Seems a black or grey cloud had been following me around during the week. My decision-making abilities were clouded over with a multitude of thoughts and whatever I decided was wrong.
I thought I give myself a break when I asked our neighbor and son-in-law to help with the mowing and trimming of the lawn. He was happy to help since they see us as octogenarians in need of help and direction.
I have news for them, usually we are more than capable of taking care of our own chores, but hey, if he’s there, might as well take advantage of his young age.
I made sure there was enough gas in the mower for him to finish the job but just to make certain, I asked him to get over to the barrels and fill up again. Instead of directing him to the gasoline tank, I made the mistake of sending him to the diesel tank and he, following my advice, filled the gas tank with diesel.
When he tried to start the mower, I suddenly realized I had sent him to the wrong tank when black smoke came out of the back of the mower, and I instantly knew I was in big trouble with Grumpy. I’m only allowed one bad action per month, and I was already over the limit with this one. The black smoke was all over the yard and my poor helper was horrified. He immediately called Grumpy and asked for help. Grumpy was not happy.
It took a lot of work, draining of the lines, replacing the fuel with gasoline and eventually everything worked ok. I was devastated as I realized all this extra work was caused by my wrong direction to the tanks.
The following day I had a meeting in town with the community women and after everything was over, I went out to the truck to direct some of the ladies to the daffodils I had in back of the truck. In my excitement to find out some of the ladies were gardeners, I shut the truck door with my purse, keys and cell phone inside. I didn’t realize the truck was locked until I tried to open the door to go home. No cell, no keys and no ID. Now what?
One of the ladies allowed me to call AAA from her cell phone and I was able to get online and leave my information. I waited over an hour, and no help. In the meantime, the ladies were ready to go home; one brought me a bottle of water to quench my thirst. That was a big help.
Once again, I asked to borrow a phone and finally connected to the AAA dispatcher who sent a locksmith to open the truck door. 30 minutes later, the door was unlocked, the keys were found, and I could make my way home.
Since I was already over the bad actions for the month, I was trying to figure out a way to tell Grumpy what I had done without him banning me from the house. He was OK with it, but the “look” was still there when I finally had the nerve to tell him the story. No worries, he’s still talking to me.
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