The Senior Buffet

I took my mom to Walgreens on her appointed day during my 90 day self exile period. We finished

up and then she said she wanted to go to Sams but first we should stop by Aunt Willa's and pick

her up and that she had tried to call Nan to see if we should pick her up but she didn't answer.

I'm thinking... ok it's a family affair at the Sam's club. Whatever floats your boat.

 My mom said they were having an "event". I'm thinking it's like a sale or something because

Sams never has sales so that would indeed be an event. So we get there early

around 11ish to beat the crowd. There's a big sign at the front door that advertises

Sams "Tasting event" is going on that day. So THIS is what the big day is about. Sams
 usually has a few samples on Saturdays but apparently this day, they are having MUCHO
samples and this is the highlight of the year for a senior. A must attend event. So we went in
and I go to the back of the store. Might as well shop while I'm here. I need some lettuce
and whipping cream. They have a lot of sampling stations but in a lot of cases the food
is still cooking and there are no sample cups yet.   I had a piece of applewood smoked bacon
(not a WHOLE piece but a 1 inch piece) , a piece of smoked deli turkey (not a WHOLE slice
but a 1 inch slice) with a tiny piece of swiss cheese, a piece of real parmesean cheese with
 a 1/2 inch apple cube (which wasn't bad. He suggested a bowl of strawberries with some
shredded parmesean on top for that sweet and pungent flavored mixture). I also had some greek blueberry yogurt and some salmon with some kind of sweet chile sauce on top. The beef
 brisket and the chicken patties with carmelized onions and asiago cheese were
 not done. I looked around but could not spot my seniors soooo, I went back to the front
 of the store and purchased myself a nice juicy Nathan's hot dog with a soda for under $2.
 I think that having samples is all fine and well. It's nice to be able to taste some of those
things without buying this gargantuan package before you even know if you like it or not.
However, it is not my OBJECTIVE to get full. I never expect to  get full from 1 inch portions.
That just is not my expectation and no matter how many 1 inch samples I have, I am not going
to be full. It might take the edge off my hunger but I will NOT be full. Maybe it's just a mental
thing and maybe it's jis' me. And it certainly doesn't make the cut for my social calendar.
The seniors that had accompanied me though were in their element. I ate my hotdog, drank my pop,
went back for more pop, cleaned out my 20 pound  purse and still there was no sign of them.
 I looked at my watch and an hour had passed since I had sat down with my hotdog.
I had been sampling for about 20 minutes before I got the hotdog so we've been in this store
going on an hour and 20 minutes. So I get up to go look for them again. I find them in good spirits.
 Not only have they sampled everything in the store for free but they actually found some non
food items to buy.  Free is the operative word for seniors. This includes sugar (splenda and equal as well )packets at the restaurant, lemon from the restaurant, peppermints and if you are
at cracker barrel, it involves asking for extra syrup, jelly and butter so you can take that home too.
We were at Sams all in all for over 2 hours but guess what. We didn't have to stop for lunch
because they were so full so what a bargain. I'll have to put it on my calendar for next year.

Treadmill for Dummies

Well yesterday I did something really Kimberesque (meaning something so crazy that it

usually only happens to my friend Kimmy who draws these type of happenstances to herself). I cannot take credit though. My friend Keshia originally coined this phrase in reference to one of  HER

friends. Anyway, inspired by Oprah and Bob Green's latest money maker (20 years younger) whereby

a bevy of overweight ladies lost 26+ pounds in 2 months by eating 1700 calories a day and

exercising 300 minutes a week , I blew the dust off the treadmill and moved the blanket that

was on top of it in an effort to get started. The treadmill originally belonged to my cousin.

My cousin left it at her moms (my aunt) house when she moved to Cali some years ago.

I borrowed the treadmill from my aunt's house and it was around New Year resolution time

so I was really excited about it. I just wanted to see if I'd use it and maintain my enthusiam 

before committing to buying one of my own and then using it for a glorified coat rack.
Danny and his brothers moved it for me and I was in business. Then a week or two or three later,
my aunt told me that my cousin was having a moving truck move all her stuff and needed
the treadmill back. I called my cousin and told her I'd buy it from her (at a used discount of course)
and she could just have a new one delivered to her doorstep without it jiggling in the moving truck
all the way to California. Especially since she was having a washer and dryer delivered
anyway and all of the other things you have to buy and have delivered when you move.
She said No thank you so Danny and his brothers loaded it up and took it back to my aunts.
A couple of week's after that, my aunt told me to come get it cause my cousin didn't take it
and it was just sitting in the way on her back porch. I was reluctant cause by now I had lost my
enthusiam for those new year resolutions and on top of that, I was gonna have to call Danny again
and I really wasn't looking forward to that. Surely, he would think I was crazy. But I called and
he went back and got it from my aunts in Indiana and brought it to me without too much fuss.This time
it cost me about 3 subway footlongs which at the time were not $5 footlongs. I've been carting the
treadmill along everywhere I move every since. All that to say, it's been a lot of jigglin' going
on for that treadmill. It was a decent treadmill but not a $2k top of the line so I didn't know how much
more jigglin' life it has left. So when I blew the dust off, of course it didn't work right away.
I pushed on this and that and then I pushed on it again and nothing happened. Then I read the directions
and did it in the right order this time but my fingers were faster than my brain. I'm sure that has
happened to everyone at some time or another. The brain is on a 3 second delay like those
cheap digital cameras. So while my mind was saying "WAIT", my fingers had already moved the
lever from slow to FAST! So off I went. Running 100 miles an hour to keep from falling off! I didn't
even have time to think about it. I just intinctively started running to keep up with the treadmill. Mind you it was on the fastest setting and since I NEVER run... well you get the picture. It seemed like this
went on for about 5 or10 minutes but it was probably only a minute or so. But everything goes in slow-w-w-w--w-w--w-w-w-w-w--w-w-w-w-w-w--w motion from this point on. Theres a movie playing in your head and in the movie, you are going "SPLAT" on the wall. You are injuring yourself and the phone is far away so you won't even be able to call and say "I've fallen and I can't get up". This is a small cubicle I live in. Surely I would hit this wall right behind me qith incredible force ! Oh Lord! I don't have insurance! I can't afford a concussion! Because of my 90 day self exile, it is not unusual for me to go two to three days without seeing or talking to anyone. I'd just be lying in a broken heap for DAYS. So all of  these calculations and best/worst case scenarios are playing in my head in this 60 seconds (which SEEMED like 5 or 10 minutes). So I concluded that I HAD to run even faster so I could get close enough to the panel to move the control back to slow or better yet OFF. I guess this is a case of doing what you have to do. Like the guy in the movie 127 hours who cut his arm off. I don't know HOW I did it, I just did. It was like Chariots of Fire! And what really kept playing in the back back of my mind (in this same minute that seemed like 5 to 10 minutes)  was that email that I am sure we have ALL received at some point or another. It is a video from youtube I think that shows someone going splat off of the
treadmill. Anyway, I gain speed, swipe it off, it stops and I fall on the bed huffing. I don't even have enough breath to puff. So I just huff. After 10 minutes or so , I get up to go to the bathroom and my legs
are still shaking. I was like a baby calf taking it's first walk. And then 10 minutes later it hits me. I am stiff as can be. I hurt everywhere one ought not to hurt. I ached and ached. There's an episode of the Simpsons where Homer falls down a cliff. And each time he hits the peaks on the cliff he says "ow", "ooh" or "uh" alllll the way down the cliff. That's what it felt like. I gave that treadmill a WIDE berth for
the remainder of the day. The treadmill has hand rails but it had never occured to me to grab the rails
and just jump on the side boards. Even one foot on the sideboard would have been a huge lifesaver. When I got ready to get back on the horse today, of course it would not work. While I tried to get it to work by pushing buttons, THIS time I stood on the side rails so if it suddenly came on I would be fine. There is actually a nice little warning on the panel that says to stand on the side rails first. The treadmill key (which is just a rectangular piece of red plastic) is on a string. The key is red and then there is a string connecting it to another plastic black rectangle but the black rectangle looks more like a clip. I have always wondered what this is for and I have never figured it out. In years. NOW I know that the key goes in the treadmill and you clip the black piece to YOU so if you suddenly have to start running 100 miles per hour, as you get further from the panel, the "key" will be yanked out and the treadmill will stop so you don't have to go splat. There is actually a blurb on the treadmill about the clip as well. Ohhhhhh. Okkkk. Well, as my friend Diana always says, hindsight is 20/20.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnDNFe-y7iU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpyLiCdnkAk

My 90 self exile and how it came to be

Well this is how it all started. Names have been changed to protect the identity of the uninnocent....

In preparation for a long period of unemployment, In October, I set about updating some things on my car that I knew needed fixing . In October, I went to the dealership for an oil change and whilst they were doing that, they told me I had four nails in each of my
rear tires. So I took the car right on over to Firestone Complete Auto Care where I had
purchased an addtl road hazard warranty when I bought the tires and told them that I had 

 four nails in each tire. They confirmed it and as part of the warranty, replaced

the two rear tires. For free. So my car had been making this wobble wobble

noise for ages and I knew it was the tires so it was
just a stroke of luck that those two rear ones were damaged already. Therefore, I set about
saving the money for the remaining two tires to be replaced. Because there was really

nothing wrong with them, they wouldn't have replaced them for
free. Anyhow, In January I receive a Firestone coupon by email for 15% of tires and this saved me $34 on two new tires as long as I used the coupon by Jan 31. I was in Crescent Springs Kentucky at the time visiting my cousin and Chicago was in the middle of a 21 inch blizzard so I decided to get my new tires there while I waited out the blizzard. We found a Firestone fairly close in Cincinnati. I got the 2 remaining tires and got my wheels aligned

since I have a free lifetime wheel alignment and I was very pleased
with my purchase. Fast forward to February 16th. On the 16^th, I was headed out

to run some errands. I had heard a noise and people were looking at me funny so I parked the car in the Walgreens parking lot and got out and circled the car. Lo and behold the tire was completely out of air but it wasn't making that impossible sound that flat tires usually make. I didn't want to go into Walgreens & shop cause I was afraid I
would come out & not be able to move it so I struck while the iron was hot & hot

tailed it over to my moms house (about 4 miles away). I parked the car in front of her house and said "can you call Jason and ask him to come look at my tire? I think the tire is flat'" Jason is her good friend. Instead of doing that she said "he said he was coming over after he finishes helping Ramondo do something today". This is not
what I had asked but ok. At 3:30 she says "if he doesn't come by 3:00, he usually isn't coming". Ok but if you had called and told him that I needed him (like I had originally asked),
perhaps he would have made an effort to stop by. That's what I was thinking but I didn't say
it out loud. But I was thinking it. I just sighed instead. My Aunt Birdie stopped by my moms to pick up her dog. My mom dogsits for her. She told me Ramondo's nephew (Shooks) could probably come by and see if it could be repaired. She called for me but Shooks was at work and would not be out until dark and could not give an approximate time that he could stop by the following day. But I was stuck so I said ok I'd wait until tomorrow.I asked Birdie for a ride home ( 2 miles or so) and she gladly obliged. My other aunt, Wilma, called
me and said she heard I had a flat and did I want it fixed? I said yeah and she said Ramondo ( who is her beau or something like that) would fix it in the morning. So in the morning, she gave me a ride to my moms. I called Shooks and cancelled and told him his uncle was gonna come instead. I looked up Firestone locations by zipcode on the world wide web and the closest one was 30 miles out. I called and told the man that answered that I had a flat and could not drive out there and was there anyone in Hot Springs that would honor the road hazard warranty and fix it. For free.
He said no. He said they didn't have any brother or sister stores in Hot Springs. I asked him could I buy a new tire in Hot Springs and then come out there and get my money back for it. He said he didn't know about that. He said the best thing to do was to put the spare on and ride on over and they'd fix it no problem.I didn't press it cause it sounded like a plan to me

and that was what I intended to do. So when Ramondo came over, I asked him to put the donut on and he said he had an air compressor and was just gonna put enough air in it to drive someplace and get a new tire. I reiterated that I had just gotten these tires less than 6 months ago and that I had a warranty and Firestone would fix it. For free.
I told him what the guy said. First Ramondo said there was a Firestone dealer

out on Airport Road. I asked him the name of it because I wanted to call. I guess he didn't know. He and aunt Wilma left for a few minutes to get something and when he came back,

 he had a different firestone dealer for me out on Summer Road right next to blah,blah, blah. He had called ahead and they said "Come on down! We'll take care of her". And take care of me they did. Ramondo said it didn't make sense to fool around with that donut when there was a Firestone right here. He said that ole guy at Firestone in Benton was just trying to

make money off of me. I told him that the guy wasn't gonna make any money off me

cause he was gonna replace my tire. For free. Ramondo says the Benton guy gets money

for the tires he sends back to Firestone. I don't know the protocol of how
these warranties work and I don't care but all I know is that it works in my favor and

I can get a new tire. For free. Anyhow, I guess that was enough jibber jabber cause

Ramondo told me to hurry up and drive over to Summer rd before the air went back out.

 (I felt like I had to rush over there on borrowed time. No time to think things over very clearly.) Benton was too far out for me to chance getting stranded with a bad tire

so I went to the shop Ramondo had called that said they would take care of me. First thing I ask when I get there is are they gonna honor that warranty and they say no
they can't cause they are not an affiliate of Firestone. He say the tire can't

be repaired (which I knew from previous experience that driving on the rim when it's flat like that will shred the inside of the tire so I believed him). And he says that a new tire

is $127 with tax, disposal, everything. To add insult to injury. They may be
a firestone dealer but they don't have a firestone tire for me. All they have is goodyear. WTF. I'm here now & I need an effing tire. I don't wanna come back and I refuse to ask

Ramondo to put the donut on again so eff it.
I let them put the tire on and I drive back to moms. But I am NOT pleased with my purchase. One, it was $127 vs FREE. Ramondo did not take the time to get his facts straight or

 maybe he did but he just didn't care since it wasn't his money.
Two, it's not even a firestone tire so I coulda went somewhere else that didn't look like they had been storing tires for decades. Like one of those places on the movies with buzzards flying over it. I bet Ramondo has never even been here to have HIS car serviced. I coulda went to Walmart. Half the town goes there so they probably rollover their tires fairly often.
Three,this $127 tire doesn't even have a road hazard warranty so if IT goes flat IT will NOT be fixed. for free. So I pay and I head to my moms but I could have spit fire. You could have cracked an egg on my head and it would have been COOKED! I was a true taurean. There was smoke comin' out of my nostrils and ears. As soon as I get in the door, mom tells me

 so helpfully that Jason would have put the donut on if I had left the keys at her house last night. Well I was only 2 miles away so if he really wanted to fix it, he could have come & got the keys OR if she had called him when I first ASKED her to & told him what I asked
her to, he could have told me to LEAVE the keys then. But I am totally 100% uninterested in what someone WAS going to do for me after I don't need them to do it for me anymore.

I told her that from now on, if she needed me she need not look too hard cause home is where I'd be for the next 90 days. For the next 90 days I would be on a self exile until I recouped the unnecessary $127 I had just spent. $1 at a time. I HAD been spending $20 a week on gas and that would last for 7 or 8 days . So if I don't go anywhere except to the grocery store once a week, then I should save at least $40 a month.I had BEEN riding to the post office (for my ebay sales), walmart, kroger, wendy's $1 menu (cause I didn't have a stove at the time), to Aunt Birdie's to visit, out to eat with the Family on Sunday's, out for birthdays (Kora's, moms and birdies), to  the flower shop to buy my mom flowers throughout her medical ordeal, Sonic happy hour where they have 1/2 price sweet tea and strawberry limeaids from 2-4, the dollar store, dairy queen (for a little ice cream treat), the book store (the kindle book store),out looking for little unique things to put in Mo's easter box,

the movies, the red box, mcdonalds for sweet tea, to the hot water springs to fill up my bottles for free spring water. a ride here and there to familiarize myself with new areas and new ways to get places, a ride in the mountains or just a ride through the city after 9oclock when everyone else had gone to bed.
NO MORE. No Siree Bob. Not me. I'll go grocery shopping once a week and if I forget something,too bad. I'll make my own tea with tea bags in my very own tupperware pitcher.

I'll read the books I have.Mo has enough for his easter box. I don't need ice cream anyway.

I have hundreds of dvds from those  tv series on dvd, tons of VHS and even dvd movies I've never watched. I can drink tap water and the mountain will still be there when the 9

90 days are up. My hair doesn't need cutting if nobody is going to see me. I won't grow a unibrow but instead of going every 2 weeks to get my eyebrows done, I'll go every 3 1/2 weeks. Most importantly, I could save gas by not going to my moms house everyday. I supposed I was gonna still go to church and I'd go see her afterwards (we go to the same church a block and a half away from her house) My mom said, don't do this. It would be at her expense and she would pay for half of the tire but I said NO. If you pay for half of the tire, I will not learn the lesson I need to learn. Which is ...Go with your first mind. Don't let someone bamboozle you  into doing something that you don't want to do
and that you know isn't right for you. FOLLOW YOUR OWN MIND.
I told my mom that if she needed me to call and I would come and I would still take her to chemo and that once a week I'd take her to the stores, hairdresser or wherever she wanted to go.I told her we could just buy 1 gallon whenever we went out and that should do it. I left and went home. To further twist the knife in my back, the following day my aunt Wilma calls me and asked me did I get the new tire.  I said yeah. I had to pay $127 for it though and she said "WHAT???" I thought they said they’d take care of you. I said "They did take care of me. They sold me a tire for $127." I asked her did Ramondo even ask them were they
going to honor the road hazard warranty when he had called and she said she

didn’t know but she didn’t think so . We talked a few minutes more and then she hung up. See, I asked the RIGHT question when I called firestone. I asked who would give me a new tire. For free. Ramondo just asked sloppy questions but did not clarify the facts and I guess he didn’t understand that a firestone DEALER is not a firestone auto care center.
Aunt Wilma called back a few minutes later to tell me "Ramondo said… you need to go

back and get that tire and then take it to firestone"
I told her I am not spending another minute or more money on gas (driving back to that backwards tire shop and back and then to the firestone in Benton and back) on this tire. I have already spent $127 on this situation and that’s it! What I didn’t say out loud was that if Ramondo had put the donut on like I asked,..we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.
NOW he wants to give me advice after his first advice was jacked up. Well Stop, no and don’t. And that, folks, is how I came to be in a 90 period of self exile.It will be over

around May 16th which is right before my 40th birthday.