so, there i was, deep in the fresno. wondering if i would ever get out alive. north fresnans were all around me. clovisites were closing in. i realized that i worked in one of the most dangerous places in the world for a towerist: next to PELCO. bastion of greed, greed, greed and charity. damn that last one.
i'll tell you what, though. driving to work in the morning from the relatively safe confines of the tower to the supposedly safe confines of a business near the airport is not what the mayor would have you believe. alan autry. wow. i knew him as a bad actor. bubba from The Heat of the Night (sorry to say, the t.v. series) is my spokesperson to the World At Large. this is the man who "meets" with Mr. Arnie the Steroids Horse who impersonates the Governor in a laugh-filled romp that will leave you breathless and voting for any hooker or midget who ever runs for their offices again.
but today i had to opt out of the 8 hour schedule, because i had to be home between 1 and 4 p.m. the air conditioning guy was going to come by sometime within those time restaints and fix my air conditioning. and it was 103 degrees today. as providence would have it (and we all know that when a service technician says "between this time and this time" he or she means as close as possible to the later one) he showed at 4:15. amazingly, i hadn't given up and left yet to walk and get my car from the shop. i had my hat on, my keys in my pocket and was trying to convince thumper to come in from the front stoop. thumper had other things on her mind like seeing how long i would talk to her before giving up in disgust.
so, the a.c. guy is there. he looks at my furnace. he looks at my condensor unit (he doesn't laugh when i tell him the unit only looks small because of the freon). and he tells me that everything is working fine and to call his shop when something breaks. the damn thing wouldn't turn on on sunday. flat out. wouldn't work.
so, i head down to the car shop where my car is sitting. the same car that wouldn't start on sunday. flat out. wouldn't work. after a nice walk of about 20 minutes in the 103 weather i get there and my car is ready to go. no charge. why no charge? because as soon as it got there it behaved like the child of your relatives' dreams. no pissing, no crapping, sugar doesn't raise the heartbeat by a smidge. so, now i have a car that i don't know will start in the morning (unless it feels like it) and an a.c. unit that will kick if it feels like it. and the experts all agree that i'm not a movie star and i should stop acting like i deserve to be treated like one. almost makes me want to blog another po-em...but not tonight.
i got meat on my mind.