Frog and Goat

For Christmas someone in the better-half’s extended family gave me a plug-in fragrance defuser thing. You know, like one of those Glade things, only this was some other brand that I’ve never heard of and it really doesn’t matter. We use one of those things in the guest bathroom because that’s where the litter box is. I tend to buy the “fresh linen” scent because it is subtle but does the trick of masking cat deposits.

I plugged the gift into an electrical socket and after about five minutes unplugged it and threw it into the kitchen trash can. It was so overwhelmingly cloying that I thought we might both end up with aneurysms. After a little while in the trash can, the better-half swore at the stench and took the bag out to the super can. It sat in the super can for a couple of weeks. This past Saturday we took all the trash and recyclables to the dump. When the better-half put the super can on the truck, we could still smell that plug-in thing–it overpowered a month’s worth of trash. How in the hell did anyone from the manufacturer to the person who gave me the thing think I could possibly use that in my house?

I’m ready to see what 2013 has in store.

Last night we went to our local fire station to hear the apology of the young men who beat the heck out of our mailbox. There were two of them and they are both 18 years old. That’s a pretty important piece of information because what are 18 year olds? They are adults. So, when one of the victims asked the parents of one of the young men if they knew where their ADULT children were at 3am the night of the mailbox smashing extravaganza, I rolled my eyes.

Yes, parents hate on me whenever I point that obvious information to them, but your kids are adults when 18 rolls over on their personal odometers. They may not be grown-ups, but they are adults and the sooner you accept that the better. My former supervisor would always answer me with yes, but they aren’t ready yet. OK, fine. The fact remains they are adults and everyone in the equation needs to take a big whiff of reality. I suppose when the judge is chatting with these adults about the various misdemeanor charges and that one felony charge then reality is going to smell kind o’ rank.

Speaking of rank, the group of people last night nearly went over the edge with the SHAMING (really, they did not target specific people so I don’t care if someone had a cold or cancer or whatever–having property damage sucks no matter what your level of health happens to be). We took a different tactic than punishing them even more (they’ve been reparing or buying new boxes for the last week and have been arrested), we told them we didn’t need to be reimbursed for the mailbox and that we appreciated their apology. I also thanked one of the parents for stepping up and doing the right thing by their neighbors. I wished the young men good luck in front of the judge. I really hope they don’t get shackled with a felony because that will just suck for them for a good long time.

Speaking of neighbors and rank smells…we could tell from one of the cars in the parking lot that the couple who live next door to us was going to be at the meeting. We’ve never met either of them–the lots are large and their house isn’t visible from the road. When he came over to introduce himself as a disabled veteran (no lie), the better-half said yeah, we’re your next-door neighbors. The guy looked us up and down AFTER HE ASKED MY NAME 3 TIMES (I have 5 letters in my name and it isn’t pronounced Mxyzptlk) and then asked us how long we’ve lived here (7 years, almost 8). After we let that hover around for a minute, he started in on some crazy talk about how we put up an Obama sign in 2008 and we must be some kind of odd ducks. Thank goodness the meeting started because he started yammering about Obamacare. We left without saying good bye to him. I tell you we are surrounded by nutjobs.