14 January 2021
Trigger:
Dan sent this starter along after the well viewed participant in the mob attack on the US Congress last week. “This may seem silly, but viewing the man in the buffalo outfit made me think of these as possible starters…
—
Come blow your horn…
Horn of plenty…
Honk your horn if you love…
Really! The man has horns…
Stuck On Him
It was a day like any other during the pandemic. They all seem so much the same. Sleep late. Get up. Feed the cat while the coffee is making. Get my cup and sit down and read the papers. Well it isn’t exactly a paper anymore but an iphone screen with all the news sites that I subscribe to. Then shower and shave (I have my standards of course), put on the same clothes as yesterday (who knows what I wore and who cares – well I guess some standards are lower than others) and then sit down in front of the computer and read more news and commentary. Especially this week, after the riot against the Congress and Trump’s behavior, that’s about all I do, all day long.
This day however, was different, it was getting out day. I had a weeks worth of shopping to do including getting in some materials for a home repair project. I am not a handy man. I usually break more things than I fix but I had promised the wife that I would fix the leaking bathroom faucet in our en suite, now about a month ago. It made a nice noisy drip every 15 seconds or so. I know because I have counted the time between, usually at about 5 am when the house is quiet and the cat has stopped prowling and the snoring of the wife is in one if its noise abatement modes.
Ok, so now it is quiet and I can go back to sleep but then, I hear it, the “ploop’ and 15 seconds later the “ploop” and …well you get the picture. I think it could even be relaxing if it was exactly regular. But every so often it will be 20 seconds, or worse 30 and I’m now laying there thinking, is it going to ploop or not and so I’m waiting for it. I’ve thought about it a lot over the last month. If it was maybe every 5 seconds or so it might even be sort of like a breathing thing that I could use as a way of regulating my breathing and it would lull me back to sleep. But it’s the irregularity of it that bothers me, not the noise per se. It is only a drip after all.
I’ve tried a lot of techniques to eliminate the bother…well, other than fixing it. I first used all my strength to try and twist it more closed. That did work the first night or two but then it became even more regular. So then I put a cloth in the basin underneath the faucet. That works just fine until the cloth gets soaked, by around 5 am, and there it goes again, now muted and because the sound is barely perceptible, I have to listen even harder to hear it.
“Jim,” the wife said. “When are you going to fix the faucet. You said it was easy and just required a replacement washer.”
“I dont have the right washer.”
“But you complain that it keeps you awake at night. Wouldn’t it be easier to just go get one and fix it?”
“It means a trip to the hardware store and not a lot of those guys there wear masks. You always ask me if the stores I go to if everyone wears masks and you get upset when I say there are some who dont. And at hardware stores, most dont. I dont understand why it is such a manly thing to do to pretend that tough guys, who hang out in hardware stores don’t get the virus and need to wear a mask. So anyway, I’m just trying to protect you by not going there.”
The wife eyed me. “But you took your car to the garage to get a new headlamp installed, and nobody wears masks at garages. You told me that, but you managed to go there anyway for your car.”
“But that’s different. I needed to get that fixed in case we needed to go somewhere at night.”
“Jim, we’re under restrictions. There is no place for us to go at night. We’ve been home alone every night for the last 9 months.”
“Well, what if there was an emergency, and I had to take you to the hospital?”
“We could take my car. It has better headlamps than yours does anyway. You always said so.”
“I don’t like to drive your car. Anyway, I’m much more familiar with driving my car, especially at night and in an emergency.”
She sighed. “I guess I’ll just not have to get sick.”
“Well, there you go. I dont want to put you in jeopardy by having to go to the hardware store and being around guys who dont wear masks and then get sick and bring it home to you. And maybe then I would be too sick to drive you to the hospital ..even with good headlamps. “
“Jim.”
“Yes Dear.”
“Your tossing and turning all night while counting the seconds between the drips is keeping me awake at night. Get the faucet fixed. Just wear your mask and use the sanitizer I gave you and keep your distances. You’ll be fine. I’ll take my chances with the covid.”
So that’s why I found myself pulling into the parking lot at the hardware store. I found a spot not near any other car, parked, put on my mask and got out and entered the store. There weren’t many people in there thankfully, and most were even wearing masks.
As I said, I’m not really a handyman type, but I love hardware stores. It’s been a lifelong thing. I wander the aisles, all of them, looking at the stuff and wondering if I might ever need it. Oh look, there’s that new multi tool, I’ve seen advertised on TV. It solves so many problems around the shop and home. Maybe I should buy one? Should I get the cheap one or the top brand one? I always buy the cheap ones and they dont work as well and then they break. And I ponder, and wander, and rarely buy anything, but I’ll keep it all in mind when we get out of lockdown and maybe I’ll do some sort of project. It’s always like that.
I finally got to the plumbing aisle and after sorting through the faucet repair kits find the one I think I need and head to the checkout counter. Along the way there, I have to go past this guy, a really big guy, I mean huge. He’s wearing a flannel shirt and levis and work boots and a baseball cap on turned backwards. He’ has tattoos on his forearms which look bigger than my calves. And he’s not wearing a mask though I must say his bushy beard probably soaks up a lot..
I try and suck myself in as narrow as I can be and sort of slide sideways past him. He’s in the section looking at the slicing tools and razor scrapers. I wonder to myself, what sort of mayhem does he have in mind. I sure hope he’s not mad at his wife or some dweeb like me. I escape out into the main aisle and head to the checkout. There are a few people ahead of me, distancing and with masks. Just as I am paying the guy walks up to the line and does hang back a bit. He has only a couple packages in his hands, hands the size of dinner plates so I really couldn’t see what he was buying.
I scurried out the door and over to my car and as I walk up, I see a huge pick up truck has parked next to me. It is one of those big diesel jobs with huge duali wheels and exhaust stacks which climb up beside the double cab. The closer I get, I realize that the truck is taking up so much space that I cant open my driver door to get in. As I stand there looking at the back of the truck and my car, I see the sticker on his bumper. “Honk if you love Trump”. And then I perceive the shadow, blotting out the sun, approaching me.
He walked up though did not get too close. “Hey. You gotta problem?” booms out a demand in a deep bass voice.
I turned and said, “Excuse me, but you have me blocked in.”
He looked at me for a second and then my car. “Oh sorry, it is kind of hard to see your little car next to me from inside my truck. I know I didn’t hit you.”
“Oh no problem” I say quickly. “ I just need to get on my way home.”
“I hope you don’t mind waiting for a second,” he said. “I have something I’ve been meaning to do but with the lockdown, don’t get out much.
Reaching into the sack, he pulled out the razor scraper and walked toward me at the corner of his truck and my car. I stepped back away. Bending over he took the scraper and began to remove the sticker from his bumper. I watched, mouth agape.
He looked up at me as he finished. “There. You know, I was a sergeant in the Marines. We believe in honor and telling the truth. I been a republican all my life. What this guy did was against everything I stand for. And since I had to get out of the house to buy some new masks,” he held up the bag in his other hand, “it gave me the chance to get a scraper. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
With his long leg, he stepped up into the cab of the truck and roared the diesel to life, smoke belching out the twin exhaust stacks. With care and expert handling, he gently backed out. As he put it in gear to pull away, he waved through the window and yelled out, “Semper Fi and have a great day.”
I got into my car, drove home and fixed the faucet in less than a minute. As I sat that evening, sipping a glass of wine in front of the fireplace, I reflected on what had happened that day and thought that maybe, just maybe, there was some hope that things will turn out ok after all. At the very least, there wont be the 5 am “ploop”.