Fid-lor, the Europa, and Darth Termite
5/31/1
Three things: Fiddler, the Europa, and the termite man.
Fiddler is the cat who lives next door. Mr. Vonnegut, his owner, seems to be out of town, and has been that way for getting close to a week. I know that Kurt and his new wife were going to go on their honeymoon at some point. Maybe this is it.
Kurt has people who are coming over, I suppose with the intention of taking care of Fiddler. Well, I see the caretakers go inside, but Fiddler is outside with no way to get in.
I think it was Monday, the first day that Fiddler came over and worshipped the ground I walk on. He was starved for attention and acting all nicey-nicey.
Dang, are we getting some freak monsoon today? [checks weather]. Hmm, it is raining pretty hard, it�s going to get harder before it lets up, and the temperature is rising. Looks like tornado weather.
Back when I had the 323, which had no AC, I was more in tune with tornado weather. If I got in my car and it was hot enough in the morning that I needed to roll down my windows, and this is at 6:20 a.m., then we�d more than likely have bad weather.
Oh, but about Fiddler, we fed him and gave him water. Also, we actually call him Fid-lor.
I finally sent off the money order for my 1901 edition of Teddy Roosevelt�s Strenuous Life. On the way to the post office, I saw that Driving 2000 had a Lotus Europa. On the way back, I took a look at it. The sales fellow asked if he could help me. I told him that I had noticed the Lotus and that it was a fine looking car. I asked how much it was going for. He said I could have it for $10,000. I mentioned the 1993 MR2 Turbo I had seen recently which was also 10k, and said that I could at least get parts for the MR2.
Then I used my diplomatic stills and asked, �So, have you driven it?�
There was only a moment�s hesitation while he realized that I was actually asking to drive it. How could he refuse me, a person not interested in buying it, a drive when he, another person not interested in buying it, has taken a drive in it. He said, �Oh, it�s too small for me.�
He was right. It was super small. In great condition, but hey, you can�t get parts for it.
When I finally got home, the termite man had sent two bills. Since I�m all kinds of anonymous now, I�ll change the names he had them billed to. He had the right address, but he was billing $90 to Mr. Pockstwood and the other invoice was also $90 to Mr. Poostwod.
I called Aisai at the secret lair she works at, The Chamber we call it, and asked if the Termite Pirate had cashed his check from a month ago. He had. Aisai called the office of the alleged Termite Bandit and got this story:
See, he just hired a new girl so he didn�t know who had been billed so he had her bill everyone.
Yeah, and this year when we asked how much the bill for the termite bond would be he said �It�ll be $90 like it is every year.� Well, except that we keep all paperwork and it was $75 the first year and $80 the last year.
Dang, poor Fid-lor is getting all rained on I bet.
Nope, I bet he�s on either his or our porch. Probably ours, since he loves to get Velvet all hissy.
Literally hissy. She�s a cat. She hisses.