Sunday, December 28, 2008

Morning in the Rest Area

I went out this morning again, was at the rest area by 5:00 a.m. I almost immediately hear a screech out in the brush. I was at the restrooms and thought "Oh my gosh, the cat just was killed by something." I am about to go out into the brush, and I see there's some young guy wandering around way back in the brush. It's totally dark. I decided not to back there.

I shine a light back and see him, or his shadow, because he was way back. He dodges into the darkness behind a tree. He finally comes out, to his truck. I intercept. I said "I'm looking for a lost cat. Did hear that screech back in there?"

He's smoking a joint and paranoid as hell. He finally says "I don't hear nothing. I don't see nothing," gets in his truck and drives off.

Worried about the cat, I head out into the dark brush. I see what made the screech. Someone put a camoflauge painted cat house out there. It's crude and dangerous to cats, having only one entrance too small for most cats. But it is upended and on its side. Bet that guy ran into it, in the dark.

Then, I see something else I wasn't expecting--an entirely different cat, a gray tabby tux with a pink nose. I couldn't believe it. The cat vanished almost before my eyes.

I never saw the Siamese.

I did see scores of very lousy dog owners, pitbulls running loose, people leaning against the "no dogs" area sign, while their dogs took a shit. Dogs peeing against the legs of the picnic tables in the "no pets allowed" area. Dogs shitting everywhere, and 95% of them were shitting in the No Pets Allowed picnic area, totally ignoring the signs directing them to the dog shitting allowed area.

I came to the conclusion dog owners don't give a shit about much of anything. I wish I'd had a camera, because it was very interesting and sometimes very funny to watch the blatant disregard for rules exhibited by these people.
I also decided I'd never again sit on the grass in the a public park where dogs are allowed, or eat from a picnic table without spraying it down with disinfectant.

The ODOT trash crew man kind of laughed about it, said his superiors told him they can't say a word to anyone about anything. He said once he walked up to a man and asked him if he'd like it if someone took a piss on his kitchen table. He said the sad part is kids will play on the grass of that picnic area, rolling around and picking balls they drop. There is dog shit everywhere.

I saw only one man pick up his dog's shit afterwards. Many dog owners would look around, to see if anyone was watching before taking their dog into the picnic area to shit or letting them off leash to run wild.

I talked to a woman. She is a lost soul for sure, traveling the country trying to find a place to live, she says, that isn't toxic to her. She claims its the molds, and that she is sensitive to just certain mold, makes her cough up mucous. She said she's tried to live almost everywhere in the country and now is heading to Walla Walla to try to live there. It was a couple. The man looked tired and unhappy. The mini truck was packed in junk and trash. Life on the road.

I went to Home Depot about the dryer. An employee named Damon told me that's exactly what I could expect, that the bearings would go out, on a low end product like that. I said "It cost $250 and lasted less than two years. You call that low end? Then why do you sell that crap? Don't you care about your customers?"

Damon went on to tell me that I should have bought a high end good quality dryer. I said "My brother bought it here. So you're telling me you're selling no good products here?" He went on to say, "Cars break down and you expect that. You should expect a cheap dryer to break down." I said "If I bought a car new, I would not expect it to break down, fatally, in under two years. And nobody should pay $250 for a dryer and expect it to last less than two years. That's like robbing people."

I got nowhere with him and or anybody else there. I did tell them if they are going to consider it a normal occurance for their dryers to fry in under two years, they're crapping on their customers. And that's very true. That's crap.

I don't know what to do about the dryer problem. I'm still hanging up things all over the place to dry. I don't have time to go to laundrymats. I do tons of laundry here, with all the cats. A guy had said he'd stop by to look at it even before Christmas. He never did and I never heard from him again.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Dashing

 Got a message this morning.  Was I even really awake yet?   The weather has been really winterish, with winds, pouring rain, cold, even thu...