{"id":28305,"date":"2011-01-09T11:24:01","date_gmt":"2011-01-09T19:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=28305"},"modified":"2011-01-09T11:29:43","modified_gmt":"2011-01-09T19:29:43","slug":"uggh-i-did-it-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=28305","title":{"rendered":"Uggh! I Did It Again!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many years ago, when Britney Spears<\/a> was hot, she released a hit single called “Oops, I Did It Again.”<\/p>\n

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I may not fully understand this song, but Britney makes it seem just so sexy when she makes a mistake. According to Wikipedia<\/a>: “Its accompanying music video ranks among her most famous, and began to more openly express a more sexually-provocative Britney Spears, when Spears herself was only 18 years old while in the video.” <\/p>\n

Well, when I make mistakes, nobody seems to get wet.<\/p>\n

Let me back up. This past week, my computer monitor (after ten years) and my microwave (after seven years) died.<\/p>\n

So I lugged them out to the street and hoped the trash man would take them away.<\/p>\n

No! I was reproved. That was not the way to dispose of what is called “e-waste” in Los Angeles.<\/a><\/p>\n

I needed to drop these things off at a recycling center.<\/p>\n

So I Googled and found one at 2649 E. Washington Blvd.<\/a> The flyer said it was open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.<\/p>\n

So Sunday morning I go out to my car at 8:40 a.m. I find a note. “This is never good,” I thought to myself.<\/p>\n

The note read: “Are you interested in selling your car? If so, I am interested in purchasing it. Please call me.”<\/p>\n

“Harrumph,” I thought. “I could never sell this car. I’ve put so many thousands of dollars into it. Just added a rebuilt engine for $3,500 three years ago. Just put $2,000 into it over Christmas break.”<\/p>\n

I drive nine miles east on the Ten freeway. I exit on Alameda. I go right for .2 miles and then go left on East Washington Blvd. Yahoo Maps tell me I have .9 miles to go before the recycling center but what do you know, the recycling center pops up after .3 miles.<\/p>\n

I turn in and find it is closed. It is open Mondays through Fridays from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m.<\/p>\n

“Damn information on the internet is not accurate,” I fume as I turn around and drive home, calculating how much money this fiasco is costing me.<\/p>\n

I’m home for an hour, just starting to watch the Kansas City – Baltimore football game with the sound off so I can simultaneously listen to a Dennis Prager Torah lecture on this week’s parsha when it hits me that I did not go to the right place. I did not check if the recycling center was 2649 E. Washington Blvd. In fact, I know it wasn’t. I needed to go down the road a further .6 miles east.<\/p>\n

So I get back in my car and drive .6 miles east of the recycling center to the S.A.F.E. center and turn in.<\/p>\n

A cute hispanic girl asks me for my zip code. I say “90035.” She says OK. Then this hefty black woman walks over and hauls away my junk.<\/p>\n

I drive home.<\/p>\n

I feel that I waste much of my life running around in circles. For instance, I’ll invest in a community, say a Dennis Prager community or an Orthodox Jewish community, and then I’ll blow things up for myself with some ill-considered blogging.<\/p>\n

I am often inept at real life and while this may be sexy in a teenage girl, it ain’t in a 44-year old bloke.<\/p>\n

I worked in Australia for a year after high school. I had this cool cleaning contract at the Boyne Island Shopping Center. It paid me about $14 an hour and it gave me lots of time to read on the job. Then I returned to America and between college, I worked construction for $4 an hour. I fell in love so much with my work, that I quit full-time college the fall semester of 1986, taking only two classes.<\/p>\n

On a job at Chico, I was given the assignment of driving a tractor home to Rocklin. I was told that one gas tank was almost empty but the other one was full, so I should just press the button to change the tanks.<\/p>\n

I start driving out from Chico. The truck runs out of gas. I press the button. Nothing seems to happen. I keep pressing it. Nothing happens. So I get out and walk back.<\/p>\n

These drunks pick me up. I’m scared to death. They’re drinking and driving. I get out when I can and just walk.<\/p>\n

These college kids drive by me and whoop. Chico State at this time has been named the number one party school in the nation by Playboy magazine. <\/p>\n

I’m working construction at $4 an hour. I’m still a virgin. I know I’m smart and that I should be having the time of my life at college but instead I’m trudging along the side of the road in 100 degree heat having college kids hollering at me.<\/p>\n

After about four hours, I make it back to the boss’s house. He knows what’s happened. I didn’t push the button right. We drive out to the truck and trailor. He pushes the button right and the truck starts up and there’s a full tank of gas and he calls me names and sends me on my way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many years ago, when Britney Spears was hot, she released a hit single called “Oops, I Did It Again.” I may not fully understand this song, but Britney makes it seem just so sexy when she makes a mistake. According … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[24999,24998,24995,24997,24996,2140,16707],"class_list":["post-28305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-footbal","tag-nine-miles","tag-recycling-center","tag-selling-your-car","tag-trash-man","tag-wikipedia","tag-yahoo-maps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28307,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28305\/revisions\/28307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}