| The Adventures of Me & My Shadow # 96 in FL,GA,SC,NC,VA, &MD 4/15/2004 1,382 miles this trip. Odometer now 46,905. Miles this year 2,780. From Jeff’s place in MD, Hi Everyone!! The trip north was not so good, I did get frustrated when I stopped at a Subway Shop for lunch after I got off of the Keys. When I was down in Key West the subway shop that I went to had all young Cuban women working in it. They were very sloppy in the way they made the sandwich and I tried to tell them how I wanted it, they didn’t understand a word that I said. I thought it will sure be good when I get back on the main land where they understand English. So when I stopped at noon I was feeling good when I went in and ordered my Subway. There was a man to take the order, I told him, Turkey breast on Italian with American cheese, every thing went well, and he slid it over to a gal to put the vegetables on it. That was when the shit hit the fan, I pointed at the onions and said "lots of onions" she put 3 or 4 little slivers on onions on it and looked up at me, I said more onions, and she looked at me like she didn’t hear me. I raised my voice and repeated the order, again she looked at me like she didn’t hear me. After about the fifth time, I am shouting as loud as I could. The manager came over and told me not to shout. It was then that I realized that the gal didn’t understand what I was saying, yep, she was Cuban and didn’t understand a word of English. I was just supposed to point at what I wanted and she would put that on and wait for me to point at something else. I then proceeded, in a very load voice to tell the manager to hire people that speak English because I was not going to learn Spanish in order to be understood while I am in the USA. I am now in Georgia and so help me, the next time I order a Subway, if I am talking to a Cuban I might end up in jail. Before I left Key West I put $50.00 worth of $1.879 gas in and that took me up to Sarasota and I stopped to visit an old Navy buddy and his wife. I put $50.00 worth of $1.759 gas in and figured that would take me up to Georgia, and it did. I was real low on gas when I got to Georgia so I stopped at a truck stop on Saturday evening at the first exit and put my credit card in the pump, pushed the $1.559 unleaded reg. button and picked up the wrong nozzle and put $50.00 worth of $1.519 diesel fuel in. I went 6 miles and it would run no more. I pulled over on the shoulder, I figured I had gotten diesel fuel and when a cop stopped he agreed with me. He had a cell phone and he called my emergency road service number. He had to do all the talking as with the heavy traffic and my bad hearing I could not understand a word. They decided that I would have to wait till Monday to find someone who could salvage the diesel fuel and fill my tanks with gas. The wrecker came out of Jacksonville, FL about 30 miles, when he got there he was in about as bad a shape as I was. The circuit breaker for the flashing lights on the top of the cab would click of once in awhile. He said he could not tow with out the lights working correctly, (I’m sure they would work OK after he turned off the rear flood lights when he had me hooked up and ready to go) he called a friend with a smaller wrecker to come up and follow us to provide the flashing lights if the lights on his truck went out. When he started to rig the front wheel lifting hardware he found some of it was not assembled correctly and he had no wrenches needed to fix the problem. I got my wrenches out and helped him get it right. All the time the traffic was zooming by at 70 MPH about 3 feet from us, and these inconsiderate eastern drivers will not shift to the left lane even if there is no one in the left lane. Then we had to go 14 miles north to an exit to head back south to a RV park close to where I had bought the fuel. We arrived in the RV park at 11:30 PM. I told him to just put me in an empty site and I would register in the morning. I have to call my emergency road service after 8:30 AM again on Monday morning and they will find some one who can do what has to be done to get me on the road again. So, after my comments about all the stupid fat people who don’t know enough to stop eating so much, I take the prize for being stupid. After I sent the last story, about all the fat people, three of them sent me an e-mail to take them off my mailing list. One of them said I was rude and unfriendly. That just verified the fact that they are stupid for getting all bent out of shape when they get some friendly, honest advice. I have taken their advice and removed them from my mailing list. I have been called stupid many times in my life and sometimes I agreed with them and if I did not agree with them I did not get mad at them. I learned a long time ago that opinions are like rectums, every body has one and some times it stinks. Unlike a doctor, they are not supporting me and if they prefer to put up with the problems that come with being fat, it’s OK with me. After I sent out that last letter I read an article in Time Magazine that verified what I had said and told of more problems that come with being fat. I know that every thing I read or hear is just someone’s opinion, I can agree or disagree. When, talking to another RVer, I said that George W. Bush was stupid, the gal raised all kinds of hell with me. She told me how smart he was. Well if he is smart, I’m glad I am stupid. I called my Emergency Road Service on Monday morning and the gal told me she would find a place to take the diesel fuel out and put some gas in. A different wrecker (a very efficient one this time) showed up and in no time we were on our way, to of all places, a tire shop. They told me that they had drained a lot of diesel fuel out of cars that filled up at the same place I did, that made me feel better knowing that I was not the only one that did it. It cost me a little more than $50.00 to get the $50.00 worth of diesel fuel out of the tanks and carburetor and another $70.00 to fill the tanks with gas, now the old GMC runs just like it always did. I have had some arguments with fat people about the advantages of not being fat. I ask them if they know of any advantages for being fat. Only one of them said he knew of an advantage for being fat, he caught me off guard and I had to agree with him. He said if you were in a building that collapsed and you were not killed but you were trapped and had to wait for someone to rescue you, you could survive longer if you were fat. After thinking about it I have come up with a fictitious adventure story that verifies what he said. Remember, this is not a true story but I think you will agree that it could happen. The story begins when the terrorist took down the World Trade Center. A fat man and a skinny man were in a room in one of the lower floors and were now trapped. There was no light, not much room to move around in, no food and only a few drips of water. The fat man told the skinny man that because he was fat he would be able to survive longer. This depressed the skinny man to think that he did not have much time to live and he knew it would take several days for rescuers to reach them so he started to feel around and he found an opening that he could crawl through. He told the fat man that if he made it out he would tell the rescuers where to find another survivor. After three days of traveling like a worm, he could hear some noise and he started to shout. It took the rescuers another day to reach him, He was in very bad shape but he was able to tell them about his fat buddy still down there so they could concentrate their efforts in that direction. It took them another six days to reach him, his body was still warm and they could feel a pulse. His body had burned enough fat so it only took four men to put him on a stretcher and into an ambulance. He was rushed to the hospital, the doctors were able to revive him and they told him if he hadn’t had all that fat he would have never made it. They also told him that in a very few more hour he would have been gone. He realized that if it had not been for that skinny little runt that got out and pointed the rescuers in the right direction he would be dead. He stopped eating so much and became a skinny little runt and they both lived happily ever after. The moral of the story is: GET RID OF THAT FAT. For some time I have been looking for a better word than stupid, to say why people are fat. I got a better word from a fat gal, the word is weak, in resolve, as well as in strength. So if you strengthen your resolve you will become slimmer and stronger. You will be rewarded with better health, lower bills for groceries, lower bills for doctors. And you will have a longer, more enjoyable life. Go for it! Speaking of lower bills for groceries, when I was shopping the other day, I noticed the prices were almost double what they were when I left here last fall. I got to thinking about what had happened that would double the price for groceries. I remembered a speech that George W. Bush made about a year ago, after they had bombed the hell out of Iraq. He said that we were going to start rebuilding Iraq and it would cost several trillion dollars, and in the same speech he said he was giving an income tax break to all the rich people so they could invest their money to spur the economy. At the time I thought, that is not the way it works, you are supposed to raise taxes when you start spending lots of money. So it looks like it was the spurred economy that took the price of groceries up. Please George don’t spur the economy again, my bank account can’t stand it. I wonder if George watches the news? In watching the news this past year any one with just a little common sense can see that Democracy is not compatible with the religions in the Middle Eastern countries. In my opinion, a democratic government will not happen for very long if at all. His war on terrorism has multiplied the number of terrorists many times, and look at the price he is paying with dead bodies coming home in body bags. Even with a kill ratio of 100 Iraq to 1 US the price is too high, and for what? The oil wells? They want us out, I say bring our troops home alive and stop the flow of money to Iraq. If George wants to be a Savior to Iraq, let him grow a beard, rap a towel around his head and a sheet around his body and go over there after he is defeated in the election. I’m sure they will welcome him. Four years of George W. Bush has been a disaster, four more years would end the USA as we know it today. He has taken us from a surplus to the highest deficit ever recorded in about three years. It will take us several years to pay off the deficit so it looks like his negative campaign that I keep hearing on prime time every day telling how John Kerry will raise taxes, he is promoting John as the only way to go. Some one has to raise taxes to pay for all of George’s mistakes, and there were a lot of them. Till next time, Dallas, or Dad if it fits. |