Smoking Wet

My favorite bad guys were the ones in the movie ‘Waterworld’. Their base was the oil tanker Exxon Valdez, and they all smoked cigarettes and rode jet skis. I have never been able to decide which I despise more, jet skis or cigarettes. I used to joke about welding a big steel grill on the front of my van, because whenever I would see a jet ski trailing behind a car, I had a strong urge to flatten it. My hero was a fictional character in one of Jimmy Buffet’s books, who blew up a raft of jet skis because they were ruining his quiet fishing grounds. I used to live on a boat that was located inside a ‘no jet ski, no wake zone.’ That, of course, meant that on both weekend days, jet skis sped around my boat the live long day. I’m not a violent person, but with all that noise and those wakes for hours on end, the only thoughts I could entertain were pretty destructive. Had I carried out any of them, I’d probably be facing life in prison. “But your honor, they were jet skiers.”
Then there is the smoking thing. This, beyond anything else, makes me want to barf. If there’s a pile of cat puke on the floor, I’ll sigh and clean it up. If there’s a heap of cigarette ash in the same location, I’ll walk way around the coffee table for days to avoid it. I can’t bear the thought of going near it. Disgusting. Even standing in line in the grocery store next to someone who has just smoked a cigarette makes me want to grab a hose and wash them off. But this won’t help. Pores ooze nicotine. My sense of smell is mediocre at best, but I can smell stale cigarette on someone who has just come out of the shower freshly washed. Ewwww. Gross. Go away.
For years I have managed to live among peaceful non-smokers, and have been quite content. Recently, my life has taken a downturn. At the moment, not only do I cohabitate with a heavy smoker, but my new boss also smokes copiously on the job in my face. And this morning when I got up, there on the counter was a pile of ash. And in a few minutes, I’ll have to go off to work to wade through ashes all day long.
I suspect I won’t last long. I love the new job, but to come home to the same thing as well, forget that. It’s akin to jet skis speeding around the boat 24/7. I’m not sure what to do about this recent addition of such a large amount of gruesomeness in my life, but drastic action may be called for.
How did Keven Costner get rid of the bad guys in the movie Waterworld?

Chasing my tail

The car shook and vibrated down the road. It sounded as though it had a sore throat. But I made it, all the way to the west coast of Florida, in one long day, running from the north before it got too frigid, and before I had to witness that horror of white stuff falling out of the sky. News leaked out that I had escaped south, and I was offered a job on the east coast, which is not where I was or where I was planning to be. Well, okay, it was instant, fun work, a little more than a three hour drive away, and I could stay aboard the rather luxurious boat I would be working on. Good deal, except that foolishly, I didn’t check the weather before driving east across the state in my still wheezing jalopy. I arrived at the coast at the same time as screaming winds and drowning downpours, all spinning off from that tropical thingy blowing up the Bahamas. After two days of trying to keep my balance as the boat bounced up and down in the slip, I gave up and fled back to the calm west coast. While waiting for the east coast weather to clear, I decided to start the job hunting process on the west coast. About 8 seconds after I started looking for work, I had a job that I could start right away, just around the corner! Well great, except that I still had to meet my east coast work commitment. So I tried out the new west coast job for a day, sticking my finger into the moving parts of a sewing machine to impress my new boss. Duh, maybe I’d better head back east now. I spent a week on the boat on the east coast, trying to keep the neighbor’s boat cat away while I painted. White 2-part epoxy cat foot prints look really flash on a nicely varnished rail.
And here I am again, back on the west coast of FL. Are you with me so far? Me neither. I still don’t know whether I’m coming or going, where I’m supposed to be living or working or what I’m supposed to be doing. So today, to clear my head, I spent my day off unbolting and unfastening bits of a dead marine diesel engine scheduled for removal and replacement. Do I know how to have a good time or what?
Sometimes I wonder. I never was a normal girl.
Salon? Pedicure? You must be kidding. Pass the tool box and get out of my way.