Fat Boy, Naming a Spider and Moving Stuff Home

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

I am in a terrible situation. For most of my life I have had stuff spread out over, at the least, several counties and usually over several states.

As of Tuesday all of my stuff is home.  Of course this does not include things I have loaned out or given someone custody of.  That is a different category.  I still expect that stuff to return home at some point.

Stuff I have given away is also not included because once I give it away it isn’t mine anymore.

Years ago someone borrowed one of my trailers “to take a car to the scrap yard.”  Six months later I called him to ask if I could borrow it. His reply was a classic. “I didn’t think you needed it.”  That is also a different situation.

Loans are short term. Custody is long-term. A gift is forever.

So if you exclude the twelve or twenty boats I have been offered “free if I move them” (but have not yet accepted) I was down to three things that were not at home.  There was one 1942 Oren fire truck, one camping trailer, and a pop-top camper left to move.

Last week after waiting a mere 32 years the Oren made it home. Then I gave the camper to a friend who needed it for parts. Last night the friend delivered the pop-up camper and I found it at the office when I got to work.

What am I supposed to do now that everything is home?

I suppose I could finish a project but what fun is that?

My fat-boy project is still going well.  Portion control is still working. But I am having some difficulty. If you have ever seen me in person the first thing you probably noticed was my absence of shoes. The next is my absence of posterior. Most people have a Gluteus Maximus. I have a Gluteus Minimus. In other words, I have an appalling, abnormal, absence of-of-of behind.

So, as I am losing weight my behind has been the first to go. That wouldn’t be a problem except what little I had was all I had to hold my pants up.  Now that it’s gone I have to walk around holding my pants up. It makes me feel like I am impersonating a teen-age thug.

The only other option is suspenders. I have had a lot of experience with being suspended in school as well as having things like my driver’s license suspended. I have even been threatened with being suspended at the end of a rope in a noose but nothing ever came of that.

The problem with suspenders is during the summer I wear shorts. So if you happen to see a chubby old man wearing cargo shorts and suspenders, looking like he escaped from an Alpine insane asylum, it just might be me.

I am having difficulty naming the Garden Spider at the office.  The one at home is Octavia. The rest of them at home are just auxiliary or ancillary spiders.  However, this one needs a name.  So I am having a name the spider contest. Send your suggestion to Averett.jones@gmail.com

If you are the winner, I’ll send you something worth at least a dollar and give you credit for naming a spider.