Striking a hoard

Two possibly relevant pieces of information before we begin our story:

• The expected high today where I live is 43 degrees.
• I am really, really not into hickeys. Don't want to give them, don't want to receive them, never have, for reasons probably both good and less-good. We'll plumb those depths another time.

Now that that's out of the way...

Last night, I was just sitting around, watching Hoarders, maybe a little judgmentally, like everyone who watches Hoarders.

And then, it was time for bed.

So I got up and immediately tripped on a pile of clutter in my own home (because hubris. Or karma. Or both.).

Fortunately, I did not break my laptop, which I was holding at the time.

But I did land both painfully and awkwardly, collarbone first, on the railing to my treadmill.

All of which is to say, thank goodness that it is appropriate to wear this turtleneck (technically, cowlneck), because bruisey:

Another True Story, Just More Disgusting than Adventurous

About 20 years ago, I decided to (mostly) stop drinking sugared drinks. No more regular soda for me, or juices with a bunch of sugar added — all diet soda, all the time.

About 15 years ago, I stopped drinking coffee (mostly iced) because it was wreaking havoc on my guts.

About three years ago, I decided it was time to quit artificial sweeteners. I was drinking sugar again. I kept drinking soda (only one a day) (but it was an enormous one), just the kind with sugar (usually high fructose corn syrup) (but real sugar when available). I have not had any artificial sweeteners since.

About six weeks ago, I decided to see how long I could go without regular soda. There was no big blanket "never again!" this time, just an awareness of how much sugar is in a high-fructose-corn-syrup-laden enormous soda. I can't avoid all HFCS, but I can avoid one giant dose of it. I switched to un-pre-sweetened iced tea immediately for my caffeine fix. And even as much as I like sweets, I'm never going to add as much sugar to a glass of iced tea as is already in a soda, for two reasons:

• embarrassment, and 
• solubility.

That's been going great. I can even procure my iced tea from the same location I was procuring my soda, for nearly the same very low price.

Until, SIGH, I had reason to send this letter to the customer complaints address of a certain convenience store chain this morning:

I regularly visit both the [my town] store and the [RI's town] store.

A few weeks ago, I went to buy an iced tea in [my town], only to find a long, mucouslike glob (of mold, I assume) dripping from the spout. There was a store employee cleaning nearby, who saw me react, and immediately agreed that it was unacceptable, poured out the full urn of tea, reassured me that they do clean the urns frequently and that he would reclean that one, and offerred me a free fountain soda, coffee, or hot tea. I was completely satisfied with his reaction, and have returned to that store several times since then, though I haven't been able to stomach the thought of getting iced tea there again.

Saturday morning (4/19) at about 10:30, I stopped in [RI's town] for an iced tea. There were no visible issues, but after I left the store, I discovered the iced tea tasted rotten. It was undrinkable, and I poured it out (but did not complain, because I'd left the store, and essentially forgot about it). I have had [store's] iced tea often in the past with no taste issues.

This morning, at about 5:45, I stopped into the [RI's town] store for an iced tea again, and was startled to find what looked like a dried-up version of what I'd seen in [my town],  again, coming from the iced-tea spout in a long thread. Again, there was an employee in the area cleaning. I pointed it out to him, and he was dismissive, and just picked the crud off the nozzle. I left the store without buying anything, and will certainly think twice about buying anything prepared at that location again.

To have the same experience in two stores in such a short period of time suggests to me that the cleaning process for those urns (or maybe the design of the urns themselves) is problematic. I hope you'll work with your stores to find a solution, and I hope you'll let me know when you do, because I'll miss having such a convenient, inexpensive option — but I'm not likely to buy iced tea at any [store] location unless I know the problems have been rectified.

Thank you for your attention.

It is now about 8 hours later, and there's been no response from the store, and I still feel as sick to my stomach as I did first thing this morning. Gross.

A True Story That Really Happened (mild cursing because I am that cool)

Sorry for my, er, inadvertent vacation from blogging, and for my abrupt and inexplicable return.

BUT.

THIS HAPPENED.

Last night, I was in Bennington, Vermont.

There are not a lot of places to buy gas between Bennington and West Brattleboro on Route 9 (about a 40-mile stretch). There are enough places that I should not have been in danger, but I am also an idiot, and that is relevant.

So I was extremely low on gas. And when I was about 5 miles from the next gas station (according to my gps) — my car stopped. I tried to start it again a few times, with no luck. Which was unfortunate and inconvenient, but, whatever, I thought. It wasn't too horribly late at night, and I have a number of friends who live, say, 6 or 7 miles from where I was stopped."I'll text people. One of them will be around, and they'll come bring me gas, and it'll be fine."

So I wrote said text.

And hit send.

And... no service. Not even enough to send a text. So, that's no good.

But, you know. I was on the downhill side of a mountain.

I decided maybe, if I put the car in neutral, I could roll forward enough to get a little cell service and then the text would send itself. It did not seem to me to be the smartest idea I'd ever had, but it did seem smarter than hitchhiking in the dark with no one knowing where I was.

So I put on the hazard lights and I tried it.

And I rolled (without power steering, because the car's not on, or power brakes, because ditto). And I rolled. And I rolled. I rolled, in fact, for about three miles and only stopped because someone was behind me and it made me nervous.

Sadly, the place I could pull over was flat enough that I couldn't just continue to roll in neutral from a stop.

By then, the text had actually sent. But also, by then, the last fumes of gas were willing to cooperate a little better and so I managed to start the car and drive the last little bit to the gas station across from the other gas station in West Brattleboro, at which I filled the tank and texted my friends back that I was OK.

From there, I drove home and got on Facebook and sent a very similar version of that story to the one above to the two friends I'd attempted to text.

They were, understandably, very impressed with, I think, mostly my storytelling but also my badassery.

I allowed as how, as it was happening, I kept alternating between thinking, "[Our friend who is also a mechanic and a daredevil, previously called Special Guest Star on this very blog] will think I'm such a badass!" and "There's probably some reason this is terrible for my car, and he's going to give me hell about it."

So, naturally, I checked.

In case you were wondering, he responded thus: "You are, indeed, a badass. ... not likely to be bad for your car. Rolling in neutral isn't the best for an automatic transmission, but that's normally a problem when you're towing a car long distances or something. Brakes and steering, as you noted, lose their assist, but if you press super hard on the pedal you can still stop pretty quickly. So I hope you were at the ready with both feet."

I was indeed.