The Final Punch, Dirty Oars, and Snotty Brats

The daughter called a few days ago and said the Grand-brats wanted to come for a visit but they had colds and she didn’t want us to catch something. I responded, “I don’t care if those boys have bubonic plague and want to bring a pet rat and a flea circus with them; if they want to come, bring them.  Well, it may not be the plague but it is close and has already got Grand-ma’am and is after me.  Still, they can visit any time, in any condition. That is just a chance that Faux-Pa’s have to take.

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.

You should remember that I am not one of those risk-taking sorts of guys BUT when those boys are involved it is different.

I did take a minor little teeny tiny kind of risk the day after Christmas. I was on the salvage car auction web site the day after Christmas and apparently most folks were recovering from Christmas and weren’t working. I ended up high bidder on 14 cars and trucks and fourteen slightly exceeds the “Management Approval Threshold” or MAT on almost any day.

Remember that buying things and selling things is one of the things I do. As long as I can make a profit in a reasonable time or need something and it is cheap enough, I can’t think of a single reason not to bid. Well, with the exception of the MAT, that is.

Now these auctions are online and only take 10 seconds to sell a car. There is no way to get approval in advance to avoid exceeding MAT.  Besides, some days one purchase may exceed MAT depending on Management’s attitude and others I may be good for five or six, but 14 is guaranteed to be over the limit.

Fortunately for me 11 of my wins were rejected by the sellers so I only ended up with three, all of which I really needed. Unfortunately for me, the MAT for last week was zero. OOPs.

I have even heard rumors that some folks go as long as a year or two without buying or selling a car but that seems pretty unbelievable to me.

I’ve also been working on the Final Punch List for the house. If you’ve never built a house, a punch list is the list of things you don’t like and want the builder to fix before you make the final payment. By my calculations, up until last year the house was under construction. Last year was final construction. This year is going to be the final punch List.

Then as soon as I finish the Final Punch List the house will be officially completed. At that point we will go into Post Final Punch List. This will include changing anything Management has decided she doesn’t like.

If she wants the house torn down and rebuilt, we’ll start on it. If she wants walls moved, floors redone or anything else, I’ll do it but not before I complete the Final Punch List so I can say I finished it once. I hope she makes some changes. I don’t know what I would do in the evenings if I don’t have a house to work on.

A few months ago Management got an embroidery machine. I gave her a corner of my library for it. Lately I’ve been noticing boxes of my books migrating downstairs and my library shrinking.

One of the items she moved was a pair of old wooden oars from a rowboat I was using for curtain rods. I thought they were attractive. Besides, many years ago I heard a preacher who was “agin” everything. He hated pool halls. He hated dancing. He hated gambling and drinking and carousing but he especially hated “painted women and dirty oars.” He didn’t think much of me either so I kept the dirty oars to remind me of him.  He never told us why we should avoid oars though. I’d guess he had a bad experience with them sometime. I have to agree that sailing beats rowing anytime.

The last I heard that preacher ran away with another man’s wife. I wonder how that worked out for him.