The Enemy. Or as I like to call it ~ the job I hate.

I hate, hate, hate to vacuum. 

Yet I love it. 

I love it because I like my house to be clean. 

I hate it because it's such a big chore. 

You see, I have 3 kids, 2 cats & 1 dog. That's a lot of dirt & fur accumulating around & under everything. Plus our new house is all wood & tile floors. There is not a stitch of carpet to trap the dirt & fur to hide it. It does find it's way under the couches & beds to hide for a bit before it transforms into rather large dust bunnies. But those darn bunnies manage to float out from under the couches & beds & run amok throughout the house. 

Have you every tried to capture a dust bunny with a broom on a wood floor? They just laugh at you & run away. The more you chase them, the faster they run. Until you finally give up & pull out the bulky vacuum with the extra long attachment hose to suck them into oblivion. 

Which brings me to the reason I hate to vacuum. Because of all the wood & tile in our house, in order to really get all the dirt, dust, fur & dust bunnies, I have to use the extra long attachment hose.

And pull the bulky vacuum around the house behind me hoping I don't take chunks out of the corners of every wall.

When we got our recent vacuum I got rid of the old one that didn't suck. Both vacuums had gray attachment hoses & I think the one that went with this vacuum went out with the old one. So it doesn't fit on the hose right. It falls off all the time, making the process frustrating & taking longer to accomplish. I've tried to vacuum without the attachment hose, but all that does is spit pieces of dirt out the back at my ankles. And being peppered with teeny, tiny pieces of dirt in the ankles does not make the chore any more enjoyable. 

My dream vacuum is the Dyson Ball. 

Someday, I will own one.

Sean can't understand how anyone can spend $500+ on a vacuum. But a Dyson is bagless. Which means over time, you save a ton of money on not buying vacuum bags.

And bagless vacuums do not get that weird "stale vacuum smell" that bagged ones get after a few uses. But right now I don't have an extra $500+ to spare for a new vacuum....

A little follow up...

Sean & I talked more about Monday's incident. Okay. More like I pelted him with questions & he answered them!

What was really bugging me was the fact the Quick Trip clerk let him walk out knowing he had a counterfeit bill. When I was in retail, it was required of us to hold the person & contact the police. That way they can try to trace the bill(s) back to the counterfeiter.

Sean said he goes into this particular Quick Trip often & the clerk knew him.

Okay....

So the clerk probably figured Sean wasn't printing money in his garage, but he still got it from someone, somewhere. I guess that didn't matter to him (the clerk).

Then Sean tells me that when the local police arrived at the base, once they found out why they were called out, they acted pissy. Like Sean & his supervisor were wasting their time.

And to top it all off, the FBI arrive 3 hours later with the same attitude!

I told him that it sounds like you can make counterfeit money, spend it & it's no big deal. The authorities have better things to do than worry about someone using fake money all over town.

But I don't recommend you try it.....

Wow! Someone had an exciting day, and it wasn't me...

Yesterday, Sean spent 2 hours with the local police.

Fun times, my friends. Fun times.

So, here's what happened. As some of you know Sean is a taxi driver in the metro Phoenix area. He's been doing it for about 17 years now, and being a seasoned driver, he knows the areas to avoid & the areas to make the most money.

He's also had some interesting things happen.

For instance, when Savvy was about a year old, he had a yellow Toyota 4X4 truck. Unfortunately it needed a new battery & we were strapped for money at the time, so it sat in the apartment parking lot. One day, I left to take Savvy for a walk & noticed the space it was parked in was empty.

Someone stole it! A few days later, he had a fare in the cab & they were stopped at a stop light. Sean looks over at the vehicle that pulls up next to them & Holy Shit!! It's some dude in his truck!!!

Sean asked the fare if he minded if he chased him & he was okay w/ it as long as he wasn't charged extra (he wasn't). They caught up to him when he dumped the truck on the upper floor of a parking garage (the guy managed to run off on foot). Turns out they couldn't get any viable fingerprints off the vehicle, so basically nothing happened.

Yesterday, wasn't quite as exciting. There were no car chases.

But there was counterfeit money involved.

Aaakkkk!!

He gave some chick (his words, not mine) a ride home, then he ran to Quik Trip for a drink. When he paid for it with a $20 bill from his last fare ('the chick'), the clerk told him it was counterfeit. He said something like "Oh, shit. And I know where it came from."

Apparently Quik Trip employees aren't required to report when a customer uses counterfeit money. They just let him walk out!

Sean knew where the girl lived, but didn't know exactly which apartment was hers. As luck would have it, she left her phone in the cab!

Even luckier, she calls it, Sean answers, tells her who he is & says for her to meet him at the cab base & he'll give it back. He then high tails it back to the base, tells his supervisor about her passing the counterfeit bills & that she is coming to the base to get her phone. His supervisor calls the police & when she gets there, they nab her.

Turns out she had $20, $50 & $100 bills and was gambling with them at some of the casinos!

Sean ended up spending 2 hours with the police giving them a report, and then the rest of the day sucked.

Because it wasn't as exciting. And he lost out on 1/2 a day of money.

But, hey, now he has a story to tell his grandchildren.

This one & the one where he got paid in chicken & booze. (True story!)

Why do kids ask us kinda stupid questions?

This is a rhetorical question.

Because, I doubt if any of us really know the answer. I realize most kids grow up believing their parents know everything, but you'd think that by age 16, they'd figure out that sometimes we don't know jack.

And we sometimes make up shit just to see if they believe it.

And my kids, they usually believe it.

I took Savvy to cheer practice a bit ago & when we got to school there was an ambulance there.

She ask me what was going on.

Common sense tells you that if the ambulance is there, then someone got hurt. Exactly what happened? I sure as hell didn't know. Yet she asks me anyway.

I get questions like this all the time.

"Mom. Why is the sky called 'sky'? Who invented the name? Why did they call it that & not something else?"

"Mom. Why is that guy walking around the Wal-Mart wearing a robe, slippers, ski hat & talking to himself?"

"Mom. What happens to yesterday? Where does it go? Is it filed away somewhere?"

I DON'T KNOW!!

But if you want, I can make up a pretty good answer to all your cotton headed ninny muggins questions.

And laugh at you when you believe what I just said...

A small break in my same old boring routine

Yesterday was a nice break from my regular duties as family taxi driver. {And you all thought that was Sean's job!}

Which, by the way, is a job I hate.

I'm sure I've mentioned it before. I want a chauffeur.

Anyway, I went out to Allied Gate to give Levi a lesson in the CAD program I use to design their products. He wanted to know some of the basics for now, so if a design needs a simple tweak, he could do it himself. That took about 1 1/2 hrs.

Then I came home & did some painting on a super secret project. Can't tell you about it, you'll have to wait until next week.

Sorry.

I played around on the computer learning how to make Blogger layouts. I've discovered, I really love learning. Especially when it's a subject that's in the creative field!

Then it was off to taxi around kids. First, at 2:30 to get Savvy. I usually pick up her & her friend Ayce & drop him off on our way home. Then it was over to get Dare an hour later.

I wanted some nice pictures of her, so we just went out to the back yard & I shot a few. She did a nice job of posing without weird faces or complaints.

See the rest of them here.

I wanted some of Savvy in her cheer uniform, but she was being such a butt head & taking for-ever getting ready.

Then it was back to taxing when I was off to get Roo at 5:00, make dinner (Tortellini & garlic bread. Yum!) and take Savvy back to school for a game.

After that, I sat on the couch & watched Food Challenge with Roo until I had to go back out again at 8:30 to get Savvy after the game.

Really. I want a chauffeur.