SteveAndersen.com

The people at Petco need to spend less time with pets, and more time with humans.

Earlier this week I reported that my cats, have fleas. I went to Petco to get a flea collar, hoping to nip the problem in the bud. The girl at Petco, who seemed either unwilling or unable to stop talking, insisted that flea collars do not work, and that we should use the (significantly more expensive) chemical crap one is supposed to apply between the cats shoulder blades. Not being a person who frequently has to deal with a flea problem as I have indoor cats, I figured the girl without the social skills at the pet store might know better than I do.

As (my) luck would have it, I should have gone with the collar. Sandy and I put the chemicals on the cats, and waited for it to work. The fleas thanked us for the chemicals that would turn them into genetically mutated super fleas, and used the time to build a stronger colony on our cats.

So today, Sandy and I returned to Petco to return the remainder of the useless “between the shoulder blades” crap, and to buy flea shampoo, and a pair of flea collars. Upon approaching the counter to pay for my flea killing combo, the girl at the counter told us that “Flea collars don’t work – they are only good for cutting up into pieces and clogging up your vacuum cleaner.” She then went on to tell us about all of her pets, and their respective flea problems (The urge to mention that should she put flea collars on her pets she might not have so many problems was ALMOST overpowering – but the desire to not hear her uneducated, inarticulate views on flea control hear more about the lives of her pets gave me the power to overcome my various homicidal urges).

So I walked out of Petco, and realized that I had listened to two separate sales people tell me that the products that Petco carries are ineffective. This cannot be good for Petco, not that I care too much about Petco. I also realized that I have never been in a Petco when I encountered someone who possessed more than rudimentary social skills. More time around humans, less time around animals might serve these folks well.

So – in related news, Sandy and I shampooed the cats today. The infestation had reached the point where a collar alone would not do the job (as it would have earlier this week – thanks Petco sales dork!) so a shampooing was a necessity. That is always such trauma. Hose the cat down, shampoo the cat (the bottle instructions refer to a “luxurious lather”) then my favorite part – WAIT 5 MINITES – and then rinse the cat off. Remember, cats hate water – and they hate being confined. So you can imagine how charming it is to hold a scared, wet, luxuriously lathered, cat in the tub for 5 minutes. Then when you get done, you have a wet cat. Funny to look at, not so funny to deal with. This IS the first time I have managed to wash my cats without being bitten however – that is a plus.

It is also very affirming to watch the fleas wriggling out of our cats wet coat, and dieing while you are holding the scared, wet, slippery cat. There has to be some up side. The only good flea is a dead flea. Why are only cool animals on endangered species lists? Why are so few nuisance insects that are endangered?

After drying off the cats it was time to break out the collars. Now, the collars we bought, the ones that were supposed to be the “best ones” wouldn’t stay attached to the cats. I would have gone back to Petco to return the bloody things, but I couldn’t stand to argue with flee collar girl again, nor try to explain why I was returning the useless flea collar I had purchased only hours before. I broke down, I went to Target and picked up the collar I needed and didn’t have to fight with anyone to buy it. I will slip in to Petco tomorrow perhaps and avoid flea collar girl all together. Actually Sandy will, but I will take the credit.

Well I am preaching in the morning, so it is off to bed for me.

So, here is the thing, tomorrow, more accurately later today, Sandy and I and another couple are going out to the not-yet open, brand spanking new, still has the wrapper on, complete with that “new restaurant smell” Red Robin for lunch. For free lunch in fact. Don’t let anyone tell you that there is no free lunch, this is America.

The catch is that we are basically guinea pigs for the new wait staff. This is the pre-grand opening dry-run, so there might be bad service or something like that, but I can deal with that for free food, and bragging rights, because, hey – like we learn in seminary – “if it is free, it is for me.” Besides, this is WAY better than some of the stuff I did in college for free food. Better food too.

Free lunch aside, this is great. I am glad to see the “anti-everything positive” death grip that the old-Dubuque families have had on the city council is waning (The “old guard” in Dubuque has been staunchly anti-growth, anti-progress, literally for generations).

When I first moved here, I had to stop seeing movies in the theater because my only options where “sticky-floors-palace-of-crappy-ass-chairs-#1” or “sticky-floors-palace-of-crappy-ass-chairs-#2.” But since I have lived here they have built a proper, if small movie theater with stadium seating, and reclining seats and carpet not from 1978.

A “Panera Bread” has opened, while it does not excite me terribly (as it does Sandy), it is a sign of life and modernity I am excited to see in Dubuque. Anyplace with free wi-fi can’t be all bad right? It is good for Dubuque.

There is even half a Starbucks in Hy-Vee now (If one sees Starbucks as progress, or Hy-Vee for that matter).

There is even a proposal on this years ballot to build a muni-broadband network, provided of course that the incumbent telecoms (who are deathly afraid of competition) fail at getting the measure rejected – God knows they have campaigned hard enough, and spent enough money on TV commercials. The very possibility is exciting enough – here – in Dubuque Iowa, Muni-broadband!

The thing is, that every time something opens in Dubuque, something that is a benefit to ME, something that makes my life here better, it also invariably serves as a reminder that I am still living here, in Dubuque. And it is not that Dubuque is so bad, I certainly know of worse places to live, but my purpose for living here expired almost a year and a half ago. That is milk no one should drink. Every new wonderful thing that opens, that Dubuque desperately needs, seems to point out that I am still living in Dubuque, and not out serving a congregation as I have been called, trained, formed, and prepared to do.

I am forced to ask why, a lot.

So… I very rarely follow up on what could charitably be described as the blog equivalent to a chain letter, you know, the thing that gets passed from blog to blog with instructions to pass it on… But seeing as I am unemployed, I have time on my hands, and the results I received from this were funny enough that I am willing to momentarily suspend my own rules of decorum.

So here is what you do:

Google “(your name) needs” and post the most amusing results. Not only a bit of Google amusement, but a bit of ego surfing involved too.

So I Google “Steve needs” and for my troubles I receive:

“Steve needs to find a squirrel hitman. Possibly someone with the nickname Squirrel Zipper or Squirrel Burger.”

That is right, a squirrel hit man.

I defy you to retrieve anything funnier than that using the same search criteria. Hell, I defy you to retrieve anything funnier than that from ANY google search.

So there is the gauntlet, it has been thrown down.

So the wife and I bought a new fridge a month or so ago. There is no sentence in the English language that can instill such a feeling of decrepitude as that one. Maybe next week we should just go pick out a burial plot and be done with it. Honestly, I should be used to it by now, the first major appliance purchase is the worst. When we bought a washer and dryer I was in a funk for weeks. The dishwasher was OK because it was portable, and I was just so glad that we wouldn’t have to hand-wash anymore I almost made out with the delivery guy – but that is a different issue all together.

Anyway, so when we moved into this apartment, and you know I am loving the place so far, there was a refrigerator here that was (still is?), I am pretty sure, older than I am. I am not joking, the thing was harvest gold, with a delightful rust patina in several places. It also had this interesting habit of leaking about a half gallon of water out onto the floor once or twice a month at random times. This leaking always coincided with the freezer’s “frost free” cycle, or as it came to be known, the “thaw and freeze” cycle or just the “freezer burn” cycle. It was a peach. It also never managed to keep ice cream frozen, lettuce it could freeze, ice cream however was a non-starter. The landlord’s solution to the problem was to place an ice-cube tray under the fridge to catch the water as it spilled out. I am not kidding. I never quite figured out where to put the ice cube tray to catch the flow of water, and I never much cared.

Now I can live with a harvest gold refrigerator for a period of time, after all I lived in a parsonage with a harvest gold bathroom – sink, toilet, shower – on internship year. But the thing is – our power bill was insane. At our last place, which was bigger, and in which we were very bad about turning stuff off, we never paid more than $65 a month for electricity. The first two months we were in this apartment, with the same power company providing power, with all the same appliances except that 35 year old, harvest gold menace, our power bill was over $120 a month.

So a month or so ago the wife and I decided that we will someday soon be buying a place of our own, we might as well buy the fridge now, and consider the savings in electricity to be a down payment towards the refrigerator.

The power bill this month, with the new fridge (the one that doesn’t leak, doesn’t freeze the lettuce – unless you want it to – and keeps the ice cream rock hard) $53. For those of you playing the home game, that is $70, a month. You do the math, and you find that in a year, I will have paid less than $100 for a brand new refrigerator.

Oh, and did I mention that it is gigantic? To say nothing of a cool-ass color?

Yah, OK, so now I have to move a refrigerator around with me too… but considering all of the crap I already have – a refrigerator isn’t that much more. And being settled isn’t that big a deal, and it is sort of nice to have someone around I want to split a major appliance with, or a burial plot.

So I have fleas now.

More accurately, my cats do.

The thing is, I have two fat, house cats that never see outside except through the window, or to go to the vet. They did not pick them up and bring them back.

My landlord on the other hand, who’s apartment has not one but two doors into my apartment (both blocked by full bookcases), has at least 2 cats that go outside during the day to catch things to bring back home.

Oh Joy.

Hopefully the flea killing stuff I picked up at Ye-ol-Petorium-Haus will do the trick. Otherwise, there might be armed combat. Stay tuned.