The Bike Rack that wasn't

Oh good Lord! In Hind sight, this is funny. At the time though, it wasn't.

If you remember, this past spring I got a new Honda Pilot. She's my new baby. Maybe I am a little more careful with this car than any of my others. Maybe it's that she's still "new" to me.

I bought a bike rack that goes into the hitch and holds 4 bikes. It had a "sleeve" type thing so that it could fit into two different sized receivers. much like the one in the picture above. (I took that picture from www.target.com) In our case, we needed to use the sleeve, as our receiver is a 2 inch.

It worked fine the first two times we used it. Nothing fancy, fairly simple, although I wished I had bought a nicer one, it worked.

Third time out, not so much. Hubby had a hard time getting it tight in the receiver. It had a bolt that we'd tighten with each use. It was threaded within. (now we know, it was threading into plastic)

We couldn't get it tight enough that the bikes were stable, but decided the steal would have to snap before it would break, so we went on our ride. (not that this matters at any rate)

We got home, took the bikes off, and the bolt wouldn't come out.

I mean, it wouldn't come out. At all. It just kept spinning. After about 30 minutes, we decided to use the reciprocating saw and cut the "shaft" so that we could get inside of it and hopefully grab the bolt that way. I was a nervous wreck that he'd scratch my new baby's bum. Eventually the shaft was severed, and her bum was fine.

New problem. No tools will fit inside to grab the bolt. The *&^%$#)@in plastic thing is too large.

Ya know how I melt glass in a torch? I went and got one of my torches to see if we could melt the *&^)%$@#!#"{
But what if he doesn't keep the flame focused exactly in there? (What if he burns her?!!?)

I set up some flame proof barriers to protect her bum, and some sheet metal underneath to catch any molten drippings. (over kill. I know this now)

So, he lights the torch, the *&^%(#@$!/in plastic thing took like 3 minutes to melt, and then it took us a few more to get a good grip on the bolt and remove all of the pieces from my baby.

I returned the damn thing and haven't been on a bike ride since. It all seems so tainted now.

Jay Leno's back!!!!

I'm so happy! I'm not lovin the new time slot, but thrilled to have him back!!!

People are oblivious to their surroundings

Or are they just being rude? I was at Target last night. Not in any hurry. We had a few rental children for the night, and I needed some things to offer them for breakfast, and snacks for the evening.

Anyway, I was walking down the chip aisle pushing a cart. Coming towards me, but far enough away to adjust the direction we're walking, is a woman with 2 children, maybe 6 & 8 or so. She stops midway through the aisle, almost centered, and a child stops on each side of her.

She looks right at me, and says "you go pick out a bag you agree on."

So, me being me, looked right back at her, smiled and said "I'll take those Doritos right there."

Nobody moved. She looked confused at my reply, but stood still. Finally I said "Ma'am, can I walk through please?"(in my most polite and irritating voice) She didn't budge. The kids were looking at me like I had 2 heads, but I know they speak english, as she just said something!
I had to move her cart to get the chips!

Which reminds me of a story from many years ago. It still makes me smile a little inside. I'll share. Although I was the childish one in this story.....

My hubby and I were remodeling. My cousin and I went to "HQ" (home quarters?) which was eventually put out of business, and "Home Depot" came along.

We had one of those push/pull carts full of 2X4 studs. We're both female btw.

It was close to closing time, but not there yet. We walked out to the truck, followed by the cart boy. I thought "How sweet, he's going to help us load".

He stood about 10 feet from us and watched us load the studs in the truck, 1 or 2 or 3 at a time. She and I were too polite to say anything, but we were making faces at each other kind of like "What the heck?!"

When we put the last stud in there, he started to move closer to us. I looked him straight in the eye and said "Are you telling me that you followed us out here and watched us load all of this, only so you could take this cart back inside?" He just nodded.

So, being the grown up that I was at the time, (mid 20's?) I took the cart to the far corner of the parking lot, she drove behind me in the truck, and we went home. I think he deserved it.