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While driving around during our visit to Florida, I was looking out the window taking in the scenery. Which for me meant picking out the restaurants I wanted to visit. I was carefully adding to this mental list when I saw it. The second funniest thing I saw while visiting Florida. A "Rent To Own Tire And Wheel" store. I had never seen a rent to own tire and wheel store before and the only thing I could think was, who would rent automobile tires?
I could understand the need to rent a car, a boat, golf clubs or any number of items you might need to use on a less than permanent basis. I have had reason to rent cars, surfboards, and even a washing machine at some time or another myself. However, I can not picture the circumstances that would cause me to consider renting tires. How would that even work? When you decide you don't need the tires anymore and return them, how do you get your car home? The whole idea was hard to comprehend.
After struggling for days to understand I think I finally figured it out. Now keep in mind this is only a theory and has not yet been proven. I think that this business is a secret government operation to draw out, identify and tag stupid people. You know, kind of like animal researchers do with wildlife. They catch them, tag them for identification and then monitor their movements. Same thing here except instead of wildlife, it's stupid people. What a great plan and it even pays for itself from the tire rentals. It's so simple, just open one these stores and wait for the stupid people to wander in. Rent them some tires and now you have their name and address, and even know what they look like. You might even get a picture. Catalog all this information and then distribute to all the smart people so we know who to avoid. They could even give them all the same brand of a tire so that the rest of us might more easily identify them while driving. At least that is what I hope is going on, otherwise, somebody is wasting a perfectly good opportunity to monitor stupid people in their natural environment.
So, what was the number one funniest thing I saw during my visit to Florida? That would have to be Christmas Eve when my sister Suzanne and her entire family show up wearing matching black pants, red shirts, and Santa Claus hats. It was something right out of one of those sappy Christmas specials on TV. Without a doubt, the funniest thing I saw during the whole trip.
Image by calebism via FlickrI am not a big fan of airlines, with their lack of set prices, bad food, and the need to take me sometimes several places I don't want to go before delivering me to my destination. So whenever possible I travel by car. If time permits and it has been long enough between trips to forget the details of the last mind-numbing day long drive to visit family or friends. Once I start driving, I rarely stop until I reach my destination. For my Christmas trip to Florida, time was available and I planned on staying for more than a couple of days, so driving seemed the way to go. The fact that a round trip drive to Florida was nearly 3500 miles was somehow blocked from my thought process.
When you travel by airplane, you pack carefully and efficiently. Everything you might need will have to be carried in one or two bags. When you travel by car, especially one with a good size trunk, it seems that all reason regarding packing goes out the window. This became very clear as both my wife and I wandered from room to room in our house gathering as many of our household possessions as we could stuff into the car. Anyone who might have been watching our countless trips from house to car with armloads of bags, boxes and assorted shiny objects may have guessed that we were moving, not just loading the car for a vacation. It was my desire to be able to actually see out of the rear window of the car that prevented us from loading any more. After all, it is better to be prepared than find yourself miles from home without that pair of socks I haven't worn in four years or enough dog food to feed Ted the Wonder Fuzzball for three months.
With the car loaded, and after Ted has found the best place to stand for his viewing pleasure. Let the vacation begin, we have a long way to go, miles to drive and we ain't stopping except for food, fuel, and letting Ted add to his list of places where he watered the bushes.
As the holidays began to approach, my mom began to ask if I was going to come to visit for Christmas. Well, I already had planned my recent trip to Las Vegas, so a trip to Florida in December seemed like a bit much to pull off, so I was noncommittal but did like the idea of spending Christmas with the folks.
During a call to mom a couple of weeks later, she mentioned that my sisters were thinking of going to Florida for Christmas and it sure would be nice if everybody could come. Well, my sister, Suzanne lives in Southern California and sister Leigh Ann lives in Alabama, so if they were going to go, then it would be nice to see them and it has been a long time since we all spent Christmas together.
On the next phone call, I was told that both my sisters were definitely going to Florida for Christmas and were making plane reservations or other travel arrangements right away. Well, if my sisters were going to find a way to go to Florida and since I certainly did not want to be the selfish, ungrateful sibling who could not make the trip, I committed to going to Florida for the holidays. All of us in the same house at Christmas would be great fun!
All was fine and dandy, and everybody was happy until .... my sisters and I began to call each other to talk about the trip. Each phone call between us seemed to go the same way. "I am so glad we are all going to be together for Christmas! I really can't afford to go to Florida right now but when I heard that everybody else was going, I did not want to miss out on the fun or be the bad child who would not go." Well, we may all be morons but it did not take long to figure out what had happened. We had been scammed, played off each other by our very own parents to get us all to go to Florida for the holidays. Each of us had received the same phone call informing us that the other two children were coming and how it sure would be nice if we all came. I am not sure who the mastermind of this plan was, but I'm putting my money on dear old Dad, it seems to fit with his style. I don't know who was the first of us to figure out what was going on but will credit it to Leigh Ann. She said that when she confronted Pop with the accusation he did not deny it and let out an evil little laugh.
So the whole family will be together for the holiday's, but some form of retaliation must be done for the blatant manipulation from those nice people I call my parents. We are still working on a plan but so far the best we have come up with is to go and eat all their food and leave the house messy when we go.
Father's Day is your chance to say or do something nice for the one man you can always count on, Dad! The guy who taught you how to ride a bike, throw a ball, or drive a car. The guy who looks forward to a nice mushy card and a tie for Father's Day.
Yea right! I don't know about your dad, but that is not mine. My dad never taught me to ride a bike or throw a ball and he doesn't want another tie. My dad had more important lessons to offer. Lessons such as a garden hose, a power nozzle and a bedroom window are perfect tools to wake up teenagers who try to sleep in on the weekends. If you ask your kids to sweep the driveway or patio, that sweeping up dry dirt and leaves is just too easy, get it wet first to make it more challenging. If you have an attractive daughter you can get several teenage boys to volunteer to help you do just about anything. If we are not catching any fish, it is because I am not holding my mouth right. Putting small bugs on your kids hamburger while it's on the grill and then waiting for them to ask what the crunchy stuff is, can be fun for the whole family.
He also taught me that if I did not sleep in his house on Christmas Eve that Santa would not know where to find me. This was a fun one to explain to my wife. He is the kind of dad who will wake you up at 5:30 on Christmas morning to tell you Santa had been there and if you did not get up right now he was going to play with all your stuff. If you were too slow in getting up or made the mistake of going back to sleep, he would get out your stuff and play with it. I don't think many kids had to try and beat dad to their toys on Christmas, but that's the way it was at my house. You may have guessed that my dad is not short on a sense of humor. In between teaching us how to take on the world he had quite a bit of fun giving us a hard time. I can only hope that your dad did just the same.
Happy Father's Day
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