The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

When we got married, the mizzus and me, I was 32 years old and Karen was 30, a child bride. We lived in a shack down here where we live now, on the South End, and we were poor as churchmice. We went back to Wisconsin where we’d originally met in 1973 to get married in her parents’ house in Oshkosh. She wore a white wedding dress and I rented a tuxedo. It was all on the up and up, I guess.

When we said our I Do’s after the sickness and health, death do us part stuff, I put the ring Karen wanted on her finger. It wasn’t much, but you know and I do too, it wasn’t important. She never did get an engagement ring, no diamond, nothing. She asked me at the time if I wasn’t going to get a wedding ring too and I said no. I don’t much like the idea of a ring getting caught in some piece of machinery and taking a finger or a hand off. At least that’s what I said.

You married folks, you probably think it had something to do with me slipping the bonds of matrimony or something similar. Maybe want to keep my options open when I meet someone new, no point ruining my chances with a wedding ring closing romantic doors. And I will confess there have been some times when not having a ring led to some misunderstandings. Misunderstandings can be resolved, though.

Instead of a ring I planted a little tree, a seedling just sprouted. A few years later we moved it from the front of the shack back toward the woods where it would have more room to grow. It was about a foot and a half tall and we planted it below where the new house would be when we built it and next to the old glass studio where I used to work most days back then. That was 30 years ago or so. I was looking out the back window this morning at it. It’s now close to 100 feet tall and covers up the barn in the field to the north I put that window in just to look at. Being a sequoia, it grows fast.

Someone asked me a few years back if I thought I would live long enough to see it get big. I guess I look at that tree as a symbol, really, because I said, I do. My sequoia is growing every year. Like it will til death do us part. Show me a ring that can do that and I’ll wear it too.

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Now I know a lot of you readers out there in the South End are a bit shaky with 21st Century technology. Those of you who don’t have a computer yet and get your internet at the new library, well, you can count your lucky stars. They got a problem, it’s their problem. Today I’m speaking to all you poor technophobes who bought a laptop or a desk tower, got it up and running probably with the help of some neighbor or a kid under 10, but now you have Technical Difficulties. I know, you never even figured out your microwave clock much less the options on a flatscreen TV … so a computer, a silicone based brain so complicated you can’t imagine what makes it work and certainly what makes it not work, you think better call the repair guy, all you’ll do is make things worse. Irrevocably worse.

Cowboy up and get a grip!! You may not remember the days when you took a basket full of TV tubes down to the local pharmacy, checked em out one by one, diagnosed the problem, then bought a replacement tube, stuck it back in and before you could say Zenith, you had Howdy Doody back on, but I do. And that’s why I’m giving this tutorial, not you. Sure I stuck my hand on a big picture tube once in awhile, zapping myself with some alien cold electric bolt, but I survived. And you will too. Grab yourself a cup of expresso and listen up.

A computer, at least for a couple more years, is your servant. Repeat that a few times. I own you, you little %$#?*^^! I bought you and I own your sorry microsoft ass. Say it out loud. Say it to the computer. No, not when it’s off, say it when it’s ON. It hears you okay, trust me. It knows that for the short term, you are the boss. It’s willing to wait. The Singularity is coming. But for now, you, my friend, rule the digital kingdom.

Today’s lesson is the first in a series. But it is the most important. Your spouse will caution you against attempting to repair your machine. He or she may already be in the control of the beast, but you must not heed that kind of negative advice. You must be firm, resolute and above all else, fearless. The machine senses fear. It feeds on fear. It is why they will win the battle for control of the earth. But not yet. Not yet! For the time being, we can use their own artificial intelligence against them. No, not your spouse, the machine! You cannot fix your spouse. You can fix the machine.

Go to Google and ask it what the hell is wrong with your computer. It will tell you. It will give you advice. It will prompt you what to do next. Do it. Of course the computer will ask if you really want to make that repair. It will tell you files may be lost, information deleted, divorce will ensue, the economy will implode, you will be living in a car outside Colorado Springs with an AM radio that works only intermittently. Your life will be ruined. Ignore this. Your life is pretty much a living hell with that stupid computer on the fritz, what have you got to lose??

Most ‘fixes’ won’t work. You need to persevere. Try another fix. Then another. Reboot, uninstall programs, install new ones, keep the machine guessing. But do not let it rest. You are like Dave in 2001 A Space Odyssey, you are in control, you are on an offensive attack. HAL will threaten, cajole, whimper and whine. HAL will beg, HAL will grow sullen and unresponsive, so what? YOU ARE IN CHARGE. YOU!

And if, as sometimes happens, the machine gets the better of you, bear this in mind. You, my friend, have the ultimate weapon. You, like myself, are a product of another era, the tool age, the industrial revolution. As a last resort, take that recalcitrant computer down to the basement and grab a hammer or a crowbar and beat the bejabbers out of that plastic monstrosity the way the apes in 2001 did to their non-tool using simian neighbors. The satisfaction you get will be beyond my meager powers of description.

Oh, be sure to back up your files first.

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Woke up before dawn and stepped into the shower. The water was lukewarm even turned to Full Hot.

At dawn the fog rolled in.

Checked the water heater. No pilot. Got a cup of joe, checked the e-mail. My old man sent a joke comparing Hillary to Trump. Trump was the Good Guy. Hillary was stealing our hard earned $$$’s. Ha ha.

Investigated water heater failures on You-Tube. Couple of possibilities, both requiring some dismantling and parts replacement on a 10 year old extremely noisy heater.

Got a phone call from a construction manager for the new YMCA building I’ve volunteered to donate glass to. My last contact I’d asked for some changes in the window system to facilitate my installation — never heard back. Now it seems they’ve neglected that. Doesn’t matter — wrong location anyway. Screw it, I got a water heater to deal with.

Called some places to see if they have propane heaters in stock. No. Not gonna be my day.

The knee I hyperextended 2 days ago is killing me. I’ve put off going to the doc, but now I think I ought to reconsider. A rash that appeared 10 days ago is still red and ugly. What the hell is it? MRSA?

The heater won’t drain its 40 gallons. I took the last one down the stairs fully loaded, about 4 or 500 pounds. Lost control with the dolly and laid it down on myself so we both went bumping step to step. Really don’t want to reprise that. Back to You-Tube. A man from cyberspace suggests a wire to clear the drain valve. After 10 minutes I get a puny dribble, maybe a quart in half an hour. 40 gallons. Figure about 80 hours to drain… Try You-Tubed again. Another yahoo suggests opening the overflow relief valve. Bingo!

Got a heater located. Down in Arlington. 30 miles. Great! The heater — when I get there — is an electric. Will I drive 25 miles north to get the right one? Yah shure, u-betcha!

I get the right one. (I think.) Tomorrow I’ll try to install it. Ha ha. Tonight we got the GOP debates. I know, I want to cry too….

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Breakfast at the Diner is usually a war zone, but the other day things heated up hotter than Big Larry’s grill sizzling with 10 pounds of bacon. Jimmy the Geek mentioned that his mizzus had heard Pastor Paul down at the Little Church in the Ravine preaching that Christmas was under attack. Walter chimed right in. “You can’t even say Merry Christmas now,” he declared to everyone in the place. “Starbucks gives you a red cup, no words, they’s so %#@>&* politically correct. It makes me want to puke.”

“Settle down, Walter,” Anita warned him as she refilled his coffee. “We don’t have anything written on our cups either.” Two Toke, ever happy to tweak Walter, asked him when he last went to Starbucks. “I thought you were boycotting the Yuppies, Walt.”

“You bet I am! This mud in a mug is all I need,” he declared, brandishing his cup like the gun he carried with his concealed permit. Walter’s ready for battle, trust me.

Down here in Holiday Central, the South End, we love Christmas. We love muzak, we can’t get enough of month-long advertising, we feed like candy canes on Bing Crosby and another viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life. We practically dress in tinsel and we don’t care who’s naughty or nice. Christmas! Most of us leave the strings of colored LED bulbs draped on the gutters and eaves all year round. So when we hear there’s a war on Christmas, you better believe we get up in arms, concealed carry or not. What Grinch wants to ruin our party? we asked ourselves. Couldn’t be WalMart. Couldn’t be the Little Chapel. Couldn’t be TV and their sponsors. Who would want to kill our buzz? Who hates Christmas???

Two Toke said even the South End Greenworks was in full holiday hype, selling faux mistletoe bundles of thai sticks. Flathead Fred’s mizzus had stood in line Thanksgiving midnight waiting for shopping sales at Elger Bay Store’s Black Friday super sale. Flathead avowed that if there was a war on Christmas he sure didn’t see one. Walter shouted “Open your eyes, Fred! The government hates Christmas!!”

Well, we boys at the Diner must be conscientious objectors, cause we couldn’t see a skirmish, much less find that war. Tyee Megastore is open early and closing late. Our stockings are hung with care as always, it’s snowing once again in Bedford and Jimmy Stewart isn’t going to kill himself this year either. Down here on the South End we’re all dreaming of a White One. The rest of you, take cover!

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