Trip to Town...

It turns out, after I pulled all the wire in the Lair and began connecting my first set of outlets, that the wire I scavenged is no damned good. I worried about that a little, because we used some of the wire from the same source in M's Dome and it was all corroded between the strands. But the roll I had seemed in much better condition, and like an idiot I didn't check it carefully enough.

It's not a big thing; it's a small cabin and replacing all that wire probably won't take but a couple of hours. But it's annoying as hell. Fortunately it happened today, when W and I were already planning a trip to town and I had a humongous shopping list for plumbing parts. So I added a roll of Romex to the list. What really got under my skin was the amount of wire I had to buy. 250' of Romex cost $62 and change, and I thought, "Hell, I don't need half that. Surely there's a 100' roll here somewhere." And there was, too. They wanted $55 for that. At the price difference, I sighed heavily and bought the bigger roll. It'll come in handy sometime.

All in all I dropped almost $200 at Lowes, which is nearly a third of my total net worth. I didn't worry about it too much, because I finished a third job which should net me a fair amount. Then W started jonesing for some red meat, and we went looking for a steakhouse. Found a nice one, got ourselves all sat down like real people, and then boggled at the prices. I don't remember the last time I spent twenty bucks on one meal. I could feed myself for a month on twenty bucks, if I really had to. But I figured, what the hell? So I bypassed the special and had myself a plate of genuine ribs. Good, too. Not sure it was worth $20, but still good.

W needed to go into Wally World, and since Little Bear just scored another pair of sandals I did too. I've always been paranoid about Wal-Mart, because I've heard so many stories about how unfriendly the stores can be about guns. So every previous visit I've made sure I had an IWB holster and an overshirt with me, but this time I dropped the ball. But again: What the hell? The worst they can do is ask me to leave. So now I can testify from personal experience that it is possible, though your mileage may vary, to walk around in a Wal-Mart with an open .45 and not have anybody hassle you. Maybe it's a local thing, I don't know.

About the time we were ready to leave town, those ribs started working on me. I'm not used to a lot of rich food. There's a big gas station on the outskirts, and W pulled in there. As has happened in the past, I ran afoul of an unintended (I assume) consequence of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA mandates that at least one stall in any public restroom must be big enough to land a C-130 in, just in case somebody with a wheelchair needs it. This means the typical benjo has only one of them, and Finagle's Law (The Perversity of the Universe Tends to a Maximum) states that when you really, explosively need that single stall, it will be occupied.

I really hate congress. But on such a beautiful day, I refuse to let them get me down.