The Package Shows Up and The Amateur's Dark Past

The missing package showed up Monday with no real answers to the conundrum of its recent whereabouts. See that mark by "Express Plus"? That was me. See that mark by "Standard"? I don't remember doing that. Now, I'm not denying the possibility of a psychotic lapse in judgment or momentary black-out, and I admit that I don't have the best of memories and I've found myself doing stupid stuff occasionally that I don't remember (especially since the appearance of Rain eight years ago), but I don't think I made that X next to "Standard" and I certainly wouldn't have done such a sloppy job of it. But who did? Maybe the person sending it to us. Maybe the store where he dropped it off for shipment. Maybe the UPS driver didn't see my X and thought it should go ground? The only thing I'm confident of is I'm going to hold tight to the lessons learned and let the rest fall behind. The deal closed on time. Signatures were sent and received. My boss did not kill me.

So, in the interest of moving on, I thought I would share a story that The Amateur (who's not really an amateur now since he got a job at a real shop) related to us the other night. He doesn't always have the best of luck (do you remember the story about his snapping off the door of a vehicle because he forgot to close the door before he backed it out of a garage?). It turns out that he has some history with the law. And with his luck being as it is, a good plan can turn south really quickly. For this story, his lawyer worked really hard to negotiate down his jail sentence to only a week. He knew beforehand which week he was going to the pokey so he simply took a week off work, told them he was going way out of town and wouldn't be available at all, and they all wished him a happy vacation.

Then the paper publishes the mug shots of the people going to jail and his job sees his happy mug staring at the camera (well, I'm sure he didn't actually smile for his mug shot but he did feel some measure of satisfaction in maneuvering to keep his jail time secret). Needless to say (given his luck), his job sees his mug and they fire him, which sucked. I feel bad for the guy. He did his time and still got fired.

This week we're continuing our discussion on starter motors and then have a mid-term exam Thursday night. Wish me luck! We're also getting a new roof on Thursday. Busy day!