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Events of Monday October 3, 2005

Alarm goes off after a restless night. “Fuck!” is the first word the escapes my mouth and I pull myself out of bed. I feel like shit. Slam a breakfast bar and pop a couple of cold pills. Listen to some Bob and Tom and head to work.

Forklift glory.
I arrive at work and find that four techs have called in sick. Huh. This should be interesting. My day is spent fielding angry phone calls and working on my rental board (exciting stuff). After work I head home. Call Rachael and tell her that I’m going to be a bum tonight. My plan is to drink a ton of juice, watch some football/wrestling and go to bed early. Since I haven’t slept for shit lately I stop at Walmart and pick up some NyQuil. I love this stuff, always knocks me out. Except tonight.

I chug some feel good juice and hit the sack. Sadly, this is anti-NyQuil. My nose starts running like a damn faucet. I’m coughing and I’m not happy. Add to this that the medicine has made my body wicked tired. I heat up some milk hoping to knock myself out. Nodda. I’m awake and I’m miserable. Around 1am I start swearing quite loudly. I give up and decide to watch some television. History channel tells me that Hitler was a bad guy and Sports Center tells me that the Packers suck. 2am. I return to bed. Still can’t sleep. Around the 4am mark I’ve decided to call into work. I’m out of sick days but there’s no way in Hell I’m dealing with forklift crap feeling like this. I call in around 5am.

Fucking NyQuil.

Less than fun

Events of Tuesday, October 4th

So I’m sick.

I roll out of bed around 10am and take the world’s longest shower. Crash on the couch with a tall glass of orange juice. Nap for a couple of hours while watching horrible daytime television. Head to Martin’s to pick up some cold meds only to discover that the shelves are empty. Apparently I missed the memo that said all drugs are now behind the counter. I ask Rachael about this phenomena (since she much smarter then me) and she explains that hoodlums use these drugs in meth labs. I guess they buy like 20 packs at a shot and cook the suckers up. Again, this just shows how out of touch I am.
Buy some drugs and juice and return to the couch.
The day is a blur of sleep and bad TV. I hate having a cold. Nothing makes you feel like more of a pansy then succumbing to the sniffles. But damn it, my whole body hurts. Rachael comes over after work and takes pitty on me. She takes me to the mall to buy some Orange Chicken (food of kings, people. Food of kings) Then the real fun begins.

So were driving back down Grape Rd. Grape Rd is the major shopping stretch in town and it’s always packed. Middle of traffic and her battery light comes on. Now I have no car knowledge at all. I can put gas in and that’s it. So the light goes and on and her power steering goes off. A touch of smoke starts to appear.

Shit.

So we pull into the K-mart parking lot about a mile from my apartment. She calls her father who diagnoses the problem over the phone. Slipped fan belt. So he says he’ll be right over. 30 minutes later he appears. He pops the hood, he was correct, blown fan belt. Did he bring any tools to fix it? No. So he and Rachael head off to the part store. Me? I’m sick damn it! They drop me off at home. After about a half hour of quilt they still haven’t called to say it’s fixed so I head out there. Now Uncle Mike is involved and both men are fixing the car. I stand on the sidelines like a four-year-old. After much ado the car is fixed and Rachael and I return to the apartment. The poor girl has yet to eat dinner. (This is the part were I make up for my mechanical skills) I run out to Burger King and pick her up a couple of burgers. We watch a bit of TV before we turn in.

Running

Events of Sunday, October 2, 2005.

Woke up at 8:30am after a miserable night’s sleep. Fighting a cold and I’m out of precious NyQuil.

Popped a vitamin, showered, threw on some gear and headed off to Top Notch. Yes, it’s time for the weekly family fun known as Sunday brunch. This is both good and bad. Good in that I get to see the family, bad in that Top Notch has horrible food. Not only that but they have the ugliest wait staff on the planet. I’m talking bowling shoe ugly. For instance our waitress was beyond greasy. Her hair was jet black with grease and her face was so shiny it blinded me. As usual I ordered a waffle with strawberries and I pity the rest of the family for ordering anything more complex. I scarf down my meal and excuse myself because I promised Andy I’d take him somewhere today.

Get to Andy’s around 11:00 and as usual he doesn’t know where he wants to go. I give him the options of a couple of video stores, he chooses the furthest one and we’re off.

I make the rookie mistake of coughing in the car and my brother instantly covers his ears. (Coughing and throat clearing are Kryptonite to him.) I assure him it won’t happen again and cautiously he puts his hands down. Of course this instantly causes a tickle to form in my throat. I dash for the far end of the video store and cough hoping he won’t hear me. Thankfully he didn’t. Andy picks out a couple of Pokemon videos and we’re out. Drop off the boy and head to my Granny’s.

Arrive at Granny’s around 1:00. I’m here to move my sister back into her apartment. She had eye surgery (two of them in fact) and has spent the last six weeks lying face down. No TV, no reading, sleeping on your face, for six weeks.

Yeah.

I pack her up and drop her back at her apartment. Return to Granny’s where I disassemble the goofy chair the doctors gave my sister to help her stare at the floor. Sadly I am the least mechanically inclined guy…EVER, so this takes longer than it should have.

Pack up the chair and drop it back off at my Father’s. Return home at 4:00pm. I’m tired.
Check out the Football scores and settle down in front of the television. Rachael gets back into town around 5:30pm and stops by. I haven’t seen her all weekend and by god I missed the girl. We chat and she makes dinner. Some sort of chicken and noodles dish which is quite tasty. (Love that girl). We settle in and watch the FOX cartoons before she heads home. I’m in bed at 10:00.

Fall Ahead

What the hell happened to September?

Events of Saturday, October 1, 2005

Wake up at 8:00 after a miserable night’s sleep. Fighting a cold. Shower, have a couple of eggs and head to the bank. Return home to organize a ton of comics before heading to the Biggs home. I got suckered into helping his Mom back into town. Now it’s not the moving that I mind. Hell, Biggs and I are Olympic level movers. No, what I mind is that we’re moving her in around Noon. This kills the whole day. So I get to the Biggs home and discover his mother is running late. Moving time is now 1pm. Grr.
But, whatcha gonna do, right? God knows I owe the boy. So we get to the house and have at it. As usual we make record time and unload the truck in 50 minutes. Instead of gold metals we are rewarded with alcohol. Coors light and White Russians to be exact. Suddenly my cold feels much better.

I return to the apartment and watch some college football. I should continue sorting through the pile-o-comics on my floor but I’m tired. Not sure if it’s from the cold or the moving. Either way I end up pulling a grandpa and falling asleep in the recliner. Biggs calls me around 5 o’clock. He and Matt and pre drinking for the Notre Dame game. I head on over for quality male bonding time. Irish kick some Purdue ass and I head on home after the 3rd quarter. Really feeling run down now. Set the timer for wrestling (yes, I am that cool) and head to bed.