6/04/2006
The latest from Loonville
Here’s Loonville’s latest.
The woman I used to date who usually doesn’t communicate with me except to periodically
e-mail, “I hate you. You turn my urine black,” bought a bicycle from some clown in the downtown library recently. He had some song and dance about having to raise money for a bus ticket back to Alabama, because Loonville had treated him so badly. In reality, the bastard had probably just stolen the goddamn bike. In any event, Patty called me and asked if she could chain the bike up in my backyard. I agreed, waited for her for awhile, then went to sleep.
Immediately after that, she showed up and got my idiot roommate Lee to go out in the rain in his socks to wrestle the bike out of her trunk and put it in the backyard, where he left it unlocked and came back in with the lock and chain.
Well, he’s a stupid, trifling bastard, too. I woke up a couple of hours later and asked him about it. He said he was just about to go back out and lock it up, but why in the name of Ezekial’s shit-baked cupcakes make two trips out into the stinking mud, leaving an unattended bike that doesn’t belong to you in the backyard in the meantime? He was just sitting there, as always.
I went out and locked the son of a bitch to a tree and didn’t pay much attention to it. Patty called the next day and asked if I’d fixed it yet. I told her I’d barely glanced at it, which pissed her off, so I agreed to look it over. It was an 18-speed mountain bike, originally from a store along the quality lines of Target, with dry- rotted brake and gear cables and some rust on the chain. The front gear cable and assembly was entirely missing, the back tire was flat and the back wheel, though the bolts were tight, was wobbly, which implied to me the possibility of missing, leaking bearings.
I called Patty back and told her she could choose one of the three front sprockets and just permanently position the chain there, oil the chain, spray lube down the gear and brake cables and pump up the back tire to see if it was leaking or just deflated, but that the back wheel wobble might be due to a serious problem that would make the bike, as soon as enough bearings leaked out or eroded away, completely lock up, sending the rider over the handlebars to painful injury or death. Checking online first, I also told her replacement wheels w/bearings were available only in sets of two, for at least $45.00 and that the bike, having been about a $90.00 item to start with, wasn’t worth fixing, what with new wheels, new front gear assembly, brake cables and pads and labor. I suggested that she donate it to her gayness and sprouts little whiny ass Democrat church to sell as a fixer-upper or for spare parts at their next garage sale fundraiser. She said she didn’t want to donate an unsafe bicycle to her church, and that I should ride it to her house instead.
I declined, what with not wanting to die of head injuries in an algae- blooming ditch halfway between my house and hers and shit like that, and she told me that’s why she couldn’t trust me or deal with me in any way.
Well Lee heard part of my side of this and asked what she’d take for the bike, lock and chain, since between that and a couple of other junked bikes in the back yard, he could cobble something working together. I estimated $35.00 -- $25 to recoup for her donation to the Alabama returnee or bike thief or whatever the hell that dude was plus $10 for the lock and chain. He said he’d go for that and I called Patty to tell her about the offer. She told me she’d take it, since I was holding her bike for ransom and she had no other choice. The point was moot, since Lee didn’t have any goddamn $35.00, anyway, and wouldn’t put the bikes together into one working Bike’N’Stein unless made to do so at gunpoint, what with being a lazy no good drunken, Sabbath-taking swine.
Well, a couple of weekends ago, I was out in the suburbs running errands, and I stopped by Patty’s apartment. She had bad news – Her mental disability benefits had been cut, and she was running out of food. I had a few bucks, so I took her to the store and bought her $50.00 worth of groceries, in large part because she had some good news, too -- she was off psychological drugs and intending too stay that way. She then asked me to iron some of her clothes, because that would make her productive and able to make some headway in cleaning her pad, which was littered and limited to pathways by stacks and piles of old political pamphlets, travel brochures and year-old newspapers from which she wanted to clip all the expired coupons.
Since I remembered that the last time I’d ironed for her, she’d gotten mad about the creases and gone several months without speaking to me, I did not relish this chore, so popped one of the 24-oz, 10% alcohol cans of Evil Eye Ale I’d bought at the grocery store on my way to her house. And then I ironed some stuff and then split.
Yesterday, Lee came up with $35.00, so I called and left Patty a message to let her know the deal was on and to ask whether she wanted the check mailed or whether she’d be near my house or workplace at any time and might want to pick it up. I told her I’d be up ‘til 10, so she called at 10 sharp. Pain in my ass.
She went on to say that she’d flooded her apartment by starting to run a bath and then leaving for three hours, and that later, she’d thought it was a kick ass time to call the cable guy to come stand in water and fool around with electrical stuff to fix her cable. She didn’t think it would matter that she’d never paid for cable in that apartment and that neither had anyone else in the building, but it did, and the guy a) slipped in the water and cracked her wall-mount TV holder kit thing and b) put a block on the cable to her place and the other three apartments, so her neighbors now hate her. She told the cable guy he sucked, because her grandfather helped develop cable to free people from evil advertising and Republicans and stuff, and he told her that was interesting.
She asked her landlord to file an insurance claim, but he declined, so she’s looking at $800-$1100 carpet replacement cost from the flooding, which she thinks is unfair, because it only cost her $400 to replace the carpet in her bedroom last year when she bought a slightly charred Sears mattress warmer at a yard sale, used it as an electric blanket in August and awoke in burning bedding, to which she responded (chronologically) by 1) throwing the burning stuff on the floor, 2) calling the Sears customer complaint line and waiting on hold for twenty minutes before being told that warranties are no good after secondary, yard sale purchases, 3) calling 911, 4) pouring water on the fire and, finally, 5) unplugging that sucker from the wall.
Anyway, she’s going back on anti-depressants and anti-spasmodics now, and she told me to just keep the $35.00 in return for the $50.00 in groceries that I hadn’t mentioned at all and consider her dead.
The woman I used to date who usually doesn’t communicate with me except to periodically
e-mail, “I hate you. You turn my urine black,” bought a bicycle from some clown in the downtown library recently. He had some song and dance about having to raise money for a bus ticket back to Alabama, because Loonville had treated him so badly. In reality, the bastard had probably just stolen the goddamn bike. In any event, Patty called me and asked if she could chain the bike up in my backyard. I agreed, waited for her for awhile, then went to sleep.
Immediately after that, she showed up and got my idiot roommate Lee to go out in the rain in his socks to wrestle the bike out of her trunk and put it in the backyard, where he left it unlocked and came back in with the lock and chain.
Well, he’s a stupid, trifling bastard, too. I woke up a couple of hours later and asked him about it. He said he was just about to go back out and lock it up, but why in the name of Ezekial’s shit-baked cupcakes make two trips out into the stinking mud, leaving an unattended bike that doesn’t belong to you in the backyard in the meantime? He was just sitting there, as always.
I went out and locked the son of a bitch to a tree and didn’t pay much attention to it. Patty called the next day and asked if I’d fixed it yet. I told her I’d barely glanced at it, which pissed her off, so I agreed to look it over. It was an 18-speed mountain bike, originally from a store along the quality lines of Target, with dry- rotted brake and gear cables and some rust on the chain. The front gear cable and assembly was entirely missing, the back tire was flat and the back wheel, though the bolts were tight, was wobbly, which implied to me the possibility of missing, leaking bearings.
I called Patty back and told her she could choose one of the three front sprockets and just permanently position the chain there, oil the chain, spray lube down the gear and brake cables and pump up the back tire to see if it was leaking or just deflated, but that the back wheel wobble might be due to a serious problem that would make the bike, as soon as enough bearings leaked out or eroded away, completely lock up, sending the rider over the handlebars to painful injury or death. Checking online first, I also told her replacement wheels w/bearings were available only in sets of two, for at least $45.00 and that the bike, having been about a $90.00 item to start with, wasn’t worth fixing, what with new wheels, new front gear assembly, brake cables and pads and labor. I suggested that she donate it to her gayness and sprouts little whiny ass Democrat church to sell as a fixer-upper or for spare parts at their next garage sale fundraiser. She said she didn’t want to donate an unsafe bicycle to her church, and that I should ride it to her house instead.
I declined, what with not wanting to die of head injuries in an algae- blooming ditch halfway between my house and hers and shit like that, and she told me that’s why she couldn’t trust me or deal with me in any way.
Well Lee heard part of my side of this and asked what she’d take for the bike, lock and chain, since between that and a couple of other junked bikes in the back yard, he could cobble something working together. I estimated $35.00 -- $25 to recoup for her donation to the Alabama returnee or bike thief or whatever the hell that dude was plus $10 for the lock and chain. He said he’d go for that and I called Patty to tell her about the offer. She told me she’d take it, since I was holding her bike for ransom and she had no other choice. The point was moot, since Lee didn’t have any goddamn $35.00, anyway, and wouldn’t put the bikes together into one working Bike’N’Stein unless made to do so at gunpoint, what with being a lazy no good drunken, Sabbath-taking swine.
Well, a couple of weekends ago, I was out in the suburbs running errands, and I stopped by Patty’s apartment. She had bad news – Her mental disability benefits had been cut, and she was running out of food. I had a few bucks, so I took her to the store and bought her $50.00 worth of groceries, in large part because she had some good news, too -- she was off psychological drugs and intending too stay that way. She then asked me to iron some of her clothes, because that would make her productive and able to make some headway in cleaning her pad, which was littered and limited to pathways by stacks and piles of old political pamphlets, travel brochures and year-old newspapers from which she wanted to clip all the expired coupons.
Since I remembered that the last time I’d ironed for her, she’d gotten mad about the creases and gone several months without speaking to me, I did not relish this chore, so popped one of the 24-oz, 10% alcohol cans of Evil Eye Ale I’d bought at the grocery store on my way to her house. And then I ironed some stuff and then split.
Yesterday, Lee came up with $35.00, so I called and left Patty a message to let her know the deal was on and to ask whether she wanted the check mailed or whether she’d be near my house or workplace at any time and might want to pick it up. I told her I’d be up ‘til 10, so she called at 10 sharp. Pain in my ass.
She went on to say that she’d flooded her apartment by starting to run a bath and then leaving for three hours, and that later, she’d thought it was a kick ass time to call the cable guy to come stand in water and fool around with electrical stuff to fix her cable. She didn’t think it would matter that she’d never paid for cable in that apartment and that neither had anyone else in the building, but it did, and the guy a) slipped in the water and cracked her wall-mount TV holder kit thing and b) put a block on the cable to her place and the other three apartments, so her neighbors now hate her. She told the cable guy he sucked, because her grandfather helped develop cable to free people from evil advertising and Republicans and stuff, and he told her that was interesting.
She asked her landlord to file an insurance claim, but he declined, so she’s looking at $800-$1100 carpet replacement cost from the flooding, which she thinks is unfair, because it only cost her $400 to replace the carpet in her bedroom last year when she bought a slightly charred Sears mattress warmer at a yard sale, used it as an electric blanket in August and awoke in burning bedding, to which she responded (chronologically) by 1) throwing the burning stuff on the floor, 2) calling the Sears customer complaint line and waiting on hold for twenty minutes before being told that warranties are no good after secondary, yard sale purchases, 3) calling 911, 4) pouring water on the fire and, finally, 5) unplugging that sucker from the wall.
Anyway, she’s going back on anti-depressants and anti-spasmodics now, and she told me to just keep the $35.00 in return for the $50.00 in groceries that I hadn’t mentioned at all and consider her dead.
