LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

Archives for February 2010

Snookered again!

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They did it again. Shame on you, Wal*Mart. Shame, shame, shame. (finger waggle)

Well, looking back on the whole thing – shame on me. I know that they are not completely forthright with their ‘deals’. Lloyd said he was almost out of soap, so I stopped in to buy some. We usually buy the 8-bar pack for $4-something, but right beside it was a 7-bar pack for $3-something! I got out my phone, spent three minutes trying to find the calculator function, then another three trying to remember which number to divide into the other one (math is hard), and then triumphantly deduced that I would be paying 42 cents a bar for the 7-pack, but a whopping 55 cents for the 8-pack. Pleased with my real-life word problem success, I took it home.

Um, I am an idiot.

The old box is on the right.

These are tiny little bars!!!! 3.2 ounces as opposed to the 4.5 ounces in the 8-pack!! Grrrrrrrr….. I spent more on my ‘deal’. (14 cents an ounce as opposed to 11.)

Drat those evil masterminds at Wal*Mart and their unethical math wizardry. I’ll be returning my soap.

Snug as a bug

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So, Lloyd said that I had to use the “what’s weird about the living room” post yesterday so that I could show you our new rug today. Yes, there’s a new rug in the house! The youth group at church had a very nice spaghetti dinner and silent auction to raise money for their trip to the youth gathering. I bid on a rug, and won it!

This picture is overexposed.

Sidebar: I have the hiccups and it’s driving me nuts.

Ok, back to the rug story. Our old rug, which I move whenever I feel like it, has the distinction of being from a yard sale back in ’97 when we moved into this house. (It cost all of five bucks.) This rug, though – this rug is not a five-dollar rug. It is beautiful. My camera is crummy so it’s hard to tell, but it has all the same colors of our living room furniture (reds, blues, greens) but in very different hues.

In short, it does not go.

Lloyd surprised me by saying, “I like this rug so much I think we should have stuff that goes with it.”

Hmmmm….. anyone know a reputable re-upholsterer?

(I still have the hiccups.)

A full day

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We went to Lincoln rather early today – we had a full agenda of Things To Do.

First stop: A place called Eco Stores. Curt gave Lloyd a hot lead on a used Icee machine. It was only $200 and looked like it was actually in working order, but honestly – this is a dream that will have to die, much like Pop-N-Dog. Eco Stores was interesting -kind of like a thrift store for building supplies. The Icee machine was out of place among the used light fixtures, sinks, tubs, tiles and hinges.

Second stop: The Home & Garden show. We were there to glean information about windows, and one company lost my interest by their glaring spelling/grammatical error. They were showing the difference between sidings -“ours” and “theirs”. They spelled it “there’s”. *sigh* I was too chicken to point it out to the people at the booth, but not too chicken to sneak a photo.

Grrr. Stupid wrong spelling.

Third stop: The Chinese grocery store. I love this place, despite its odd odors. I scored 50 pairs of chopsticks for $2.50! Lloyd liked looking at all the different packages. (Future post fodder.)

I took this hastily - I was embarrassed to have my camera out.

Fourth stop: A late lunch.

Fifth stop: The planet Pandora. We went to see Avatar, and goofed around so we wouldn’t be there an hour early, but it turns out it was a good thing we were a half-hour early. There were two lines for our one showing! Hasn’t this movie been out forever? It was weird.

She looks so happy, doesn't she?

By the way, I’m on the watch for Avatar headache, something older people like me get from watching a 3-D movie for 3 hours. Those whippersnappers and those special effects of there’s.

Heh. See what I did their?

Heh.

Stupid toilet lever

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This is the fake opening line in case the computer freaks out again and doesn’t show it. You haven’t wasted that much time reading this, so move along.

This was supposed to be an easy post to write.

I was going to tell the amusing story about how one of my errands in Lincoln this evening was to buy some replacement toilet levers. The children flush the toilets a hundred million times a day at the center, and we go through toilet levers like toothpicks. I usually get replacements from Wal*Mart, but after tossing a few, I decided that industrial strength levers would be a wiser choice. Off to Menards I went!

I scanned their large selection, and surprisingly, they didn’t look much sturdier than what I was using. Then I saw these:

You can't handle its push-button awesomeness.

Push button. Hmmmm. They’re probably for fancy folks with their uppity toilets. I looked closer. Out loud I said, “What? This is a replacement?”

“Can I help you?” said Really, Really Young Menard’s Assistant.

“This replaces those?” I asked incredulously, gesturing at the now-worthless old-style levers.

“I guess,” said RRYMA, who really should have told his mother that he had a job at Menard’s. She’s probably worried sick.

“I’ll take them all!” And I did.

Push-button. Sheer genius! No preschooler can break off a push-button! Well, not without really, really trying. I bought enough for school and one for home. I figured I could work out the kinks of installing it here.

That’s where the story breaks down.

First of all, it needs a teeny-tiny Allen wrench and they don’t include one. That resulted in a 20-minute search of the disaster area workbench. I couldn’t find it, and asked Lloyd to come and help look.

“Where did you put it?” he asked, knowing the answer.

“Down. That’s where I always put stuff.”

No Allen wrench, but a doodad on his pocketknife worked out. However, the arm on this thing is too short and it bends the wrong way, so when I push the button, the flap comes up a little and then goes right back down. I’ve tried bending the arm somewhat, but that seems stupid. Am I supposed to hold the button in for a while to flush it? I give up for tonight.

Some fancy folks better give me uppity toilet advice or I’m going to burn my toilet.