The Online Photographer

Very sorry there was no post again. I was up to my a** in alligators all day. Didn't hear from the mechanic, but at least confirmed that the disabled car got where it was supposed to be going. And I learned that AAA will tow someone else's car if someone is willing to call for it! The policy follows the person, not the car. My friend Chris would have called her AAA and saved me the $286 or whatever it was. Finished delivering the pictures to my Mennonite friend Andrew's friend Lyn, which is what I was undertaking when the car conked out. Called Hertz to check on the availability of rental cars, just in case, and was barely able to stop some lad in Kolkata from bestowing upon me a reservation against my will! My goal was to find out what a rental car cost and did they have any. He was very avid to achieve his goal instead, and showed remarkable persistence. We sparred; he feinted, I parried. After narrowly avoided reserving a car I don't yet know if I need, he informed me that they have no cars at my location anyway. But they have some in Rochester. Rochester is 54 miles away. "Not that far away from you." I'm proud of my restraint for not remarking that it is a rather long way, when you don't have a car. I filed a claim with the insurance agency for the house generator which went kablooie almost a year ago, and that took multiple calls. (Yeah, I know. The agent was curious about my delay too. But don't mock me too much. When I called to see if a rental car would be covered under my policy [nope], it shook loose the memory of the generator. I also added roadside assistance and towing to my car insurance policy.) I spoke to the adjuster for the dead generator. That took a while. He scheduled a visit from a tech/inspector who was due in "two to four business hours" but never showed up. Lastly, I could sleep for only five hours last night and suffered an alarmingly high number of apneas, so I called the Otolaryngology Department that oversees my CPAP sleep therapy to see if I could speak with the sleep therapist. We played telephone tag a while too. I was not able to speak to that person, but I did get a stern lecture from another person who said I absolutely must be seen in person. She informed me that my CPAP machine is a prescription device, and they would absolutely not make any changes to any settings or attempt to diagnose any problems until I had been seen in person; I could not just call on the phone; I had to be seen in person and they can make no exceptions. I said all right, that's fine, I'll be seen. She then checked and...told me their next available appointment is in a month and a half. Made me laugh. 

But you know what? It was a great day. I got a lot done, made some headway, never lost my composure, and handled everything that came my way. My neighbor very kindly bought some breakfast staples for me while she was in town, for which I was grateful. And midway through the day came a big blessing...my son texted to tell me that he's gotten an impressive job offer back in Illinois where he lives. I'm so proud of him I could bust—I do not need any other Christmas present this year.

The icing on the cake was that it was a sunny, warm(ish) day, so look what I did:

It looks a little forlorn I will admit, but at least it signals that TOP Rural World HQ is participating in this year's festival of peace on earth, good will toward men. And on time for once (pats self on back).

I'll sleep well tonight. Alligators vanquished! Well, maybe not all the alligators quite yet. I'm still grateful to be living in this great land where we are free to choose our own system of weights and measures*. Even if we are a little discombobulated.

Mike

*That one really gave me a good laugh. Hope those in Europe or elsewhere can see it.

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Featured Comments from:

JTK: "Thanks for the link. It's 7 a.m. and I am laughing and my eyes are watering. I grew up in England and was thoroughly involved in the technical side of the metric conversion in the banking system. The money was good whether I got 240 pence to the pound or 100 pence to the pound. Lots of overtime."