House Rebirth

Crazy weekend through to Lexi goes back to Iowa

Posted by Cuthbert Returned , Thursday, May 20, 2010 9:22 AM

So I'm gonna do one of those horrible catch up posts that I personally despise so much. Friday Amanda and I decided that with Lexi having worked her so much on her vacation we really should go out and have some fun. We bombed around town a bit and ended up seeing Iron Man 2. Well worth the admission. Had a hillarious over-hearing in the theatre of an indian man saying "Who would buy a KIA?" to a pre-movie advertisement. Something about the way he said it was fall down hillarious.

Saturday morning we slept in a bit and then headed to Home Depot determined to replace the busted and broken in our home. We found  the appliance area and picked out a stainless steel fridge that was just what we were after. Then we looked at dishwashers, we found the one we were after and then over wandered the most arrogant bastard of a salesman I have ever met in my life. He spouted to Amanda how women always like the stainless steel then when Lexi asked a question he was demeaning to her. Ready to get the hell out of their but realizing this store was gonna save us like $300 on delivery and take away I determined to bite my lip. Amanda asked, "how do we check out?" The arrogant jerk looked up and said, "...well.... you just tell me the ones you want..." At this point I saw my wife start to boil over...



My sister was also extremely peaved, and pointed out the stores terrible merchandising(retail speak for where signs are) in the appliance section. The salesman pointed at some tiny font saying only on specific models and then continued to be an arrogant jerk. At this point he realized he didn't have to proper numbers to ring us up. Thank god I thought. So he gave us a sheet with the model numbers and what we needed for the delivery and take away. Told us to get rung up at the front of the store. We had intended on purchasing a reel mower today as well so off we went to pick one out. Yes we have heard all of the reasons not to use one and had 5 different people tell us how much they suck....but my wife and I have this problem called not only are we stubborn we really hate lawn mowers that burn gas. We picked one up for $80 more on that story later.

Finally it was time to check out at the front. Our previous experience with Home Depot employees had us a little worried about this interaction, however when we approached we apparently got a manager. I told him the entire story, he told me it was ridiculous and that he would talk to that salesmen. He also gave us a discount on the appliances, and told us that the salesmen would not be getting that commission. Feeling much better about the day and our faith restored in Home Depot we went on about our day.

We stopped at the Silver Diner for Supper that night and fought with coin operated  juke boxes. Ours was apparently busted so in order to hear 8 days a week we had to ninja into someone else's booth for a second after they had left. I'm sure the entire restaurant thought we were hooligans but we got to hear the beatles.

The next day I got up early and assembled the reel lawn mower, following instructions I gave it a good wd40 rub down and prepared to attack the veritable forest of a lawn we had grown. The thing seemed to work wonders, its extremely light and when you do hit a stick a quick roll back of the reel and the stick is gone. The only isue we have is the inordinately tall grass that has gone to seed. It seems to be somehow resistant to the blade. My theory is the blades of grass are so tall that they wrap around the reel and cannot get cut by the blade. I see why they have such a bad wrap however if we could get a once over with a normal mower I would imagine we could in all seriousness keep the lawn under control with this little guy. I wish there was some sort of manual hand tool for this, I hate the idea of having to have one more gas burning device for something like grass, that should be managed by a goat or sheep... anyways I got the lawn done and noticed the random singular tall blades of grass. It is the strangest sight you will see in a lawn. Nice shortly cropped grass with three or four crazy tall blades still standing triumphantly.

A friend at work had told us that a local park was nice...actually he had told me "Chicks dig it", but I figured it couldn't be that bad. We went and grabbed a rotissery chicken and some deviled eggs and had a picnic before we went and saw the "Great Falls" which were in all seriousness very pretty, if a little polluted. 

The next day Lexi and I went downtown to bomb around, she hadn't seen Roosevelt yet so I took her on the horrible gruelling walk that is required to see it and get back to a metro.

Monday Lexi and I got a hold of some old N64 games that we could emulate on the HTPC and found ourselves playing mariokart 64 until 9 oclock when Amanda finally got home.

Wednesday was the day Lexi had to fly home and our appliance delivery was scheduled. While i was at work they delivered our new appliances and hooked up our fridge which was crazy cool since I didnt have to do it. I'm beginning to understand the lazy east coast, why actually work and get the fulfillment of using your own hands when you can exist in a fantasy world where stanger migrant gnomes just show up while you are away and do all the work..... but I digress...

I left work early to pickup Lex thinking I would ahve plenty of time to get her to the airport. After all 2 hours for a drive that normally takes 40 minutes should be fine right......right???? Nope we ended up just barely making it to the airport in time to drop her off Amanda went in to help her get through security. I hope she had a good time out here, hopefully someday she can come out when Amanda and I arent spread all over hell in a house thats falling in a heap....

We went home and installed the dishwasher. It felt amazing to install an appliance that wasnt completely hosed and then have it work the first time. I began to feel like I might actually be able to make this house work. So I sent an random photo message to my family proclaiming what I hath installed.