The Sparrow Nest

The people that designed the Aut-O-Medic must have been on drugs.

Here are some things that I find incredibly annoying about this machine. Keep in mind that users of this product usually have a headache.

The machine takes 50 cents. Quarters only, please. Both quarters must be placed in the machine at the same time. The coin dial is like those found on gumball machines. The dial will not turn until it has two quarters. This undocumented feature took me about 5 minutes to figure out. You can just imagine how proud I was when I was able to successfully turn the dial. JC: 1, Aut-O-Medic: 0.

You must make your product selection prior to turning the coin dial. I didn’t know about this feature. Price to me? 50 cents. If you’ve selected a product that is sold out, you get nothing. That’s exactly what I got. JC: 1, Aut-O-Medic: 1.

Once you’ve figured out how to deposit your money, that you must first make a product selection, and the order in which these actions must occur, you finally get your reward. The product slides down the chute, out of the machine, and onto the floor. I felt like this was the last chance for the machine to insult me. It worked. My head pounding even more, I bent down pick up my over-priced drugs. JC: 1, Aut-O-Medic: 2.

All of this hate comes from a machine small enough that someone could easily pick it up and throw it out the window.

Stealing Excedrin from the desk of a co-worker is much easier.

Let the pranking begin. Prank them long and prank them hard.

Sherry was mad at me again. I think I might have won an argument or something.

Sherry: What do I have to do to make you want to leave me?
me: Well I…
Sherry: …Because whatever it is, I’ll do it.
me (in my head): This is your chance! You can get something good out …
me: OK, use “Pap Smear” in every sentence.
me (in my head): nice.

She lasted three sentences.

When I build my house I know what toilet and drywall I’ll be using. The drywall is $80 per sheet though…so I’ll have to save up.

I was surprised/troubled to find my son playing baseball in our backyard wearing surgical gloves. I didn’t know what to say, so I just made like nothing was wrong. Our dog seemed to be in good spirits, so I don’t think he was playing Pet Proctologist.

My son had a G.I. Joe that was missing a few limbs. He asked me if he could burn him at the stake.

me (in my head):My 9 year-old son wants to burn his G.I. Joe. Hummm…Do I need to be worried about his mental stability? Well, as far as I know, he isn’t killing and/or torturing animals… No problems here.
me:O.K. Let’s do it.

Site Preparation

I didn’t want to damage our yard, so I used a 24″x24″ piece of 26-gauge sheet metal I had lying around.

I used a small piece of wood and and dowel to create a stand to which we would tape Joe.

For the accelerant, we used a a rag soaked in gasoline. We wrapped the gasoline soaked rag around Joe’s feet and and legs.

As a final precautionary measure, we got the garden hose ready.

Ignition

Wow. The gasoline rag was good idea. It was really cool looking. It reminded me of an anal bum cover. The kids cheered as Joe fueled a three foot intensely hot flame. Sherry started to get nervous when a column of dark black smoke rose from our backyard. The kids continued to cheer as they danced around our sacrificial flame.

A few minutes into our experiment, Joe’s flame engulfed head fell off and rolled onto the sheet metal. This event caused the kids to cheer even louder. The remainder of Joe’s body started to melt onto the wooden stand. This is when we (Sherry and I) decided to put out the flame. The kids really liked the sizzling sound the water made when it came in contact with the “protective sheet metal”. It was then that I realized that the sheet metal probably didn’t do what I’d hoped it would do. We all stood around the steaming black corpse, formerly known as G.I. Joe. The kids were quiet now and grinning ear to ear.

Cleanup

me:OK, let’s throw this mess out.
sherry:Wait! Lets save his head.
me:You want to save a burnt G.I. Joe head?
sherry:Yeah. I want to but it in our hope chest.
me (in my head):My wife wants to save a burnt G.I. Joe in our hope chest. Hummm…do I need to be worried about her mental stabililty? No problems here.
me:OK, I’ll get a plastic bag.

After we cleaned up the site, I realized that maybe using highly conductive sheet metal wasn’t the best choice for protecting our grass. We now have a 24″x24″ patch of brown grass in our backyard.

The Fallout

Two days later at “Back to School” night, some teachers were questioning me about the G.I. Joe incident. I guess Sherry told them. They wanted to know if we tried to burn anything else. Perhpas they were worried that my kids would try to burn things on their own. I don’t think they were too pleased.

The neighbor kids asked if they could bring over some action figures to burn. I think they may have seen our smoke signals. I said no. I gotta draw the line somewhere.

We are getting a new van. A silver Honda Odyssey. It’s pretty ubiquitous so I thought that we would put one or more of the following stickers/magnets on the back:

• a soccer ball
• “OBX”
• “support our troops” yellow ribbon
• “support our troops” red, white and blue ribbon
• “My child is an honor stundent”
• “I brake for MILFs”
• “I brake if you are too close”

Nick what have you done to make your silver Honda Odyssey stand out? A Penn State sticker?

For whatever reason people have been using the sidewalk in front of our house as a dumping ground. About twice a month we have a major trash incident. I say major, because we have minor trash incidences everyday. Candy wrappers. Plastic cups. KFC napkins. No, these don’t count as major.

Last month we were blessed twice by the Trash Fairies. On one occasion someone left 3 Domino’s pizzas. The ants eating rotten meat and cheese were wonderful. And on another occasion someone left a large box of food products: one gallon of lemonade, two frozen pizzas, ten cans of ravioli, and several packets of Ramen noodles.

Two nights ago we had a 10PM spare tire dropped off. Thanks. That was just what we were looking for.

I need a solution to this problem. “Using mainly spoons, we’ll tunnel our way out of the city…”. I’m thinking of something that includes high-powered lasers and motion activated cameras. I just need to run a 3-phase 660v line to the front of the house.

Finally a TV show that I can really enjoy. It’s nice that they provide an Ogg Vorbis download.