Wednesday, February 09, 2005

presidential material? You know those stories about old presidents, where they're so goddamn honest that they admit to chopping down the cherry tree, or they chase a man ten miles through the snow because they received a nickel too much in change when buying a bag of apples? Well, they're never going to write one of those stories about me.  Tonight, I had a chance to be George Washingtonianly honest at the Taco Bell drive through, but I failed the test miserably. I ordered one chicken enchilada for $3.20.  (Actually, its full name is: the new chicken enchilada grilled stuffed burrito?) When I pulled up to the the pay window, I made a point of scrounging up the twenty cents out of my ash/change tray, so I would only get back paper money and not a lot more coins.  I picked out: a dime, a nickel, and five pennies. I guess something about all of these coins kind of confused the cashier girl because it took her a lot of time and mental effort to put them in their proper slots.  When she was done, she almost closed the door without giving me my seven dollars back. But I guess she was so confused and distracted by the coin counting, that when she did hand back my change, it was the exact amount I handed her: $10.20.  She must have seen that figure on the screen and just went with it under the high pressure of the moment. When I saw her hand me the money, I:       immediately knew she was overpaying me, and I casually took the money as if everything was normal, before thanking her, wishing her a good  night, and driving off with an undeniable sense of delight. Well, so that's it for me.  I can never be president.  Well, then again, maybe its only the old time presidents that couldn't lie.  Now presidents are kind of known for lying.  Plus cheating on their wives, snorting cocaine, dodging military service, getting DUIs, etc. Hell, I guess I'd make a great president afterall. (Feel free to contact the people at Taco Bell.  They're located on the corner of 38th Ave N. and 4th street in St. Petersburg, FL.  I think they're open until five am. And they might even have a high-speed internet connection in their office.  Just tell them to log on to www.thelegendofmarkmichaels.com).  11:10:00 PM    comment [] venuti loses Joe Venuti had to pay Bob Bandit five dollars.  With his compelling eye-witness testimony, Bob convinced the traffic court judge that his limo driver (under his orders) was not at fault for ramming and disabling a small car driven by a couple of girls. (Bob clarified the story about how the incident originally happened:  when the girls cut off the limo, it caused the limo to hit one of those orange and white traffic barrels.  The girls originally pulled over as if to exchange insurance info and such, but when they walked up to their window, the girls floored it and fled the scene. Bob and his limo driver chased the girls and they stopped for a second time.  Again, the girls sped off and led them on a goose chase.  (Has anyone ever actually witnesses a goose chase?  I think I saw one once on The Little House on the Prairie). Anyway, it was after the girls fled twice that Bob ordered their vehicle rammed. Since the girls were from out of state, they couldn't show up to tell their side of the story, and all tickets and charges were dismissed. Bob has to go to traffic court for himself next week.  This time its for parking his Hummer in a handi-cap spot at a Publix supermarket. "How are you going to get out of that one?" I asked. "I had the Publix manager write a letter and say its not really a handicap spot," Bob said.  "He's my friend.....he likes me," Bob concluded. 6:13:27 PM    comment [] tommy's toe It's a pretty hard life being a tree guy.  You break your back lifting logs, you get scratched up by branches, you get scorched by the sun, you get stung by yellow jackets, and then on top of all that you don't get paid very much. But if its a hard life for all tree guys, it seems to be especially hard for this guy on my crew named Tommy.    Today tommy opened up the back gate of the trailer and a big ol' log fell right on his big toe (pictured right). After it happened Tommy came limping up to where me and Chris (the crew chief) were parked.  His foot was streaming with blood and his toe looked all puffed and squishy. "My life sucks so bad I don't even wanna live anymore," he said.  "I just wanna go right through the Chipper. "I'll start it up," said Chris, who is thoroughly jaded to all the workers' mishaps and misfortunes.  Tommy just limped away and spent the rest of the day sitting in a hot pick-up truck, nursing his toe. Towards the end of the day, when I had all my relatively easy sales stuff done, I took Tommy to the corner gas station and got him a quart of bud (well, I used his money).  Then I let him guzzle it in the relative comfort of my airconditioned truck with the XM radio.  We started to look for a walk-in (limp-in?) clinic, but the nearest one was over the bridge in Bradenton. "You wanna just wait till you're back in St. Pete?" I said. "Yeah, sure," Tommy said. Anyway, Tommy seemed pretty happy with the a/c and the beer. (synchronicity note: note the tommy hillfiger symbol on Tommy's sandal, as well as how that red in that logo matches his gushing blood.  This is proof that there is a God.  But the question is, what are his motives?) 5:41:25 PM    comment [] sleep sex Last night Rachel and I did that thing where you wake up out of a deep sleep having sex.  Actually, you don't start out having sex, but you're making out and very turned on and getting ready to have sex.  Then there's this period where you think you can actually do the sex part while staying asleep and not exerting any effort or losing your comfort.  But after a while you realize you're gonna have open you eyes and shed your comfortable sleep yoke to satify your desire. So that's what we did. I can't really remember my dreams.  Something with smoke in it. Meanwhile, my thoughts are all about a deal that seems to be going sour with one of our customers down in Ellenton.  Bob made a deal with the homeowner to trim four trees for $1,200.  Then he enticed me to "buy his commission," meaning if I gave him $1125 right away, I would get back $1200 as soon as the job was completed.  This usually requires a wait of only a few hours before the loan "matures." But what Bob neglected to reveal was that the homeowner lived in California.  The people living in the house were the brother and sister and law of the owner.  Bob never bothered to tell these brother and sister n' law tennants that they were supposed to "work something out" with the owner and then cut us a check directly.  In fact, Bob didn't bother to tell me that I was supposed to tell them that so I could get my money back. Then to make matters worse, one of our climbers broke their pool pump with a wayward log,  And for an extra cherry on top, the California owner and the clueless tennants found out from the neighborhood association that we cut the common area trees for a fraction of their cost, making them feel like they got totally ripped off. As you can imagine, it was kind of difficult to collect the check at the end of that workday.  But now, four days, later, after I paid out of pocket $400 to fix their pool pump, the clueless tennants are shrugging their shoulders and pointing at the California owner as far as payment.  Meanwhile, the California owner is starting to go down the Brain Tangelino slope of non payment: delay, hide, disappear.  (It's funny, one of the last times I was talking to Brian Tangelino we was wishing that he was back in California where he made great money, and he wasn't mixed up in drugs, and everything was great. "Weren't you all whacked out on crank in California?" I asked, hoping to pop his bubble of fantasy and get his mind back on the fifty bucks he owed me.) 8:19:18 AM    comment []

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