Thanksgiving Themes, PART 5: "Jury Duty"

Jury duty doesn't bother me.  It's an inconvenience, and the whole jury system (along with the justice system) could use an overhaul.  But it is what it is.  Our system is pretty decent compared to the rest of the world's, and someone's got to serve on the juries.

So when I got summoned to show up on November 28th, the day after my birthday, I wasn't crying a river or anything like that.  If anything, I thought, "Well that will be easy to remember."

And overall, my experience at the courthouse was fine.  Got some emails read & written, sorted some coupons, took a nap--it was fine.

Before and after jury duty?  Pretty sucky.

Things started off innocently enough on my birthday.  As I emerged from my donut coma and the late NFL games wound down, I began to gather up what I needed for the next day, like a book, some snacks, stuff to write with--oh, and my summons.  I looked where I thought it was.  It was not there.

I looked through a couple of piles.  Still no summons.  I told Beth to start exercising without me, and I'd be down in a few minutes.  When she finished, she came upstairs.  I was still looking.  For about 2 hours I sifted through piles of stuff on all three floors of our house.

I was surely not the first person to misplace this important document, but I also didn't know how big of a deal it was to lose it.  Would it be a big headache for the jury coordinator?  Would it result in a fine for contempt of court?

Aside from those concerns, I wasn't even sure exactly where I was supposed to be and when I was supposed to be there.  The St. Louis courts website was of very little help; most of the FAQ's were variations of "This is my situation--does that get me out of jury duty?"  Was the question "What if I lost my summons?" asked THAT infrequently?  Apparently so.

Of course, since it was Sunday, there was no one official who I could call to ask my IAQ ("infrequently...").  This meant I would be getting up earlier on Monday to get the girls ready for school more quickly, and still "drive blind" towards the courthouse, hoping someone at the courthouse would answer my phone call on Monday morning.

My relaxing birthday was getting less and less relaxing and more and more tragic feeling.  I had brought this on myself.  Important documents go in designated places--that is a rule I have had trouble internalizing.  When we moved to California 10 years ago, I closed out our savings account in Kirksville and was issued a cashier's check for our life's savings.  My next stop was to buy a tub of protein powder at the local health and supplement store, since we weren't sure we'd be able to get it in California.  Five days later, after much stress and anguish for both myself and my wife, we found the check in the brown paper bag alongside the tub of protein powder.  Seemed like a good place to put it at the time.  As Spinal Tap sings in "The Majesty of Rock": "The more things stay the same, the less they change."

"Isolating areas of growth while not getting down on myself"--that's another rule I need to work on.  I'll put that right next to "Put important documents in designated places" on my "Things I'm Working On" list which, of course, is hard for me to look at without getting down on myself.  Another post, I suppose...

But my pre-jury-duty crisis has a happy-ish ending.  On Monday morning, someone at the courthouse answered my phone call right away and told me that losing my summons wasn't a big deal, and to just show up.  When I got there, I told them my name, and they printed off a new jury number tag.  They actually didn't even check my ID, which I found a little odd.  I guess they're not too picky about filling up the jury pool, as long as the person who shows up appears to be of the same species as the name they have in their records.

The moral of this story is: Pretend all important documents are jury summons, and care for them as such.

Like I said, jury duty proper was uneventful and even productive.  But my pre-service crisis was bookended  neatly by an independent post-service crisis.  Most of the jurors were released to go home around 5:00 (along with most other people in downtown St. Louis).  Jurors and normal people alike scurried to the parking garage, then weaved around in our cars like connected train cars.  The train approached an exit ramp, and cars began backing up behind a mechanical arm sitting in the down position.

The person in front was trying to feed their paper, courthouse validated parking ticket into a machine intended for plastic parking passes.  I observed that the second exit-lane, parallel to the first, was empty.  Furthermore, there was a small sign taped to window of the booth of the second lane that read: "Jurors Exit Here."  I pulled up to THAT closed arm, only to find that to get the arm to open, I would need to hand my ticket to an actual parking attendant inside the booth.  And the booth was empty.

So both exit ramp arms were in down position.  Meanwhile, rows of cars lined up behind both me and "I wish I had a plastic ticket" lady.  Neither of us could pull forward, thanks to the arms.  And neither of us could pull backwards, thanks to the cars lined up behind us, many of the drivers of which many began to honk and yell things out of their windows.

The next few minutes I've tried to block out, but I recall that somehow it WAS finally communicated to the cars at the end of the train that it would be nice if they could back up a little, so that the people in front of them could back up, and so on and so forth.  When it was my turn to back up out of the exit ramp, I rolled for a few feet, then heard a loud noise, then saw a concrete wall a little too close to my passenger-side window.

Literally about 5 seconds later, a woman appeared--I'm not sure from where--with a bag of fastfood, and said, "Oh, I'm sorry."  She walked into the booth, took my ticket, and opened up the arm.

I drove out of the garage and then pulled to the side of the street, hopped out of my car, walked around to the passenger side, and saw this:

If I had waited for another 5 seconds to back up my car, this wouldn't have happened.  If I had continued to drive around the parking garage to the NEXT exit, this wouldn't have happened.  If I had gotten stuck behind the lady in the left lane, this wouldn't have happened.  If I had missed the elevator, or missed the shuttle from the courthouse, or let one person go in front of me, this wouldn't have happened.

When assessing how angry I am at any given moment, I (like most people, I'm sure) ask myself, "If I were David Banner, would I turn into the Incredible Hulk right now?"  As I stood looking at the damage caused to my car because someone thought it was a good idea to go grab their dinner at 5:15 on a weekday evening, well, yes, I would have turned into the Incredible Hulk.  I don't know what I would have done THEN.  Probably caused even more damage, or maybe growled in the face of the parking garage attendant.

I was still fuming when I got home, and fuming when 30 minutes later when I got a phone call from our insurance adjuster.  She was calling about the CRV, which careful readers of WPFF will recall was totaled back in August.  She wanted to ask me how I would feel about a settlement figure for the accident.  It would cover my medical bills (chiropractor treatment) for the accident.  I was happy about that, but the numbers didn't quite add up.  The number she was quoting me was more than the amount of my bills.  I expressed my confusion, and she was quickly chimed in, "Oh, the extra money is for your pain and inconvenience."  It wasn't enough to retire on, but it WOULD be enough to get, say, a scratch on our new car taken care of.  Add in my $12 for jury duty, and we may even have enough left over to paint flames across the hood.

So, my Thanksgiving weekend wrapped up with an unexpected expense followed by an unexpected influx of cash.  Interesting.

Meanwhile, my black eye is healed and my nose is straight-ish.

I just spent the last of my Walgreens and CVS coupons that I attained Thanksgiving day.

A friend of mine with a kid who loves trains is coming over tomorrow and he will get to play with the train that my uncle gave us.

And I am still very grateful for a family that wants to celebrate me on my birthday.  It was a good Thanksgiving weekend.

Oh, one final addendum:  While I was sitting outside the courtroom to which I had been called on Monday afternoon, I decided to catch up on some reading, and pulled out a stack of emails I had printed out.  As I flipped through them, I stumbled across this:

There was much laughing.  Not by me, of course, but I'm sure someone, somewhere in the world was laughing about something.

-THP

Thanksgiving Themes, PART 4: "Happy Birthday to Me"

I'm sure I don't need to tell you that Sharlto Copley, star of the Oscar nominated "District 9", was born on November 27, 1973.  But did you know that he was born the very same day as The Hungry Preacher?  True fact.

So after fighting off sickness Tuesday and Wednesday, shopping and partaking in a Thanksgiving feast on Thursday, breaking my nose and hosting an second Thanksgiving dinner on Friday, and cutting down a Christmas tree and attending a birthday party for my nephew on Saturday, I was pretty razzed for doing as close as possible to nothing for my birthday on Sunday.

Beth had originally suggested that I get a TV for my birthday, but after some consideration, I suggested that we wait on that purchase.  I made this call late in the game, so plan B was donuts and an omelet for breakfast and chillaxing most of the day.  I was happy with this plan.

The girls were excited to celebrate and my younger one created an original piece of art for me.

She was obviously eager to present me with this, as demonstrated by her actions the day before my birthday.  It was about 7:30 in the morning when I awoke to hearing Monkey 2 wandering into our bedroom.  She crept up to my side of the bed and said, "Daddy?"  Half asleep, I muttered, "Yeah?"

"Is your birthday today?"

I cracked my eyes open and saw an envelope in her hand.  I said, "No, it's tomorrow."

She pulled the envelope behind her back and said, "Oh."  After I pause, she said, "Can I go downstairs and watch something?"  I said she could, and she walked away, envelope in tow.  Very cute.

Anyway, as the late NFL games were wrapping up, my birthday got less relaxing and more frustrating.  Which I will talk about in the final post of this series: Thanksgiving Themes, PART 5: "Jury Duty".

-THP

Thanksgiving Themes, PART 3: "The Train"

Beth cooked up a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner for an assortment of relatives who gathered at our house on Friday afternoon (there were conflicts on Thursday).  As the festivities wound down, my uncle informed me that he had a gift he wanted to present to our family, and to not let anyone leave before he had the chance to.

My uncle is a generous and thoughtful guy, so I was curious, to say the least.  In a few minutes, we corralled everyone into the living room and gave him the floor.  He explained that when he was growing up, his family had a train set that came out of storage for only a few weeks out of the year, around Christmas time.  The track was set up around the tree, and each year, a new car was added to the set.  This was a special and memorable tradition for him, and he wanted to give each of his nieces and nephews the opportunity to embark upon the same tradition with their own families.

And how, you may wonder, would someone bestow that opportunity to their nieces and nephews?  By presenting them with a "Lionel Pennsylvania Flyer Freight Train Set with Diorama," of course!

Honestly, my knowledge of trains is half-Amtrak, half-Thomas, but I have known for quite some time that there existed types of high-quality train sets in shops and basements previously undiscovered by me.  Friday, the contents of those shops and/or basements came into my house in a large gift bag, compliments of my uncle Paul.

Beth and I were pretty floored, and the girls were (pardon the cliche) filled with wonder.  Future setup locations are TBD, but this year we weren't prepared to loop the train around the Christmas tree.  Instead, we looped it around our Christmas branch, which we set up on the dining room table.

The setup was pretty simple (especially since Beth did it), and the girls have enjoyed it.  The light on the engine is functional, and actual smoke puffs out of the... uh, I don't think it's called a "chimney" on a train, is it?  Anyway, whatever it is, smoke comes out of it.  The engine is heavy and solid.  I am sure that we will embark on the tradition that my uncle suggested when he gave us the train.

We are thankful.

I had some technical difficulties getting this post up yesterday--sorry about that.  Parts 4 & 5 of Thanksgiving themes are penciled in for Monday and Tuesday, for those of you with planners.  See you then.

-THP

Thanksgiving Themes, PART 2: "Shopping"

Ever since the white man negotiated a November land purchase from Native Americans for the low, low price of "not killing you", Thanksgiving has been associated with getting good deals.  For decades, the time to give thanks for shopping has been narrowed more and more precisely to the day after Thanksgiving.

If you haven't heard, that day is called "Black Friday," first designated as such in 1966 by Philadelphia city police.  It sounds like a somber religious holiday, but it's actually a joyous cultural celebration.  It's so packed with joy that retailers are finding that 24 hours can no longer contain the joy associated with the holiday.

For the Hungry Preacher, Black Friday celebrations began a few hours before midnight on Wednesday night.  While Beth was studying ads for moderately priced Christmas gifts, I was absorbing the ridiculous prices for toiletries and other essentials at CVS and Walgreens.

Between those two stores, about 40 different items were being offered at a sale price, starting at midnight.  Then, after your purchase, you'd receive a coupon for the full amount of the item good on any future purchase at the store where purchased.  As far as I was concerned, these items were free.  Of course, I need to make sure I don't loose the coupons, but isn't that true of cash as well?

The kicker is that the stores allow you to use manufacturers' coupons when purchasing the items, and then they STILL give you coupons back for the full amount.  So if I buy a tube of toothpaste for $3, and pay with a $1 coupon and $2 cash, I walk out with a tube of toothpaste and a coupon for $3 off my future purchase.  It's like they're paying me to take the toothpaste.

Since Facebook still has more hits than willpreachforfood, friends of my wife may have already seen this picture posted on her account, but I'll post it here anyway.

I can't help feel that I could have gotten more.

Considering the coupons that I received back, and subtracting the money that I fronted, I actually came out about $10 ahead, plus getting all this stuff.  And most of it is stuff that I will actually use (like razors, toothpaste, and medicine; the stuff that I won't use I got because they paid me to take it).

The actual shopping experience was fun enough.  There were about 30 of us at CVS at midnight, and it wasn't long before you couldn't tell who were friends prior to showing up and who were just being friendly and helpful to others.  You could hear bits of conversations like, "I think this is the size of lip balm that you need to get.  Oh, but where did you get the detergent?"

Oh, and it seems couponing is largely a girl thing.  It was me and 29 women galavanting around the aisles.  At one point, someone said, "It is so cool that you do this.  I can't get my husband to get on board with coupons."  To which I said, "Look, I didn't come here to hear about your marital problems--I just want my free pack of Benefiber, OK?"  Tee-hee.  Just kidding.  I actually said something like, "Yeah, there are some good deals."

While checking out, I heard a couple or three ladies in line about 7 feet behind me saying stuff like, "You don't see too many men out doing this sort of thing" and "His wife must give him a really good list."  I turned around, and they were all like, "Oh, he heard us!"  There was much giggling.

Of course, a few minutes later, I got to see all my new friends across the street at Walgreens, and we went through the whole thing again (this time sidestepping a dropped and broken-open gallon of milk in the middle of the check out line).

By 1:30 a.m., I had visited 2 Walgreens and 1 CVS, and was ready to call it a night, since I was still recovering from my illness and wanted to be at 100% for receiving my broken nose.  My Black Friday shopping was over, and it was barely even Thursday.  Well done, Hungry Preacher, well done.

Check back tomorrow for part 3 of Thanksgiving Themes: "The Train."

-THP

Thanksgiving Themes, PART 1: "Physical Pain and/or Discomfort"

The last 6 days have been busy for the Hungry Preacher.  I figured I'd offer a quick recap for those who wonder how their Thanksgiving festivities stack up to those of a neutral and normal third party like myself.  I will be your "control group".  I will do that for you.

The girls had a half day of school on Tuesday, and were off on Wednesday, an archaic practice held over from the days when children were expected to spend their Wednesdays before Thanksgiving saying goodbye to, then slaughtering, the family turkey.

I had big plans for the day and a half with my young daughters, and they were all thwarted when I was stricken with a diabolical and undiagnosed illness.  I was achy, experienced pain when swallowing, and had a 101 fever.  "Fun stuff with daddy" time became "watch stuff on TV while daddy sleeps" time.  So many memories...

The the pain I was experiencing drew me closer to my pilgrim forefathers who also endured physical hardships during Thanksgiving, but I needed to shake off my case of consumption* (* = what I assumed my condition to be).  I wanted to get back on my feet for 2011's Turkey Bowl, a game of tackle football that my brother regularly sets up with his friends and family for the day after Thanksgiving.

By Friday, I was well enough, and set out to prove that with a little more skill, training, size, and athleticism, I could have been an adequate high school football player.  Probably not on defense though, which is too bad, because my brother was NOT able to rope in enough players for each team to have specialized offensive and defensive squads.

Deion Sanders and I have now BOTH played on both sides of the ball during our football careers.

This meant that I would have to alternate between demonstrating my elite receiving skills and my textbook arm-tackling technique.  You see, it's all about moving your feet out of the way of the anticipated route of the runner, then sticking your arms out as he runs by.  I like to imagine my arms are brushes at a carwash, and the runner is the car.

As the game wore on, the missed tackles weighed heavy on my self-esteem.  I kept telling myself to "get my head in there" on tackles.  About an hour into the game, "get my head in there" I did.  Just as I dove at the ball carrier from the side, he--not seeing me--spun suddenly away from another tackler.  Using my nose, I tried to grab his rapidly approaching elbow and pull him to the ground, but to no avail (unless you count the fact that the ball carrier claimed his elbow hurt for about 5 minutes after the incident).

For symmetry's sake, I can't decide if I should put concealer under my left eye or purple eye shadow under my right eye.

Fortunately, of the 9 guys playing football, a whopping 22% were male nurses by trade.  They deemed me OK to continue playing by a vote of 1-0, with 1 undecided.  It wasn't until later that Phil, one of the nurses AND one of my favorite brother-in-laws, told me that, "You know, I'm thinking it probably IS broken."

Nose breaks come in all shapes and sizes, and mine seemed relatively minor.  In fact, it may have been beneficial.  Short term, it totally took my mind off the pain I felt when I swallowed.

Long term, I may have a better-looking, more symmetrical nose than I did before.  See, back in high school, I took a hockey puck off the upper right side of the nose, causing my nose to bend a little to the left.  It's also always been pretty wide, from top to bottom.  Nothing pretty about it, really.

The elbow I took on Friday was smack on the left side of my nose.  My new nose dent has taken some getting used to, but as Beth and I were looking at it, we both agreed that the blow may very well have straightened things out for me.  It is now more feng sui, with a streamlined visual flow from top to bottom.

In high school, I went to a doctor a couple of days after the street hockey game, and he told me, "Yeah, it's broken.  We could re-break it and straighten it, but you're young--you'll probably just break it again."  Full-time doctor, part-time prophet, I suppose.  I don't remember if he added "...on Thanksgiving weekend, 2011..." but how much detail do you want from the guy?

Come back tomorrow for part 2 of "Thanksgiving Themes": Shopping Edition.

-THP

A Tribute to My Deer Friend

The Hungry Preacher just got a little less hungry.  Today, in a fit of rage, I shot a deer.  Actually, now that I think about it, it may have been a “fit of chilliness.”  But the important thing is there is one more cow in the world who will NOT have to be butchered in order to satisfy my carnivorous desires.  On behalf of that cow, I say to my deer, “Thank you, deer, oh cow of the wild.”

The hunt didn’t go quite as smoothly as one would hope.  I was in a tree stand, minding my own business, and 4 deer meander up from a creek bed maybe 60 yards away.  They walk my direction, then veer a little, giving me a side view from about 40 yards.  At this point, I picked the biggest one (read: the one least blocked by trees) and fired a shot.  Three deer took off from whence they came, while the fourth galloped straight towards me in my tree stand.  She was running oddly, and I was pretty sure that I had wounded her.  I just needed to finish it up.

Flashback to me loading my rifle an hour earlier: Forgetting that my rifle can hold more than one bullet at a time, I am only putting one bullet in said rifle.

Back to the narrative: Instead of calmly ejecting the casing for the shot just fired and moving the next bullet into the chamber, I frantically reloaded with another single bullet.  By now, this deer was literally about 10 yards away, looking up at me as if to say, “I don’t know how to make this any easier for you.”

I got my gun set, aimed, and pulled the trigger.  You know how in movies they always have the dumb person try to shoot someone while the safety is still on?  Well, I TOTALLY thought it would be funny to pretend to be that dumb person.  So while I’m laughing and laughing, trying to remember where the safety switch is, the deer is all like, “OK, I’m outta here.”  She bounded away back across the creek bed.

Fortunately, I was wearing my boots that work equally well as hunting boots AND tracking boots.  There was a blood trail.  I followed it.  I lost it at one point and wandered a few hundred yards before circling back and starting over, this time with my dad.  Is it weird that I actually thought about 6 different times, “How would Daryl from ‘The Walking Dead’ be doing this?”

Finally, we found our venisonian friend.  She had already entered into pre-cleaning stage without any further assistance from me.

Indisputable evidence of my hunting expertise (pixelated for our more sensitive readers)

I had offered my dad a deal: “you clean, I transport.”  He was good with that, and was excited to use a tool he had bought that is now tied with “Butt Paste” for first place on my list of “Favorite Products with the Word ‘Butt’ in the Name.”

If you have to ask, you don't want to know

This deal would have been a lot sweeter for me had I shot the deer at the deer stand when it stood sideways 10 yards from me and all-but shot herself.  My mishap ended up costing me another couple hundred yards of dragging a 100-pound deer through hilly and wooded terrain.

But all’s well that ends with filling out a meat order form at the butcher’s, so my day of hunting was a rousing success.

-THP

A St. Louis Cardinals Post Postseason Post

Just over a week ago, the Cardinals won the World Series, and the city of St. Louis is still celebrating.  Well, actually, we're not.  We're just worrying about whether or not Albert will re-sign with the Cards.  No, really--that is all we're doing.  Doctors have begun prescribing medication to people who are NOT worrying about Albert.  Police have let criminals go free if they explain that they "got caught up in worrying about Albert's contract".  Law firms have permitted "worrying about Albert" to count as billable hours.

But the household of the Hungry Preacher went the proactive route and scheduled a "Please Re-sign Albert" parade.  To conserve resources, we scheduled it the same time as official St. Louis Cardinals World Series Victory Parade.  Here's a picture.

Me with Yadier Molina (sophisticated software required to see me in one of the reflective surfaces in the picture)

Since the parade, I've had some time to reflect on the Cardinals amazing post-season run.  Here are a few thoughts, presented in Hungry Preacher style (i.e., bulleted list form).

• vs. Phillies.  I liked the Cards chances against the Phillies.  They have done OK against good pitchers, while flailing against lesser-known, lesser-skilled types (the “Bud Norris effect”).  Oswalt, Halladay, and Lee didn’t scare me.
• vs. Brewers.  The Brewers DID scare me.  Their lineup was crazy good, better than the Phils at almost every position.  Their pitching was good enough to win, but not so good as to transcend the “Bud Norris effect”.
• vs. Rangers.  Same as Brewers: killer lineup, good-not-great starting pitching, excellent bullpen.  But with the momentum the Cards were riding, I figured the series was a toss-up.
• LaRussa.  I’m sure I’m the only one, but I sometimes find LaRussa’s managerial moves to be, at best, irksome and, at worst, contrived to call attention to himself for its own sake.  But kudos are due (“phone-gate” notwithstanding).  Some of his good moves: 1) erring on the side of yanking starters too soon rather than too late; 2) sitting Jon Jay for games 6 and 7.  I would have figured Jay would pull out eventually and was worth keeping in the lineup, but Schumaker did well replacing him and Jay proved most useful off the bench in game 6; 3) not jumping the gun on defensive replacements: that Berkman AND Freese were both still in the game for the 9th, 10th, and 11th innings of game 6 was nearly as amazing as their performances.
• Westbrook.  Jake Westbrook turned in the most overlooked performance of the World Series.  Not bad for a guy who barely made the roster and was probably only going to get used for either “mop up” work or “crap, we’re out of pitchers” work.  Jake leapfrogged ahead of Boggs and Rhodes to work the 11th inning of game 6.  This is when Cards fans, conditioned by watching Ryan Franklin pitch in the first half of the season, expected a progression like: solid single ("oh, here we go again") - pop out ("well, he got an out, so maybe he'll get through this") - bloop single ("OK, that was just a blooper--that could have happened to anyone") - 3-run-homer ("oh crap--why didn’t they bring in Schumaker to pitch?").  Westbrook gave up one hit, and no more, and will go down in history as the winning pitcher of one the of greatest World Series games in history.
• Freese & Berkman.  I wonder how many games at any point in the regular season came down to a team being 1 strike away from winning, once in regulation and once in extra innings, and still losing.  It wouldn’t surprise me if it didn’t happen at all during the regular season.  So for it to happen as it did in the World Series of all places, well, that’s pretty much as amazing as the media has made it out to be.  Jawdropping.
• Ringlessness.  I wish there was at least one player on the Rangers who was kind of a punk so I could not feel bad about them not getting a WS ring (at least the Brewers had Niger Morgan).  Truthfully, I feel kind of bad for the team.  They seem like a standup organization from top to bottom.  Why can’t EVERYONE get a ring?
• Re-signing Pujols.  I actually think winning the series will help the Cardinals NOT have to overpay to sign Pujols.  Fan bases tend to be forgiving for a few years after a World Series championship.  Plus, the WAY the Cards won the series--with Pujols really contributing for only 1 game--would make it easier to justify to the fan base that he is NOT worth $25 million a year for 8+ years.  Allen Craig's World Series production was comparable to Albert's, and he currently doesn't really have a position with the Cards for next year.  See where I'm going with this?  Just sayin'.

-THP