The New Me

Well, it's the best I could do on short notice, but it does seem to be pretty representative of all that is Wopanese.

Good and bad news for the day:

On the one hand, I still have no well pump.

On the other, I have a home warranty. YEAH!!

Flip back - the home warranty doesn't cover my well pump. That's a purely optional coverage.

BUT, pump coverage can be added as optional coverage for 80 bucks!

Unfortunately, it can only be added during the first 30 days of home ownership or next March, at the end of the warranty's term.

The good news? I bought the house in March.

The bad? March was well over 30 days ago, so no coverage for me well and no option to add it this year. In fact, I didn't even get to move into the house until 3 months AFTER I closed on it. Now, my neighbors are super people - they were the previous owners of my "new" home - but their new house wasn't done so I had to wait the 3 extra months to move in. My well pump coverage add-on date was well expired by then... get it? Well expired? Yeah, okay, it sucks. PLUS, I am overloaded and underproductive at work - one sort of feeds the other in this really, nasty vicious circle... go figure. My voice is for crap and this nagging little upper respiratory crap I caught just prior to the wedding just won't go the hell away. It's a bit like an annoying family stranger you might me in, say, a bar - you know the type. Likable enough, so you're pleasant at first. Conversation is okay for at most, 5 minutes, in situations like this. At this point, people, you are supposed to give the person you do not know an opportunity to politely slip away to other things.

See, this exact thing happened to me the other night. I just got off the stage from jamming with the now-in-search-of-a-front-man band once known as Grapefruit Fred, and later, Mungo. I walked back to the table and grabbed my soda and was going to sit and relax with a nice smoke. Yes - I have a BAD habit. Let's discuss that later, shall we (not)?

In any event, I partially recognized this fellow sitting at a table near mine and he extended his hand to, of all things, thank me for the good music. Well, I am appreciative of all compliments from people, but you do have to realize also that it's a lot of stress and some decompression time is nice for people who have just performed. Let 'em have a drink, chill out, relax, have a smoke (there it is again)... give us five minutes. Damn! It's not unlike the standard joke Chris Rock spoke of when the married man walks in through the door to his house. He hasn't even gotten both feet in through the doorway, in fact, when his wife immediately bombards him with every last detail of her day. Ummm, can a brother get a minute to GET IN the house first?

SO... I was just trying to sit for a few minutes... but he just wouldn't stop talking to me. Those 5 minute intervals appeared, and I did my level best to find good ways to bring the conversations to an appropriate pause so I could slip away... and each time I did, he'd grab me by the shoulder or start off immediately on some new topic. Nice enough guy. Good-looker too - I mean, hey, he looked like me. Okay, quit throwing the tomatoes at me - I'm KIDDING!! Seriously, though, he really does look like me, poor sap. Like my evil twin. So I guess he's doubly cursed.

Even weirder? He once dated my roommate that got married just this past Saturday. He also knows my other roommate, who also got married. I would NEVER have learned about this had he simply abided by the 5 minute rule... that's part of the reason for its existence, you know? To allow you to politely escape bizarre meetings such as this one. I did mention that my roomies married one another, right? And that one is female and one is male? Okay, those of you who are lost need to go do some homework and go back a few blog entries and catch up.

Anyway, where was I? Ahh, yes, so he just wouldn't let me go. Now, I didn't want to be rude... but he was stomping all over the 5 minute rule, and I was really, really thirsty... hmmmph. He was, in all honesty, a very pleasant fellow, and not rude in any specific way, other than that one little thing... but that's a big one to remember. Add that to the "I just got off stage and I'm drained" factor and it gets magnified. Had he simply let me go, I would likely have engaged him in more conversation after the fact...

Am I the only weirdo who thinks this way?
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Oh yeah, the good news...

hmm... that's a tough one...

hold on a bit...

dammit, I forgot. Hey, I still have a job... so far. And considering the whole "gotta pay for the well" thing? That's good news.
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