VANDALS!


More homeowner hell! Look what some lowlife crazy person did! Click to embiggen!

I got a little bag of big wooden beads at a tag sale for a quarter. They oughta come in handy for something, right? Hey, I know! I'll take some string, and I'll wrap it around this old ladder in a pretty zig-zag pattern, and I'll construct it in such a way that each span of string has two big wooden beads on it, and the morning glory vines will grow up the string, and won't that be just the neatest thing!

Along comes some lunatic one day while I'm at work, cuts the string, steals two beads, and RUINS EVERYTHING! Yet another TRUE STORY! And I live out in the middle of rural nowhere! It's not like this ladder is sitting in front of a flop house in Hell's Kitchen. WTF? Did the UPS man steal my beads? Did little children escape with mommy's scissors and go on a rampage?

I know it was cut and not broken by a bear, because the string had a perfectly clean cut. It was done with a knife or scissors.

Amazing! This happened a couple of days ago. I've been so baffled by the thing I just walk by it and wonder if I'm dreaming! At some point I will have to do something to repair it while still maintaining its feng shui. Another thing on that damn To-Do List!

I know, I know. In the time it took me to take this picture and type this post, I could have drawn a little drawing in my sketchbook. But dammit, I really wanted to whine about this confounded bead burglar.

12 comments:

Jed Alexander said...

I've got one of these pizza burns on the roof of my mouth. This is like, my 3rd day of excruciating pizza burn, every time some other type food makes contact with the roof of my mouth. It's not like I can put bactine on the roof of my mouth, and it's not like a serious burn as in one that will cause scarring, it's just one of these annoying and persistant pizza burns. I thought, since you don't have anything better to do, you might come up with a sollution for my pizza burn, Mark. Something soothing. I've already tried ice cubes and popsicles, so it has to be something more original than that. It's really been bothering me.

Mark Martin said...

Please don't tell me you are one of those people who don't like pure honey. Because that is totally what you need. It's soothing and it's totally healthy. This is not a joke: Get one of those little plastic bottles of honey and just suck it right out of the spout. I'm serious. Messing with spoons is annoying and messy, and there is also the unconscious sucking reflex that makes you want to suck the spoon clean, and the metal (or even the plastic) can aggravate that sore spot.

I have done this. Be secure enough in your manhood to suck that bottle like a baby bottle. It is the BEST treatment for pizza burn, awful "pill taste" in the back of your throat, and similar ailments.

Jed Alexander said...

An excellent suggestion!

However, it's not that I don't LIKE the TASTE of pure honey, nor do I hesitate to suck on that honeybear like it were a delicious teat, it's just the effect that that concentration of pure honey has on my blood sugar that I can't handle. It's the weakness and the headaches. Trust me. I even gave it a go, but was forced to counteract the inevitable consequences with a healthy dose of protein. I made it just in time, but it's something I don't intend to repeat soon. My system simply cannot tollerate it.

I view this in a similar way to how I view fasting: I can't fathom how others can go without protein for more than a few hours without disolving into a pitiful mound of worthless cranky goo. Goo, with a gut pounding headache. A spoonful of sugar fails to help the medicine go down, but to me, seems insteand to be the cause for more medicine. Preferably vicadin.

Though I value your thoughtful and promptly delivered and surely effective (for some) home remedy, I think I'm just gonna have to grin and bear this one out.

Anonymous said...

Hey Jed!
I got a roof-burned palette two nights ago on some delicious grits I cooked for dinner! (I cook them in chicken broth and press about 4 cloves of garlic in the water before it boils, by the way).

I HATE THOSE BURNS!
And you're right. It takes about three days of constant awareness of the injury, and I can't quit rubbing my tongue on it.

I am glad to hear about Pumpie's remedy.
I like me some protein, but I like me some sugar, too!

Anonymous said...

And the bead burglar?
That would send me over the edge. WHY? Oh WHY would anyone do that? WHY just two beads? WHY not ALL the beads? Was it just to mess up your "sand castle" so to speak?

I don't get it, and I know it's making you cukoo!

Please solve the case.

SRBissette said...

This calls for Nancy Drew!

Did Nancy draw, too?

Jed Alexander said...

Thanks for your commiseration, Benny. My burn was actually from a calzone but I thought the generic "pizza burn" was a more appropriate expedient. "Calzone burn" doesn't quite say it like "pizza burn" which too is what I'd call your "grits burn" even though pizza was not involved. Pizza burn" may, perhaps, even be the medical term, or if not, should be.

Jed Alexander said...

Oh yes, the beads. How dare they!

My guess is a child of some sort, covetting your beads for his/her collection of geegaws. An entirely impulsive act! An adult thief would most certainly abscond with ALL the beads for whatever nefarious purpose!

I remember as a boy, frequently pilfering my neighbors quartz driveway gravel. I could easily see my boyhood self, eyeing those beads, imagining their beady smoothness and admiring their shiney lacquered surface, and NEEDING to have those beads at all cost! Afterall, who would miss those beads. I would only take one or two.

So you can most definitely figure on an imaginative child with a sense of aesthetics so developed that it rivals their sense of morality. I'm thinking a future Julian Schnabel!

Like a mother bird who weaves her nest only out of the most colorful of scavenged fibers, This bead theft could be their first heineous act in a veritable spree of criminally inconsiderate knick knackery!

Somewhere, someday, a closet door will be openned and a tumult of beads, fancy ribbons, pottery shards, bicycle horns and other notions will spew forth and rain upon whoever has the misfortune to come upon it. But lo! This is but the cusp! Hardly rivaling the ever growing collection that has acreted under the bed, and bursts from underneath the floorboards!

See what you've started, Mark!

Anonymous said...

Sorry, Mark, I just needed a few wooden beads and it looked like you had plenty. Hope you don't mind.

Unknown said...

If you did your homework on alien abduction, it would be obvious to you it's an indication that you have recently had an encounter. You should see yourself as fortunate that they only have taken your decorative beads, in most cases they'll steal your fetus. Have you checked your uterus lately? Uh, wait that's what they do to females. Well regardless aliens are supposed to be mischievous little creatures (hence anal probing. Do you need more proof?) So if they can steal a few beads and drive you crazy in the process, it's probably worth their while (they are not bound to our space/time continuum).
May I suggest that you visit this fine site? http://www.stopabductions.com/ Please, while abduction experiences may make you think you are particularly special or unique, don't, nearly four million, if not more, Americans have already had the experience and having that experience is no longer chic, it went out with the 90s. So get a clue Mr. Martin, if you want to stand out from the rest of the crowd, say "NO!" to alien abduction....

Anonymous said...

Pizza Burn, beware:
http://www.laclede.com/products/oralBalance.asp

Anonymous said...

Oh, and your beads...temporal shift.
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Temporal_shift