet so as not to wake the entire house is no longer a viable option. I scoop her up and attempt to rush to the nearest potty pad at the back door. We don’t make it.

I dash to the kitchen to grab some paper towels for the cleanup.

Fortunately it is a very small amount she deposited on the floor just outside the office. The paper towel rack is, empty. No one EVER reloads it. So I’m in a hurry, trying to be quiet, and I drop the wooden rod that holds the towels suspended horizontally under the cabinet. Funny how things seem to slow down to a crawl when you know something bad is about to happen. The one-inch thick, several inch long rod falls so slowly it seems, then hits the floor and proceeds to bounce back and forth end to end as if it were possessed, performing a drum solo on the bare hardwood floor.

Getting the towels installed on the rack, hindsight reveals I should have just grabbed some towels and taken care of the mess first. I turn to see Max creeping up on the spot as if it were prey. I’m trying to admonish him from 25 feet away in a strong whisper “No!” He had his selective hearing on apparently. That is when my plunger started trying to work in my stomach.

Comments always welcome,