HELLO, POOR HOUSE? I'D LIKE TO MAKE A RESERVATION FOR TWO WITH A CHILD, PLEASE

What a weekend.

Any weekend when you spend over $6,000on stuff that you had no intention of buying is a good weekend.

And when $4,500 of that $6,000 was spent on southwestern snack mix from Walmart...then damn...we's talkin' a HELLUVA weekend, boss!!

Actually, I only said that for laughs. We only spent $250 on snack mix. But it be DAMNED GOOD SNACK MIX!!

Sooooo...we bought a dining room table and six chairs. Cherry wood, I think. I took a bite out of it. Tasted like raspberry to me.

Bought a new bedroom suite. Bed, dresser, mirror, two nightstands and an armoire (which ... by the way...is not pronounced "armor", it's pronounced "Arm-whar." Those wacky French bastards will end up making a fool of me yet!).

After purchasing those two items, Susie said "Do you see anything else you'd like?"

Naturally, I had my eye on a cherry red patent leather massage recliner with a phone built in one arm and a cooler built inside the other arm with six levels of massage.

That got nixed. Only because of its color which enabled the chair to be seen from space sattelites.

So since we now had a new dining room table and chairs, it seemed fitting to get a new breakfast room table and chairs. We've had the same table and chairs since before we were married. And truth be told, those came from my sister, who nabbed them from my parents, who bought the set when I was in junior high school.

Therefore...the table and chairs we've been eating on were like 25-30 years old. And Susie hated that table anyway.

And seeing as we were standing in the new table and chairs section of the store, I scanned the lineup quickly, pointed at what looked to be the most comfortable chairs and said "I want that".

Susie laughed. I laughed. We sat down in the chairs.

And I can't speak for her ... but I had an orgasm.

These are leather chairs that swivel AND rock.

And I don't mean they "RAWK!!!". I mean, they rock back and forth.

You sink into these chairs and you don't want to eat breakfast ... you want to have sex. Or sleep. Or both, if you're me....have sex and then pass out cold.

So we're sitting there, Susie, me and our salesman who happens to go to our church and is a good friend of ours.

Andrew gets up and bolts across the store. I go chasing after him.

I come back and the salesman is adding this table and chairs to the list of stuff we've already bought.

I was all like "Huh??"

And Susie said "You wanted it, didn't you?"

And I said "I was just being stupid. You asked if there was anything else I wanted and I just pointed at it for the hell of it. I hadn't even SEEN this table and chairs until you asked that question."

"Oh well," she said. "It's ours."

I was all like "DAAAY-UMMMM!!"

...The crack whore business must be picking up if she's dropping wads of cash like that.

So our buddy the Salesguy is busy figuring up all this stuff and he says "Is there anything else you want?"

My eyes drift toward the cherry red massaging recliners and Susie wipes the drool from my chin.

Susie asks if there's any home accessories worth buying and our buddy says not in his store ... and sends us to Kirkland's.

I'm not sure if there's a Kirklands in your town. But you don't have to tell my wife twice to go to Kirklands. She LOVES Kirklands. Probably loves it more than her son and I. Probably more than crackwhoring. PROBABLY being the key word there.

We go to Kirklands.

We purchased a painting that's bigger than ... hmmmmm...I was going to say "my penis", but your average wallet sized photo takes that cake.

It's HUGE.

It's a painting of a piano in a sun room. Lotsa flowers in the sun room. It's got a bunch of color in it and I obviously haven't studied it much, but it's super cool and nice and was the only painting I saw that I said "I want that."

Well...that one and the naked lady riding a tiger. That one was pretty cool. It would have looked great in my collection of paintings of naked ladies riding tigers. And yeah, that one woulda taken my collection's grand total up to a whopping one painting but that's beside the point.

So we get that painting, and we purchase this mirror that's bigger than Vermont. It's huge. It looks all antique-y and yet...it's not. That's what's so cool about it. We just bought it brand new and it looks 100 years old. Except it's not all nasty and dusty and have old lady cooties on it.

That's pretty much it. There's very little left that we HAVE to get for the house.

Then again...there's very little money left to purchase the house.

Ah well. We'll make it somehow.

Mattie Gee moved into his house this weekend.

It's amazing how big it is. When they first poured the slab, I thought "DAMN!! What a little house!!"

But you get in there and it's HUGE!!

He's happy as hell. He's not too thrilled with the fact that they're having to water the sod all day long and he has to move the sprinklers every 30 minutes to saturate every last square inch of land that he owns.

But he's happy. The Catemeister is happy.

I'm happy for them.

Especially because two weeks from today, the movers are coming to cart all my stuff into the house behind his.

RAWK!!!

I had a showdown with Creepy Pipe Guy yesterday.

Because I have yet to do one of those crazy "Cast" lists that are all the rage in Diaryland where I could point you to a page that tells you who Creepy Pipe Guy is, I'll give you a brief rundown.

Creepy Pipe Guy works for another company that's in the same building as my office. He stands outside, smokes a pipe and looks like a really sleazy child molester. He tries to engage everyone in conversation and generally creeps the shit outta me. We've spoken a few times and I usually get creeped out really quick and bolt away from him.

So anyway, yesterday I knew I had to go to the office and get some work done. I drive over there and there's NO cars in the parking lot.

Labor Day. Duh.

But I figured SOMEBODY would be there.

I go to two of the doors outside and they're both locked. The employee entrance has a security keypad outside where you punch in the numbers and get inside and you don't need a key for that.

But it was locked tighter than a kitten's ass.

So I thought "Well hell" and got back in the van to drive off.

I look over at the other entrance....and there's Creepy Pipe Guy.

I'm already in the van at this point and drove right past him.

I slammed on the brakes, put it in reverse and rolled down the window just as he was going back inside.

"Hey!" I yelled because I don't know his name and didn't think he'd take too kindly to being called "Creepy Pipe Guy". "Can I get in there? I don't have any keys for the outside doors."

He stood there with his pipe in his hand and began shaking.

Now, I've never seen him do this. I've seen him several dozen times standing outside and smoking...but never seen him shake.

He shook like he had Parkinson's Disease. Just an all-over body shake.

He just stood there, staring at me. I was getting the vibe that he has read about himself here and was about ready to throttle my ass.

Finally he said "I need to see some identification."

What?!?

CREEPY F'N PIPE GUY needs to see MY identification?!?

Okay...this guy is probably a telemarketer upstairs. He's in some minimum wage-toiling job where he gets hung up on all day long.

And he needs to see MY identification?!?

I've worked in this building over a year. He just started a few months ago.

And he needs to see MY identification?!?

Look...I'm sorry that my job doesn't entail me to walk around the building with my name on a laminated card next to my picture so that if I ever draw a blank when people ask me my name, I can look down at my shirt pocket and go "Oh. It's apparently Uncle Bob according to this laminated card with a goofy photo of me on it that's fastened to my chest."

I DON'T HAVE IDENTIFICATION THAT SAYS I WORK IN THAT BUILDING.

I can show him my drivers license. But what good does that do? Prove that I'm capable of driving this mini-van?

I really, REALLY wanted to yell "Hey! You're Creepy Pipe Guy! I've written about you on my website. I work on the first floor. We've had about four conversations in the past. I'm the only guy who works on the first floor who always says hi to you when I pass you because I feel sorry for your ancient ass having to be a telemarketer when a man of your age should be accruing some sort of pension or something. Everyone else down in my office is frightened by you and hurries past you when they see you. But not me. It's ME, Creepy Pipe Guy!! MEEEEEE!!!"

I mean ... granted, I was wearing shorts and not my usual khakis. But other than that, the bitch shoulda recognized me.

So I said "I've got my drivers license, and I have keys to the office inside. There's a plaque outside my office with my name on it. That's the only I.D. that I have."

Creepy Pipe Guy THOUGHT about it.

He stood there shaking, smoking and thinking.

I was all like "WTF???"

This is some geek upstairs who happens to be trusted with a key to the main door. He's not security. He's not a manager. He's not anything.

And he's THINKING about letting me inside to freakin' get some work done.

I really wanted to kick CPG in the nuts at this point. But he probably woulda cooed and flashed me a coy smile if I had.

FINALLY, he nods his head "yes" and motions for me to come in.

I park the van, grab my Diet Dr. Pepper and start bolting across the parking lot.

That's when I realized....I don't have my keys.

I drove the wife's van up there. My keys to the office are on MY keychain at home.

I stopped and felt like a little boy being punished by Creepy Pipe Guy.

"I'm sorry," I said sheepishly. "I don't have my keys. Go ahead and go back inside."

That's when Creepy Pipe Guy gave me the most disgusted look I've ever seen a potential child molester give another adult.

He looked at me like I had just ruined his day by shitting on his birthday cake or something.

He walked back inside and closed the door behind him.

I stood out in the parking lot, dejected. All I wanted was to get some work done. That's all. Get some work done and get a leg up on this hellacious week that I'm about to have.

It wasn't meant to be.

COUNTDOWN TO MOVING IN TO MY HOME: 14 days

THOUGHTS: I can't wait to move into my new home.

WEATHER: 73 degrees. Partly cloudy