Knock Knock Knock

As if I don’t have enough on my plate, I walked into the bedroom yesterday afternoon to switch outfits after having run errands and …………… so much on my plate that I’ve been incorrectly referring to Twin 2 as the daughter who is estranged from her adult children.

Twin 2 has no children — she devoted her energies to helping me step in for her twin’s kids when their mom (Twin 1) was in her prodigal experience ……………… not financially and/or emotional there for the kids.

It's Twin 1 whose heart is breaking at not being able to turn back time, make amends for bad parenting choices.

She’s given the moniker Twin 1 because she came out of the womb first, five minutes ahead of her sister, Twin 2.

I’ve made what corrections I could find to recent posts misidentifying which twin is which, but no surprise I misidentified the twins as I’ve been walking around like a zombie last few days with the family’s dramarama clogging my brain (thanks for that word Karen), but as I was saying ……………… I walked into the bedroom yesterday afternoon to switch outfits after having run errands when, through the bedroom window I spied the Talker’s disabled brother sitting on the bench outside, along with two fit looking guys.

Oh! Oh!, thought I. That looks like my Little Stalker’s uncles and if they’re here on the premises, then she is as well.

Sure enough, there was a knock knock knock on the door shortly after.

Little Stalker said she’d not been around because of school, but that she’ll be visiting me again soon with another bear to babysit.

No way José, I said to myself. Another bear would be her manipulating me into creating another book — like the one I made back in 2023 when she dumped a bear on me.

I told her I can’t handle babysitting duties right now that, if she left another bear, I’d have to charge her for babysitting, and I hurried her away with a bag of See’s chocolate eggs.

My last visit to See’s, just before Easter, the clerk had tossed a handful of those eggs in my bag. Knowing eventually Little Stalker would resurface, I’d saved them in the freezer for her.

Little Stalker’s grandma has an upstairs unit; consequently, is one of the few residents who can climb stairs, get to my unit, so she was standing there with Little Stalker when I begged off babysitting another bear.

Hopefully, grandma understood the message and will hold Little Stalker back from burdening me with another.

Earlier that morning, I ran out of a needlepoint floss color and had to make a run to the craft store.

Checking out, the cashier asked, "Would you be interested in signing up for a credit card?"

"No thanks".

"You can save x number of dollars on today’s purchase".

"No thanks".

Then she tried to interest me in a Rewards program and some other something.

"No thanks, No thanks, No thanks".

I know she was only doing what her supervisor asked her to do ………… push these things onto customers, but how many times can one say "No thanks" before going off?

Fortunately, I maintained, was polite and firm with my no's, even though she was making a pest of herself and made me forget to use my coupons.

Since I was in the area of the Tire Place, I popped in to get the tire pressure checked, where the kid on the air station also tried to play me the fool.

I’m sure he’d too had been told to do so by his supervisors …………… If a woman comes in, take advantage of her, turn the free air service into her paying for other services, because he told me I needed to replace the back wiper blade ($20) and have the lug nuts replaced ($80).

Bullcrap, thought I.

I’d just last week taken the car into the dealership for its annual multi-point inspection, and the invoice made no mention of needing a back wiper blade and lug nuts replaced.

So, either the kid at the tire place is fibbing or the dealership is fibbing, or both are lying.

I purchased the Jeep in 2018, have logged in only 15,500 miles. So with so little driving, and definitely not overusing the wiper blades because I don’t drive in the rain, I seriously doubt the blades or lug nuts need changing out; consequently, the tire place is jerking my chain.

On the other hand, because the Jeep came with the last Lifetime Warranty Jeep offered on parts and labor, it is within the realms of possibility the dealership doesn’t want to bother with services for which they will not be able to charge me, so made no mention of either.

Can’t trust anybody anywhere these days, so I googled and learned "Depending on the type of vehicle it is and the age, the lug nuts may need to be replaced anywhere between five and 15 years; As a good rule of thumb, a vehicle's wiper blades will last six to 9 months".

I might pop into the dealership, get the blades changed, but I’m not worried about the lug nuts and wish folks would realize I may be of the elder generation, but that doesn’t mean I’m gullible, and they can run any old game on me.