Day 17

Jack is Back. 

After being treated like Bill Gates' cell mate yesterday evening, I awoke this morning determined to pull my self up by my boot straps and dust myself off for one more round.  Threw on the light in the bathroom for my morning beauty ritual and blew out the lights in the whole damned room.  One outlet seemed to still be in operation, so we took care of our morning business by the light of one lonely flickering lamp.  The problem with this one single lamp is that it provided absolutely no light in the toilette.  Pooping in complete darkness is scary.  What they say about the blind is absolutely true, for when you rob a man of one of his senses, the remaining become stronger.  The smell was unbearable and I vomited a little bit in my mouth. 

The trip to school this morning was a high octane Renault driven blur full of pitched turns and squealing tires.  With children more or less safely delivered to school, it was off to the rental for home improvement hour.  This would be the first time I would test out my new set of keys.  Unfortunately, with all the drama surrounding the rental negotiations, I sort of forgot which key went to which door.  This wouldn't ordinarily cause me much concern, but I knew this was going to take some time since I was having trouble keeping my pants up under the weight of the 73 keys in my pocket.  The key ring looks a bit like the kind carried by old time prison guards.  A key for each cell.  After about 20 minutes of hand cramping key sorting I finally unlocked the three deadbolt locks on the front door and made my way inside.  With all the locks on the door, I wasn't sure if I was in France or in Compton.  I decided to throw on my White Sox hat just to be safe.

As promised, I was greeted with three vats of white paint, two roller handles and four roller heads.  Not a brush in sight.  Edging is clearing going to be tricky.  Without any time to lose, I dove right in.  I keep meaning to draft a list of the oddities I have encountered while transitioning from one cultural norm to another.  I wouldn't have guessed it, but painting would make that list.  The paint said satin acrylic, I THINK, but the consistency was a bit closer to Elmers School Paste.  It smelled like paint and looked like paint, but didn't so much pour like paint.  I just sort of fell out of the bucket with a rather unpleasant sound reminicent of a really moist fart.  I wasn't sure if I needed to roll it on or get a trowel and sort of scoop it up onto the wall.  The roller heads didn't help the situation any.  No synthetic materials here . . . I think it might have been cat hair or maybe lama fur.  Either way, one thing was certain . . . it was going to be a long afternoon.  I toiled for a couple of hours sort of smearing this white gloop on the walls in an effort to make the joint look new again.  Unfortunately, the filth on the walls was not going to go away without a fight.  Eventually, I got the hang of things and made some reasonable progress.

It was soon time to make my way back to the school house to pick up the children, youngest first.  He had a good day today and I am pleased to report that they find him to be a happy child.  There wasn't even the usual screamfest when I dropped him off this morning.  Like the painting, perhaps we are making progress.  The youngster requested some McDonalds for lunch as soon as we reached the car.  This wasn't really in the plans, but it was surely better than slipping back into his back alley hot dog addiction.  I threw the coordinates into the Renault's indash sat nav and we were off for a bit of sightseeing.  Found a new park not far from our home . . . a place where I don't have a record.  Nothing like a fresh start.  It was nice to be mobile and finally able to get my bearings a bit.  Since I am usually the wheel man on family outings, they have all come to rely on my sense of direction.  We sort of meandered our way out to McDrive and it was time to once again test my French.  Not really all that hard at McDonalds, but the more practice the better.

With happy meals in hand we headed back to the hotel to await the eldest's release from school.  Just as we were getting ready to load back into the car, the phone rings.  Time to test out the old French skills again.  This time?  Failure.  The gentleman on the other end of the line did not speak much english at all and his French was so fast I could only pick up a word or two.  After quite a bit of awkward hmming and hawing from both sides as to how we were going to communicate, he was able to flag down an individual proficient in English on his end.  It was the phone company.  Just needed a bit of follow up information in order to activate our land line.  Why couldn't he have just said that in the first place?

With both children back from their educational outings it was back to the usual evening routine of homework and sibling rivalry.  This place is starting to get too small for the both of them.  As for me . . . their mother won't get back soon enough.  They would test my patience to its limit this evening.  How can two people with the same genetic makeup hate each other so much?  With both of them acting like retarded gangbangers, an earlier bedtime was in their not so distant future.  With both finally at slumber, it is time for me to follow suit.  Jack Butler . . . over and out.