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January 07, 2005
Christmas Part 2 or ?For everything else there?s Mastercard!"
Sunday evening we went to visit my friends who still live in Ashland. We got together at the house of the Kentucky Philosopher whose wife Selma is still on the fast path to sainthood. My Brother also came over with his wife and two girls.
Before I go too much farther you need a reminder about the wit of the Kentucky Philosopher: While working as a manager at a Transistor Town he once had a customer who demanded a refund on a computer that had been used and abused. After a few moments the KP realized that the customer wasn’t dealing with a full deck and gave him the refund just to be rid of him. A day later the customer came back and began complaining to another manager. The customer was demanding to be compensated for his time from the day before. The KP walked by only to be accused of being the reason for the need for compensation. Standing behind the other manager he heard the following:
Customer: “I looked like a fool yesterday. I demand you pay me for my time.”
Hapless manager: “Sir we gave you a full refund yesterday. Am I to understand that you want us to pay you for the time you were here yesterday?”
Customer: “No! I’m demanding that you compensate me for my looking dumb.”
Hapless and now perplexed manager: “Sir I don’t know how to put a price on that. I wouldn’t know how to request a check for that.”
Cheerful Kentucky Philosopher: “For everything else there’s Mastercard!”
Now imagine that same sense of humor in a new environment with infinite resources. That’s right. The Kentucky Philosopher is now working at the County Jail. It’s already led to such verbal showdowns as:
Prisoner: “Can I go outside for a walk?”
Kentucky Philosopher: “No.”
Prisoner: “Why not?”
Kentucky Philosopher: “Hello! Convict!”
Prisoner: “Oh. Yeah.”
Also on hand was our old friend Matt. I’m not saying that Matt lies a lot but the standing joke in our group is that were you to look hard enough in the Saraha desert you’ll find skeletons clutching Maps to the Holy land that Matt’s ancestors sold them. (“I don’t understand why we are lost! He looked like such an honest young man.”)
Early on Jack started to fuss and cry so Fabulous Babe thought it best if she took Jack back to the hotel while I stayed for a while. When I got back to the hotel at 10:00 Jack was still fussing. Soon the protests turned into a full blown, air raid siren quality, wail. Jack had developed an ear infection.
The little trooper kept us up to 2:00 that night. Finally he fell asleep in his car seat as I was preparing to take him for a drive to try to settle him. When he woke up the next day he was just as unhappy. We literally stayed in the hotel room until almost 3:00, losing an entire day.
If I sound bitter I don’t mean to. My son comes first and his health and well being are more important than anything. I know how hard it is to travel with kids and that’s what made our losing a day all the more painful. Fabulous Babe’s family can travel to see us far easier than any of my family. I’m afraid the next time we’re going to be back to Kentucky it will be for a funeral.
Posted by Jim at January 7, 2005 12:04 AM