Many have wondered…few know.

Imagine if you will…it’s your first day on the job as a clerk in the “variety” section of the local grocery store. Having only ever shopped there before, I was not completely familiar with what all we carried and where it was on the shelves. A “gentleman”, and I use that term loosely, came up to me and proceeded to rip me up one side and down the other because there was none of his beloved $1.05 toilet paper packs on the shelf. Having had a great deal of customer service experience I smile and explain that I would be happy to see if we have any stashed somewhere…We didn’t. When I told the man that we were completely out, I was belittled and berated yet again. I smiled and explained that I was sorry he felt the way he did and that I would let the lady who does the ordering for the variety side know how unhappy he was. When I did, she rolled her eyes. She was much more familiar with this “gentleman” than I was. I related the story to Brian that night, and he has referred to this guy as “$1.05 TP Man” ever since…we didn’t know his actual name…and it kind of stuck.

Fast forward many months and I am in my post as librarian. The library is attached to city hall and sometimes I am privvy to some of the goings on there. One case in particular stands out. It’s the case of a female resident coming in asking for help with a neighbor. This neighbor of her’s is making her life miserable. Bitches at her about where she parks, bitches about her dogs, you name it, he bitches about it.  I’d always felt so bad for this resident because of what this guy puts her through.

Fast forward to this week, Monday, and into City Hall walks $1.05 Toilet Paper Man. He’s pitching a fit over his neighbor…yep, you guessed it, the lady I spoke about above. Suddenly it was like the clouds parted, the sun’s rays broke through, and a choir of angels could be heard above…it all became so painfully clear.  Now I felt even worse for the lady I mentioned above! I can honestly say that if he was my neighbor some one would end up dead and it would be a crap shoot as to who it was…me or him.

But wait, it gets better. $1.05, on Tuesday, walked into the grocery store and bitched at the owner’s Mother! About how she was trying to steal from him and screw him over because she made a keystroke error when she had checked him out earlier.  Yea, we don’t have a barcode scanner, we key the amounts into the cash register manually.  The owner’s Mom, kicked $1.05′s ass out of the store! YEA!  But it didn’t last long. $1.05 called the owner and whined and complained about how he needed some place to buy his groceries, etc. And the owner caved and told him he could come back provided he doesn’t speak to the employees…just comes in, gets his stuff and leaves. I wish good ol’ $1.05 had to find some where else to shop! It would serve him right for being such a nasty individual. Oh well, what can you do?

Manscaping: verb:

A term used to define male grooming below the belt.   A male can use both an electric razor or a regular razor. A Mach 3 is preferable with the ladies on the testicular area. No female likes to deal with hairy balls, so men must education themselves on proper manscaping and maintenance techniques

This is a term I became familiar with via “Sex in the City“. It’s the male version of taking care of the “bikini area” for us females.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think Manscaping had made it to Mott, ND.  I thought it was one of the “Metrosexual” tendencies that you usually find in huge metropolitan area…I was wrong!

Not only is it in Mott, ND, it is in the locker of the Mott/Regent High School!

So ladies, guard your razors cuz you might be fighting your sons for them…ROFL!

I like National Guard weekends. It’s nice to see all those young (OK, that makes me feel old!) men around town in their uniforms…all crisp and meticulous. Military men, regardless of which uniform they are wearing, always look so sharp!  Which makes me think it’s more their attitude, the way they carry themselves, and the fact that they are willing to put their lives on the line for any/everyone more than the clothes that draws my attention.

In any event, those men in uniform are easy on the eyes and I’m going to enjoy the weekend!

One of the things that I like about working at the grocery store is greeting and helping the customers. This one particular customer, however, always looks pissed off! I would greet him with a smile and a “Hi! How are you today?” he would grumble at me and usually would find something to bitch at me about.  We are out of a particular fragrance of room freshener, or we don’t have the exact type of thread he wanted, or, my personal favorite, we were out of the $1.05 pack of toilet paper!

I honestly started dreading seeing this guy, cuz I knew I was in for a bitch-fest!  Which caused me, I’m ashamed to say, to ignore him when I saw him.  If he came up to me to ask a question I would answer, but I would do the bare minimum required to get him back on his way. I discovered when I ignored him, he pretty much left me alone.

What makes someone so crabby? Yes, he may have had a hard life, I get that…lots of people have a hard life and they manage to still have a smile or even find something to laugh about.  Is it a choice? If so, why would someone choose to be miserable? I don’t think it’s one of those things I will ever understand…but it does make me sad to see someone so unhappy!

This all goes back to the cell tower AT&T Wireless services is putting up adjacent to the property.  Way back when, about the time we moved here or maybe before, Rochell was contacted about getting an easement for Altel to drive across the back of our property. Rochell offered to lease them the property and Altel said forget it. We never heard another thing.

Fast forward to last Summer when the surveyor was here marking the property lines and he told me it was related to the cell tower going up next door.

Since then, as I’ve mentioned, Altel/AWS has been using our property every time there has been a crew over there. No one asks if they can be there…they just assume no one will mind or they think it’s part of the neighbor’s property.

Fast forward to Tuesday and I finally get a call back from the AWS guy in charge of this construction site. Tell him what my problems are, including the fact that had anyone been considerate enough to ask if they could park their vehicles this would have had a different outcome.  At this point the AWS guy, Max, goes on about how they are paying a small forture to my neighbor to lease the property for the cell site and they need to be able to have access, yada, yada, yada…I said as long as AWS stays on the property they leased it would be fine.

Yet again, today there is a truck parked in my backyard. Which instantly pisses me off. I called the Sheriff and Max to let him know that once again someone is using my backyard for a parking lot and that I was pressing charges this time because enough is enough. Then he reiterates the cost of the lease and how unreasonable I am because the ground is frozen and I can’t do anything with it right now so why not just let it go. Why indeed?

Is it too much for me to ask for some common courtesy or consideration? I wouldn’t have thought so but I’m really beginning to wonder.

I noticed after I got ready for work this morning that once again, there were construction vehicles parked in my back yard as well as cell tower parts. So I debated…and ended up picking up the phone and called the Sheriff.

I really like Sara, our Sheriff. She talked me down! LOL! She went out to the site, uniform and badge on, and told them, AGAIN that they were trespassing and that she’d talked me out pressing charges THIS TIME!

When I got to work at the library, I had the opportunity to talk to the man who actually pulled the permits for the cell tower and told him my problems. He then gave me the name, Max Thompson, of the AWS guy in charge of this construction project. I called and left him a message.

Having worked for AWS for many years, myself, I still have a few connections, and found out the name of Max’s supervisor and his number…the next cage I am going to rattle.

The beauty of the whole thing was that I stopped at the Convenience Store on the way to work and was telling my friend, Nan about how the morning had started.  There was a man in the store, who I did not recognize as a resident. He heard me telling Nan about the morning and started asking me rather pointed questions…making it obvious he was one of the workers from the cell site. He got an earful! ROFL!

Here’s the thing, dear readers, I’m really easy-going until you do me wrong…normally someone being inconsiderate wouldn’t  bother me this much…but this is on a rather grand scale.  And to think it could have all been avoided if someone, anyone, had just knocked on the door and asked, “Hey would it be OK if I parked my car on your lot?”.    Maybe these folks will learn the lesson by the time all is said and done? Nah, probably not.

We only have two cell phone providers for the rural parts of North Dakota…Verizon and the former Altel (since purchased by AT&T Wireless aka AWS).  About 18 months ago, Altel approached Rochell for an easement to put up a cell tower. My Dad taught me you don’t give away something like that, you rent or sell it. Altel disagreed with that philosophy so they got it from one of our neighbors.

So a surveyor was out and marked property lines, etc…but do you think those fucking idiots putting up the cell tower could recognize those markers? NOPE!

When they first came out to prepare that land where the tower was going up, they parked their equipment and port-a-potty in my backyard.  Now, let me just say, had they had the common decency to actually ask if putting that stuff there was OK, I would have smiled and said sure.  Since they didn’t, then I felt no compulsion to exhibit any decency myself.  Out I went to the only person working at the time and told him to get his shit off my property or face trespassing charges.

THEN, when they put in the road that leads to the cell tower site, they did it again…now you know why I find the whole marking of property lines the surveyor did was a ridiculous waste of time.  That time, I trudged out to where the workers were and said, rather loudly, “Which one of you is in charge and gets to talk to this bitch with an attitude?”. One guy, pretty sheepishly, stepped forward. He got an earful!

NOW, today, we have the semi delivery of the actual cell phone tower parts.  And again, nobody asks if they can park on my property, etc.  So out I went, in knee-high snow drifts, and whistled that high-pitch whine that I perfected at Dodger Stadium all those years ago, to get someone’s attention.  Once again, I stood toe-to-toe with someone who is incapable of understanding property line markers, and gave him half an hour to get his shit off my property or I would press tresspassing charges.

Un-freakin=believable!!!  To bad I live in the city limits,  cuz I could see myself standing on the back porch sending a shotgun blast in the air to get their attention. I bet they would have gotten that stuff off my property a lot faster then! DUMB ASSES!

During our phone conversation I mentioned it was snowing. Where he is at, in Seattle, snow isn’t as common an occurance as one might think. I told him it had started snowing before I got off work on Saturday and it was continuing through Sunday. I had been hoping the snow plows would come by before I had to leave for work on Monday cuz I HATE getting stuck in a drift!

So Porter says to me, “What’s the coldest you’ve experienced since moving to North Dakota?”

I said, “One morning last winter, I went out to start the car and the temp the car registered was -35. My car won’t start when it’s beyond -20. David and I didn’t think it was that bad, so we decided to try walking to school….BIG MISTAKE! We only made it to the end of the block when we decided to go home and skip school that day.”

Porter’s response…”minus 35?!?! HOLY SHIT THAT’S COLD”.

Porter shared the coldest he’d experienced was New Years in Providence and that was 10 degrees. HA! That’s short-sleeve weather here! (Not really, but don’t tell him!)

Today when I went to start the car it was -5 with a forecast of -10 to -15 for the rest of the week.   I think Porter is right, my blood has thickened and I’m dealing with it much better than I would have thought. But then I was the one in Vegas running around in shorts in the winter…not here though. LOL

So on the way, here, to the library. I stopped at the “C” store (C as in convenience or Cenex, can’t remember which), to get my morning Mocha. I park the car, get out, and head towards the door.  I notice that next to me is an out-of-state vehicle and assume it was a hunter’s vehicle.  I was right…I passed a guy in hunter garb and saw him get in the car. Then I passed another, older gentleman that had apparently bathed in Drakkar Noir this morning. As I took a second to recover from the toxic cloud of cologne, I notice that Mr. Drakkar got into the car with the hunter.  I did manage to hold it together until I got in the store, where upon I lost it to a fit of giggles.

BAMBI IS SAFE FOR TODAY…cuz he could smell that group of hunters from a mile off. Ahh…the joys and laughs of visiting hunters!