Paint by numbers

Hello.

How are you? How’s your weekend? Mine’s been… interesting. And it’s only half over.

What’s that? Why am I posting an entry at 11:00 on a Saturday night? Well, it’s a long story, but to sum up, I’ll do it by numbers:

• 4 - number of family members having a birthday in the past month
• 1 - party at my mom/dad’s to celebrate (such efficiency!)
• 3 - pieces of furniture that need to be moved between here and relatives in Dallas that are too big for our van.
• 0 - number of trucks available to rent, something about a college town and august.
• 1 - van my dad will loan me
• 10 - age of van in years
• 302,592.6 - age of van in miles
• 70 - age of van in dog years
• 700 - dollars my dad has saved by not having the steering fixed on the van
• 5 - times I totally freaked out worrying if the steering was working
• 0 - times the steering actually failed
• 4 - kids at the party today
• 3 - ours
• 3.5 - hours spent partying with family
• 859 - smiles by people at the party, it was a lotta fun.
• 8 - hours spent on the road
• 4 - members of my family that decided to stay at a relatives house instead of follow me home in my dad’s van full of furniture
• 2 - public storage places we went to till we found the right one
• 1 - train spotted driving down from Waco
• 11 - trains spotted driving up this morning. I thought trains were nocturnal, maybe not.
• 3 - discs in ‘How the West was Won’ by Zeppelin
• 2 - discs listened to in last four hours
• 2 - times I yelled “Jimmy Page is a fucking god!” while driving home
• 17 - minutes of drum solo during “Moby Dick”
• 3 - times Moby Dick played on the way home
• 0 - times my wife will listen to live Zeppelin. Probably has something to do with excessive drum solos.
• 1 - blog post written to put off unloading van by myself
• 6 - hours I hope to sleep before hitting road again to return van to my dad
• 2 - times I thought “Shit! I can’t do that in a van with my dad’s phone number plastered on the side.” (It belongs to his company)
• 2 - number of other drivers that earned title “Buttmunch.”
• 1 - totally hot woman walking her dog at a truck stop I visited
• 2 - truck stops on the way home, for coffee
• 1 - truck stop clerk complaining about crack users buying stuff from their store
• 1 - times dozed off on the way home in spite of coffee. Good thing the steering is loose.
• 48 - times I missed driving the Honda
• 1 - metal toolbox on a metal shelf directly behind my head.
• 1 - did I mention I missed driving the Honda?
• 24.97 - paid for gas at one of the truck stops
• 124.97 - value of van now that it has gas in it
• 1 - blogger who had damn well better quit bitching about the van, lest it come back to haunt him tomorrow while in the middle of nowhere
• Eleventymillion - times I miss my wife and kids
• 1 - garage that needs to be rearranged so furniture will fit
• 4 - animals who were glad to see me just in time for a late dinner
• 3 - losers shoppers in between me and the Ben and Jerry’s at the grocery store on the way in to town
• 2 - number of checkers open
• 8 - shoppers in front of me
• 1 - man buying a twin douche pack.
• 4 - people buying ice cream or other comfort foods
• 15 - minutes I have put off unloading the van. I better get my ass in gear.

Perhaps I’ll fill in some of the gaps another time. The van (I’m calling it The Beast at the moment) deserves a post all by itself. This thing is a trip.