WHAT IS WITH TIME THESE DAYS...

Where does it go? Today for instance... The alarm goes off at six thirty, wake up and enjoy the morning. Look at the clock again and I have less than two minutes to be to work by eight. WTF? Hour and a half, poof!

Skip coffee and fire down the mountain to work, four minutes late. Get set up in my office and head out into the yard, KW4 miraculously started! Batteries are on order, they have not been holding a charge. Help get the guys out of the yard and out of my way. Start to replace the fuel pump in the Chevy. A job I've been trying to get to for at least a week. It really should only take me a couple of hours; pump, new fuel lines to the selector valve and test. Well as soon as I'm spilling fuel on to myself and the ground I get a call from my tire guy reminding me about the new Michelin we ordered.( I guess its big enough to be in the way of there showroom.) then I get a call on the radio, "come fix it, we broke it." by the time I get back to the yard and order some parts, its lunch... Where the hell did the last four hours go?

I fire up the ridge for some of the best fucking lunch I've ever had. "record breaking" I was told. Her smile at this point is killing me. Look at the clock again and WTF?!?! I've been gone for an hour and a half! Jam down the mountain and run into some one grading the road. No pull outs, no nothing.. Back up and into a culvert head with company behind me and wait for him to go by. Ten more minutes... ( I get another chance to say goodbye.)

Back to work on the Chevy when I get another call from my auto parts guy who I've been trying to track down since mid morning. He still doesn't have my fucking parts!! He sold me some shit the week before that knocked out the power control module in one of our new Fords! Ass!! So its been down for three working days! One more hour gone!

Back out to the yard and I have to load some gravel for an old company friend, I never do this but he is old and one of his hands is fucked up so I don't have a problem trying to squeeze the time in for him. Then some fucking tourists roll in and want to buy some diesel... I make ten bucks off them... I'd like to smack the gas station attendants here for telling them we are the only diesel in thirty miles... Over a hundred if they are going south... Anyway... Another hour down...

Its three thirty almost and my guy still hasn't called me back! I call his supplier and find out that the part is still in fucking salinas. They missed the pick up and screwed me again... thanx. As I am walking out of the office, parts guy calls me and says it will be in his hands by ten o'clock in the morning. His supplier must have been pissed at the ration of shit i gave to him.

"Not good enough." I say.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked with out really meaning it.

"Get in your car and drive over there and I'll meet you halfway in between." I reply knowing full well he is not going to do shit.

"I cant, I'm the only one here." lieing again.

I hang up. Jump into my truck which of course has no gas, fill up and drive straight to this guys work, point to the fucking retard standing next to him behind the counter and yell something like; "who the fuck is that asshole? Does he not have a license? Could he have not driven over there and missed all the fucking traffic I am now going to have to sit in? WTF?"

I walk out. Race to the salinas auto mall, get there just as some some dumb ding dong is trying to close ten minutes early and damn near rip her arm off as I get to the door a milli-second before she turns the lock.

"We are closed." she says quite matter of factly and with a bit of annoyance.

"Look honey, the clock over there says five twenty. Which means you are open for ten more minutes. I have a life too, I just drove an hour and a half to get here to get a part your people forgot to deliver this morning. I don't care if your boss left early, but I'm here to collect my parts." you can guess how well that went over with her as I push past her huge purse and over to the parts counter.

Now every parts place has a "will call" box, I find it, locate my parts and sign the pick up tag.. I am now receiving some earfull of un-intelligible horse shit, half in Spanish and half in some English dialect I think is called raging bitch...

Back to the door which she locked in order to; I don't know keep me there until some one came to help her... Funny enough she left her keys sticking out of the lock... This one had her thinking cap on! "Ala... peanut butter.... sandwhiches...." Door opens, I smile at her.

Yeah, what you want is some angry white man talking to your supervisor about how rude you were to me and after explaining to him that his team of people dropped the ball on a company that spends... Oh, I guess several thousands dollars a month from them. ( not much, but every penny counts in the parts biz.) and how you were in such a hurry to get to your whatever event ten minutes early that you could not afford me the forty five seconds of time it took for me to get what I needed. Yes this one was thinking very clearly.

"Fuck you very much for the parts" I wave and leave. Blow off some steam by driving around the Toyota dealership looking for a four door Tacoma, used, the new ones look like shit and are over priced! How funny are sales men? Huge lot and they see me driving around it. Normally people get out and walk... I don't think I was supposed to be driving around in there...Oops... Avoided them and headed home...

Well due to all of the money that the "govenator" has granted our local highway repair people, we have a royal clusterfuck happening on my exit... Two hours later, I'm home...

Make some leftovers... (Alaskan venison my buddy just brought back from hunting, with a Chantrell and Boleet mushroom gravy, the last of my garlic mashed potatoes and some garlic bread.) which I burnt again!!! What is my problem with that? I cant make garlic bread with out fucking burning it to a nice aromatic dark black.... Err....

Fourteen and a half hours after waking up, I'm home, fed and cracking open my first beer. Ahoy.. Relax. Where the hell does the time go...