Thursday, August 7, 2008

Random Thought Thursday 8-07-08

My children are driving me crazy. I'll fix them! They're going back to school next Thursday. So there! They can put that in their pipes and smoke them. How do they like them apples?

I have contracted a bad case of dontwanttodoanythingitis. There is no cure.

I had some leftover soup for lunch, which was more like colored salty water, since HH and the #1 son eat soup like it is a stew. They don't even need bowls for their soup. They can eat it with a fork. I drank mine out of a cup. I could have used a straw. A narrow cocktail-stirring straw.

The bridge workers take a lunch break from 11:00 to 2:00. Then they hang the trash on a tree. If they think of it, they burn the trash on the giant levee of dirt and rocks they have created on one side of our road. Yesterday, it was still flaming when we drove by. We passed those workers on the county road as they were leaving. At 3:30. They had not yet started work that morning when we drove by at 8:15. It's a good job if you can get it, I suppose. Plus, they get to wear those neon green shirts.

I am a bad-driver magnet. When people get near me, they forget that their vehicle is equipped with signals. They lose all depth perception, and think I am much farther away than I appear. They think the center turn lane is a conglomeration of decorative lines. Those in front of me are timid, and drive 10 miles under the speed limit. Those behind me are daredevils, and want to drive faster than my 10 miles over the speed limit.

Tomorrow I'm going back to school to see if I still have a SmartBoard. I'm not holding my breath.

I gave T-Hoe a treat of 7-11 gas instead of Casey's General Store gas. That is because my last tank of Casey's gas netted me a whopping 14.9 miles per gallon. That was not the T-Hoe I know. I thought he was sick. Then I remembered the time Ol' LSUV got sick on Casey's gas. He choked and sputtered like a bronchitis patient running a 100 yard dash through a tire incineration plant. Now don't you fret over the past health of Ol' LSUV. He was fine after being hospitalized for a fuel filter transplant. It so happened that the last tank of Casey's gas in T-Hoe came from the exact same Casey's General Store. There's no shortage of them around here. There are five of them that I pass on a weekly basis. But I felt guilty about feeding my dear T-Hoe junk food. So I splurged another 10 cents per gallon for the midgrade at 7-11. It cost me a total of $2 more for the 20 gallons I pumped in. And on this tank, I'm getting 15.8 miles per gallon. Upon much mathing, I figured that on this 20 gallons, I can go 298 miles on the Casey's gas, and 316 miles on the 7-11 gas. That's 18 miles more. That's a little over a gallon of gas that I save by paying $2 more. Since I paid $3.60 per gallon for the good stuff, I still come out over $1.60 better. If I take that times 52 weeks in a year, I can save at least $83.20 while I pay $3.60 per gallon. Just by feeding T-Hoe the good stuff. I'm not ready to put him on the gourmet diet, though. The super-duper gas will have to wait. I don't think I'm ready to pay 20 cents per gallon more.

Don't you hate mathies?

The #1 son is going to a sleepover paintball pool party tomorrow night. I am worried that I can't be there to overprotect him.

I don't feel prepared for school to start next Thursday. But I seem to be catching dontcareitis along with my other malady. I am teaching the exact same subjects I taught last year. Which hasn't happened in...oh...since I've been at this school. Which has been 10 years. What could possibly go wrong? If it was good enough for last year, it's good enough for this year. Right, Mabel?

2 comments:

Mommy Needs a Xanax said...

You have (or had) a smartboard!? Sweet. All our science teachers have them, as do the foreign language teachers. I think the foreign language teachers scored them for themselves by writing a grant proposal. I'm thinking of looking into doing that for the English department in the near future. I know a teacher in another district near here who scored one that way, but I don't know anything about how to go about such a thing, even though I once wrote a grant proposal while being held at gunpoint in Delta Sh*thole Public Schools.

Perhaps I could save up enough of my own money to buy one. I have all this leftover gas money lying around anyway, what with the THIRTY FOUR MILES PER GALLON I get in my cahhh. It was getting 29 for a while, then suddenly shot up, and I don't even know why. I haven't invested so much as a tire check or an air filter in the last six months.

That's right. Put me in front of a gas pump, and I turn into a mathie.

Hillbilly Mom said...

Miss Ann,
My SmartBoard is on wheels. It is portable. That's why I think it might disappear at any moment. My son says they are VERY expensive. I have never written a grant, but I hear there is a buttload of money for the taking.

Congratulations on your fantastic mileage. I used to do very well with my favorite car of all time, the cherry-red Toyota Corolla. That's when I worked in St. Louis, and commuted 150 miles a day. I think I got around 30 mpg with the good 7-11 gas. It was totally highway miles.

My dear T-Hoe has that thingy that tells me my cumulative mileage. Sometimes I forget to watch the road, what with gazing at my current mpg status. Today I parked T-Hoe in the garage with a 15.9 reading. I can also set it to see moment-by-moment mpg. Like when I coast down a long hill, I can get 112 mpg. Of course, when I pull out onto the road, or go uphill, I might get 2 mpg. It's quite distracting.