Whoopee, it's Saturday...

...and I am going to have fun somehow. I spent most of yesterday morning waiting for the oil company man to come over and fix my hot water heater. Then I spent almost the rest of the day online window shopping, so to speak, for a new washing machine. Looks like a new decent one will cost right about what I had expected at about $449, that is unless we decide on the one other model that seemed decent, and that was $600 (both prices before taxes, and before extended warranty plan). I hope whatever we buy lasts longer than 10 years this time around. Last night I went to the laundromat to do the family wash. That wasn't bad but I wish someone in the place besides me, and one other customer, would have been speaking English.

So my oil burner broke but is now fixed. My washing machine broke, but will soon be either fixed by me (yeah right) or replaced (much more likely). Since bad things come in threes, something else is broke now too, or is about to be broke - that would be me! Still though, before I shell out the bucks for that washing machine, I am going to have some fun this weekend. I was planning to go to the range with Brendan today. He badly wanted to go because we have not been there together in months. The thing is it looks as if I may have to go alone, he has a bit of a sore throat strep throat and mononucleosis, and his throat really got raw again last night, so off to the doctor my wife will drag him screaming take him today. As a matter of fact I think he wants to go because his throat is bothering him so much. He knows that means he will miss the range day, so that also means I know he is really feeling poorly.

Egads, I just added stuff up. It is now 4 things that are proverbially broke if I include Brendan's tonsils. If that is right, and if it is true that bad things come in threes, that means that there are still two more things to go wrong this weekend for me! I had best be careful in whatever I do lest I break from the strain of all this and bring something nasty upon myself. To heck with worrying, I am going to have a good time this weekend even if it kills me it means there is a chance of something else going wrong. What is life without a little risk now and then. Heck life is full of risks, so why worry overly about them; I am going to have a good time.

As a matter of fact, I plan to go to the range where I will shoot up a storm. I'll bring at least two rifles, a shotgun, and a few pistols (I love variety while shooting). After that I will drive out to my sister's house for a visit with here, my brother-in-law, my nephew and my mom. Then on the way back, I may stop somewhere and wet a line to see if I can catch a striped bass. Now the way my luck has been going these past few days, I sort of half expect that I'll get all the way out there and my car will explode and strand me there (of course while at the range, who knows, maybe someone will shoot my car).

Well if that happens (my car exploding once I make it to my sisters, let alone it being shot at the range), so what! I can go fishing just a few blocks from their house, and chances are a striper will be lurking in those waters. I suppose though, if my car does explode, thereby becoming bad thing number 5 to have befallen me, that would mean that number 6 (the number that would complete the second set of three things going awry) would be looming over my head; but I wonder what could go wrong fishing. Sure I could hook myself in the eye (second highest cause of eye injuries in the USA is a fish hook to the eye or eyelid, or so I recently heard), or in the behind as I cast, but I usually get off some good casts, so I am none too worried about that. Now, I just bought some new lures yesterday, while I was returning home from a visit to a radiologist for an x-ray of a lump in my chest (and believe me I am very hopeful to get GOOD news back about that), and I figure I could lose all of the lures on snags. However, I think it is more likely that a really nice fish will grab hold of one of them; and that might be good. Thinking about worst possible scenarios though, hooking a fish could be number 6 in the line of bad things to have befallen me. Picture it: I cast into a surfacing school of bait fish, chased to the surface by a big fish, I get a strike, I set the hook hoping it to be a 30 pound striped bass. The way my luck has been going though it is more likely to be Jaws' mother (at about 2,500 pounds), and it pulls me into the briny deep only to become fish food. Oh well, maybe I'll go freshwater fishing.

I always could stay home and enjoy the weekend from the safety of my own home and yard. I could always have fun pulling weeds, cleaning the basement, doing some pointing work on the cracks in the mortar on my front stoop (but this could cause the whole house to collapse upon me), going shopping for the wife... Hell no - I am going to have fun! So I guess I will be taking some everyday risks, risks that maybe a bit enhanced with the rule of threes hanging over my head much like Damocles sword - but what the heck - you only live once. We were not put here for a long time, so it must have been for a good time; and I am going to have at least one good time this weekend. If I am still alive later today, I'll let you know how things turned out. Enjoy the weekend.

All the best,
Glenn B

PS: Thanks Jen for giving me the incentive (in a comment to one of my previous posts) to write this!