Saturday, August 13, 2011

Loading Coal

Not something you'll find me blogging about very often, I don't believe! At least I hope not!

So, Dave gets coal from a local school. They used to heat with it or something and they don't anymore...or something, so he gets it...or something. I was just the 3rd guy, another pair of hands. Just along for the ride...and the haul. I'm sure his account is more informative than all this, so go here to read that!

The 3rd guy thing is just a manner of speaking. I wasn't really a 3rd guy. The 1st girl, actually. But that's beside the point...

Anyway, Dave goes down into the basement, in this room that I've never been down to, and gets coal in two 5 gallon buckets. Then Dad carried the buckets out and up the steps to where I wait, and I swap him those full buckets for 2 empty ones. I take the full ones and fill the containers on the trailer.

Does any of that make any sense whatsoever?

We got a few pictures before we started...

Dave looks more like he's stealing something, if you ask me. I realize you didn't.


Dad gets the full buckets down here...

And I sit here and wait for something interesting to happen. You know, wave at the people driving by, do a cheerleader dance whenever I need to...that sort of thing.


Not really...I fill all those containers up with coal, 5 gallon buckets at a time. On a hot summer day. It's not the most enjoyable thing I've ever done...

There's Dad...


So anyways, we filled all those things up...



And Dave won the prize for being the dirtiest. We joked about making a cardboard sign for him and having him stand out by the road...


We were all mostly cashless, but managed to find enough money between my purse and the truck's coin collection to get an ice cream in town. I had $2, and Dad had all kinds of change stashed away in his truck!

On a different subject, sometime stashed coins come in real handy. A long time ago, Dad sent me to town to get gas for the mowers and the tractor. I had every kind of red gas can we owned in the back of Dad's truck, and I was to get them filled up. I want to say he had me fill the truck up, too. Well, he gave me something like $80. We have a gas station here in town where the nice guys pump the gas for you, and that's where I always go. This particular time, I wasn't carrying any cash of my own (something I rarely do these days...you'll figure out why in a minute) so all I had was Dad's $80. The guy finished pumping, and came to the window to get the money from me.

He said "it'll be $89."

I said "gimme all your money" and drove off very quickly.

Actually, I said something like "oh, ok...give me just a sec."

$89? Where was I going to get $9? I just knew I was going to have to stay and pump gas for folks for a while. I started counting change. Dad keeps quarters, nickels, dimes, and pennies in the truck, in different places, and I emptied them all. I emptied all the change out of my purse. I mean, I counted everything but the pennies, and it wasn't enough. So I counted pennies.

After counting everything in the truck and my purse, I think I had something like 5 cents left after I paid the guy the $89. And all of that took about 10 minutes of this guy standing at my window, watching me ransack my dad's truck. I talked, too. You know, something like "well, you see, my dad sent me to town to get all this and, well, sir, he just gave me $80 and he keeps all kinds of change in here, and I think there's some in the back of this seat and oh, I know he keeps some in the ash tray thing and I think I saw a little in the glovebox the other day and I have a little in my purse but I don't have of my cash with me, you see he just gave me the money and said fill the cans up and I thought he gave me enough because I didn't know how much all the cans would hold and..."

Yeah, a lot like that. That was one of the most embarrassing things that has ever happened to me. Right up there with running into the Walmart door and looking up to see the group of teenage guys laughing at me. It's a close call...

So, that's what we did today. We know how to have a good time around here!

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