And That's The Way It Was And We Liked It!

I must be getting old because I keep getting it in my head that things made today are cheap knock offs of those from yesterday.

For instance, you can't find a steel snow shovel. All you can buy are plastic and aluminum snow shovels that fall to pieces after one winter of shovelling. An old man backed into our minivan at the bank and had to buy us a new headlight. Our original headlights on the van were all old and cloudy and looked like crap. When the shop replaced our broken headlight, I asked how much it would cost to replace the second light. The shop said $350. For a headlight. I can get a headlight replacement for my 1992 Jeep and replace it in about 5 minutes for $10. My minivan doesn't even have HID lights or anything. Just a typical headlight that functions fine but looks like crap. $350.

But I actually think it's strange that the autobody industry exists. It's an industry where thousands of businesses wait around for good, everyday people to crash their cars. They don't care if you hit a pole in a parking lot or if you slam into cars while you're running a red light. They'll just hang out waiting for misfortune to hit you and then cash in when it does. People don't seem to do much to prevent accidents. They don't even put bumpers on cars anymore. They just wait for you to crash. Have you ever asked about getting a car painted when someone's insurance ISN'T going to pay for it. Autobody shops freak out. It's just like not having health insurance. Because it's all about getting checks from insurance companies.

When I got married in 1999, we bought ourselves a DVD player for Christmas. We got an awesome discount and brought that puppy home for $200. We used that DVD player until late 2007. By then it was a noisy old clunker so I packed it up and put it in the closet. Since 2007, we have gone through at least 4 more DVD players. They seem to last about 6 months before they die. I finally got bothered to the point where I pulled the old clunker out of our closet and started using that one again because I'm positive that it will last more than 6 months.

My pants are worn out. My wallet is falling apart. My computer is barely alive. And these things don't just nickel and dime you, EVERYTHING seems to cost somewhere between $50 and $500 anymore.

If my Jazzy wasn't on the fritz I would use it to roll on Washington.

Tell Your Children Not To Walk My Way

About this time last year, my wife hung a windchime in front of our house. Within a week or so it had disappeared. Last Christmas, I bought my wife some copper-looking sun and moon lights to put in the ground along the walkway to our front door.

When I got home the other day I realized that someone had stolen all of the moon ornaments. One moon was left behind because the thief broke it as they tried to pull it out of the ground. The suns were untouched. My wife hung a new windchime in front of our house and I checked to see if it had been stolen, too. It's still hanging there.

I told my wife about the theft and before I could say it, she said, "I think some punk kid in our neighborhood is coming over every spring to steal his mom a Mother's Day present from our yard."

I said, "That's exactly what I was thinking. They didn't steal the new windchime because that's what mom got last year."

After Mother's Day, we're going to cruise around the neighborhood and see if we can find our moons in someone's yard.