LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

Lauren

Out with the Old

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When Brad was still here, he, Lauren and I made a quick trip into Lincoln to… Um… I’m not exactly sure why we went into Lincoln, but I used it as an excuse to look at dishwashers. Lauren was strangely unexcited about the prospect of a new dishwasher.

Lauren views dishwashers as a way to get dishes clean. She has absolutely no sense of the truth and beauty that comes from a properly loaded dishwasher.

The dishwasher that came with our house must have been about 15 years old, and either dishes had changed in that time, or our dish use never coincided with the Average American Dishware that the people who design dishwashers used when designing dishwashers.

At any rate, loading the dishwasher properly was a passion of mine that Lauren just couldn’t get on board with. Not that I ever failed to blame her for that. Anyway, to make a long story pretty much the same length, I was dissatisfied with our dishwasher because of my inability to (a) solve the loading equation and (b) convince Lauren that my solution to the loading equation was better than her solution.  And Lauren was dissatisfied with our dishwasher because it would occasionally smell funny and need to have some bleach run through it.

Before we went to Lincoln I looked through a leading consumer magazine for likely brands and models. When I had it down to a few, I went to Sears.com (where America and I shop) and printed off the comparison of those models. Looking through roughly 6 pages of data, I came up with the following qualifications for our new dishwasher:

  • Adjustable racks so as to fit largish pots and pans
  • A fairly quick wash cycle
  • Lots of different cycles for all of our dish washing needs
  • Built in heating element so we didn’t have to set the water heater higher
  • Food disposal, so I didn’t have to forget to empty the filter
  • Power scrubbers, because who wouldn’t want those
  • A quiet wash cycle, because our downstairs is basically one big room

This was Lauren’s list of qualifications for our new dishwasher:

  • Does not smell funny

Our plan was to go to Home Depot, Schaeffer’s, Best Buy and Sears. We’d go in that order because (a) that’s the order that they come in and (b) We’ve purchased all of our major appliances for Sears since Circuit City (a) became a desolate crap hole of terrible customer service and (b) went out of business. [I do hereby solemnly swear that I will not use “(a) … (b) …” for the next week and a half.]

Well, that was the plan. But once we got to Schaeffer’s our salesman was so knowledgeable and helpful and not at all pushy or rushed that we just bought it from him. We got the Whirlpool GU3200XTX, but we didn’t have the truck with us, so we made arrangements to drop the old dishwasher off and pick up the new one next week.

Surprisingly enough it doesn’t have:

  • Adjustable racks so as to fit largish pots and pans, because Lauren said that we wouldn’t ever take the time to adjust the racks anyway.
  • A fairly quick wash cycle, because Lauren said that we have never sat around and waited for the dishwasher to get done.
  • Lots of different cycles for all of our dish washing needs, because Lauren said that we only use two cycles on our dishwasher anyway: rinse and normal wash.
  • Power scrubbers, because Lauren said that we’d do what we currently do when dishes don’t get clean –leave them in the dish washer.
  • A quiet wash cycle, because Lauren said that our current dishwasher was just about as loud as you could get, and everything these days was quieter (and also took about an hour longer to wash than our old dishwasher).

Out with that old thing.

 
Not surprisingly, it does not smell funny.

Mystery #17

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There’s a knoll in Lincoln in a residential neighborhood that doesn’t have anything on it. Lauren and I drive past it a few times a year, and last time we weren’t in any sort of a hurry, so we took some side streets in an attempt to see what was on the other side and why there wasn’t anything on it.

We drove all the way around and didn’t find out anything. Lots of houses had their back yard to the hill, but we couldn’t see any reason for the grassy knoll. We stopped a promising spot and walked up to the top. The trip up just kept getting stranger…

We followed that driveway out to the road, and this residential looking house is on the street. But there are no rooms in the house. Just large machines.

Uncle David’s and Aunt Ruth’s

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Lauren’s brother Mark told us over the weekend that they were in the middle of a 13 or 17 or some prime number anyway cycle of cicadas (which is surprisingly easy to spell). My initial reaction was, “Really, this is suppose to be impressive? I was there for the tail end of the Baltimore Great Cicada uprising of 2004, and this is nothing.” But I’m not the kind of guy to tell someone that his plague of locusts isn’t as bad as another plague of locusts that I saw, so I just smiled and nodded.

He did mention that they were much worse at Aunt Ruth and Uncle David’s (or is it “Aunt Ruth’s and Uncle David’s”) house. Boy howdy was it.

We had a nice visit with Aunt Ruth and Uncle David after we went back inside where we could hear them.

My magic eyes.

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I went to the eye doctor last weekend because it’s getting so difficult to see things up close, I was sure that it was time for bifocals. I should have checked this website, because I see that I’ve gone before for the same thing, and it’s that my eyes are getting better. My glasses are too strong for my self-healing eyes, so they over-correct for things up close.

It’s interesting comparing the numbers on that screen above to my final prescription. Apparently the machines they run you through during the pre-doctor rigmarole do a quick diagnosis, and it’s fairly actuate. My left eye is -4.00 both times and my right is -3.00 pre-test; -3.25 post-cute-doctor.

I was by myself for the appointment, so I didn’t look at glasses afterward. Listen up, Lenscrafters, ’cause Lloyd’s got an idea: You need to install some iPads in your store. Prospective buyers can stand on one side and have their picture taken with various new frames, then stand on the other side and review those photos while wearing their own glasses so they can see what they look like. That’s a money maker right there, and he’ll settle for 40%.

Dr. Johnson was positively flirtatious about my retinas.

‘Bye, blood.

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I went to our little town’s health fair this morning. It’s an annual event, and occasionally in the past I’d take the preschoolers for a field trip, but this time it was all about me.

My friend Kate told me about their blood testing – it’s pretty cheap at $35 and they test for a wide array of things. The testing was from 5:30 am until 1:30 pm Since I have to be at work at 6:45, I went right at 5:30 and thought I’d be the first in line.

HA!

There were TONS of people there! The lines were fairly long but the blood drawing was super-efficient. I’d say they had 16-20 vampires phlebotomists working at one time. They set up at tables – two ‘customers’ to each end.

You’re supposed to fast for 8 hours beforehand and also drink plenty of water. I tried hard to remember to skip the breakfast part of my getting-ready routine, but I forgot to drink any water. I remembered as soon as the needle went in because I was so thirsty. I worried that the nurse would be pulling sludge from my dehydrated veins, but it all went well.

All this paper for two little vials of blood.

After it was done I stopped at the bakery to get some donuts and headed back home.

Mmmmm…..donuts…… Thumbs up for health!

Oh Walmart, why must you torment me so?

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So, we were shopping in the Wal*marts and we sort of keep an eye out for things that look strange. You might recall that it’s especially annoying to Lloyd when multi-packs of things cost more than they cost singly.

The last time we were shopping he took this picture:

I believe the quote was, “Yeah, that’s how much a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi used to cost… in prison.”