The Hood

That title is appropriate for two reasons. The first: this update involves life in my neighborhood. The second: we just bought a second car. Cars have hoods. So I'm both using slang and a term for a part of a car, which is why that title is appropriate for this post.

Also, I like explaining jokes into ruin.

So, the 'hood is still fun to live in. We're adjusting to life in our new home and around our new neighbors. No real updates on Assface The Swearing Neighbor, but that's probably for the better.

One new update is that Amy and I have started playing basketball fairly frequently on the court in the park at the end of our street. And by "playing basketball" I mean "playing PIG or HORSE." And by "on the court" I mean "on the glass-encrusted court." Seriously, this basketball court looks like someone had a Let's Break 10,000 Bottles! party on it every day since the dawn of time.

When Amy and I first showed up, it was shocking. We kicked the bigger pieces out of the way and hoped the ball could survive the rest. We also altered our game to be SHARDS instead of PIG or HORSE. It seemed more appropriate (like the title of this thread, have I mentioned that?).

We also think the name of the court should be Shards Memorial Basketball Court.

The first night we played SHARDS it was just us. Not too many people were out in that park on a warm summer evening. Then we played last Friday and Saturday night. As soon as we stepped onto the court with a basketball, three or four kids immediately appeared up against the fence asking if they could play with us. And so we've been learning the names of the kids that live near us since they enjoy playing with us.

They range in age from six to about 13 or 14, and boy do they have foul mouths on them. The ones on the court weren't too bad around us - maybe they were afraid the "adults" would scold them. But that didn't stop the ones on the swingset near us. Even the six-year-old was yelling things like, "F*ck you, bitches!" to his friends to make them laugh. Nice. And then one of the teens we played with pulled a knife out once or twice while on the court. Not at us, but just to show his friend and make vague, non-serious threats. That was fantastic.

In any case, most of the kids are polite with us (even Knifey McKniferson), at least. Maybe it's because they don't know how to read us yet. Maybe they view us as cool older people who are not their parents. I don't know, but they don't try to steal the ball from us or kick us off the court, which is nice. I think they like that we let them play. Honestly, I was telling Amy, I think they just want to play. I think if I bought three or four extra basketballs and just handed them out while I was playing, I could start up my own Youth Club because it'd be something for them to do besides hanging out being mischievious, pulling knives and yelling obscenities.

Amy was teaching this one young gal (maybe 10 years old) how to bank a basketball more correctly, and the gal really took to it. It seems like these kids don't have people taking much interest in their lives. I could be wrong, but just by watching how they react when we show interest in them and let them play ball with us - they seem to act more like kids having fun instead of crazies pulling knives on each other.

Speaking of that young gal (the 10-year-old), when she started playing with us she told us a great story. She paused in between shots to say, "My future husband went to jail last night."

"Oh really?" I responded. "How old is your future husband - and what did he do?"

"He's 19. And it wasn't his fault."

"Does he know he's your future husband?"

"Oh yes," she said. "I told him. But he shouldn't be in jail, they mistook him for another guy."

Mm hmm. Ah, life in the city for young people.

So, beyond SHARDS (which we cleaned up by the way - I took a broom down to the court the second time we went and cleaned off half of the court so we could play without injuring ourselves), Amy and I just bought our second car.

The whole time we've been together we've existed with one car, my trusty little '95 Saturn SC2. That worked fine in Boston when we relied on public transit. Once we moved down here two years ago, we got lucky because the apartment complex we lived in was within walking distance of both our jobs.

Now that we're farther away from our jobs, a second car was really needed. We looked for a while and had a hard time finding anything in our price range, then we stumbled into a Chevy dealership and found our gold. A 1998 Buick Century. Seriously. We had no idea something like that would be in our price range, but it was. And it had low mileage, only one previous owner and was in good shape.

So we bought it. As you may know, just the mere thought of Buicks brings to mind images of old people. This purchase instantly made us 65-years-old. I mean, look at that car. It screams, "I'm beyond retirement, i drive 25mph in a 65mph zone, now get off my lawn, you young punks!"

We brought it home Friday night and Amy took it out Saturday to drive up to Delaware. When she returned....the "Check Engine" light was on. *sigh*

And so we're taking it back tonight to make those crazies fix it. Thank God for those "30 days/1,000 miles we'll fix it all" warranties one can get. I'm hoping the fix is nothing too major. Such is life.

Oh, and possible names for this car include Matlock, Dorothy, Blanche, Rose, Sophia, Angela Lansbury, Madge, and MacGuyver.

Also, let me take this time to diverge from my blog post title (which was appropriate up until now, don't you think? Did I mention that?) and talk about the stupidity that is Bath Fitter. You know, Bath Fitter. The ones who come into your bathroom and install a whole new tub/shower unit over your old one. Because you're too lazy to just redo the entire bathroom.

Okay, I'm not ripping on those who get a Bathfitter unit, it's probably much cheaper than redoing the whole bathroom. And they look pretty nice.

Our house has a Bath Fitter unit. I was fine with that, it looked nice. Then more than a week ago I heard the tub squishing beneath my feet. Sounds like there's water between the two tubs. Fantastic. I look up the local Bath Fitter and noticed that their website said "And all of our products are backed by our Lifetime Warranty."

I called them and they proceeded to tell me that Lifetime Guarantees don't transfer, and that this unit was installed only two years ago. First of all, What. The. Hell. Lifetime warranties don't transfer? It's a frickin' bathtub and shower stall. Who takes that with them when they move? So now the current owners of the product are screwed because they didn't travel back in time to purchase the house themselves before installing Bath Fitter? What a stupid business model. (help me, I'm beginning to sound like my brother)

I argued with them, but to no avail. I wrote a letter to their corporate office. They want to charge me $60/hour to fix this problem when I've only lived in the house for 2 weeks? And, you know, I could understand if the unit was installed years and years ago - maybe that wouldn't qualify for free repair. But come on - it's only two years old. That's faulty installation - which is their fault, not mine.

After sending the letter to corporate, they have their local office call me to re-explain their Lifetime Warranty policy and how it doesn't apply to me. Thanks for addressing my problem.

So, screw you, Bath Fitter. I challenge you to a game of SHARDS, loser pays for the repairs.