Funny

So every once in awhile, my mom lets my dad on the computer to write me an email. My dad's a retired Seattle cop, 6'4, huge man. Now, here's his email to me. Probably my favorite email.

Hello again, Kiddo I just got home from my hi-tech flagging job. Just read your latest blog report and viewed your latest pictures with Mom. Glad to hear and see your getting along with the locals[Bessie] and the crab on the rock. We had a little wind storm around here yesterday and this is the first time that I can recall that we didn't lose power. I suppose this means the next storm will do twice the damage to make up for what it didn't do yesterday just to make it even. The weather channel said the wind gusts got up to around 92 mph around the Bellingham area and those type winds are like in a stage 2 category type hurricane. Yesterday I wimped out and drove the car to the flagging job instead of riding the bike because of the wind and rain. There is a parking lot we can park in, put our 12 dollars in a ticket machine for the receipt so we can get reimbursed for 8 of the 12 dollars later. Hey. parking for 4 dollars a day in Seattle is a pretty good deal. Anyway, I had a 10 dollar bill and 2 ones. At this point, it's blowing pretty hard and raining pretty hard and my 12 dollars and I are getting real wet real fast. I put a dollar bill in the machine and then another dollar in and the machine won't take the second dollar bill or the 10 dollar bill and it's still dark out yet. So, now enters the macho, bald headed parking lot attendant. I told him the machine isn't taking my money. He immediately gets pissed off and start cussing, ranting and raving about how some dumb shit must have screwed the machine up by using a faulty credit card and jammed the machine with it. He's ranting and raving, clenching his fists, sticking his manly girly chest out and being real macho. I said 'don't look at me, I don't have a credit card. He gets his flashlight. looks in the slot where you put the money and sees something stuck in the slot. He got a screwdriver and pulled that something out and it's a wadded up, wet dollar bill. I gave him my remaining 11 dollars, asked for a receipt, got one and left. The nerve of him, accusing me of having a credit card. The very idea of having one could get me in trouble with Mom. Moving on to today. Here I am in the intersection of 8th and Cherry, with traffic stopped so the guy running the fork lift can get out onto the street [otherwise, the traffic won't let him out because a lot of them are jerks]. If you remember, the streets around there are pretty narrow. There's a couple of spots for free 1 hour parking across the street from the construction site. I've got traffic stopped in all directions for the fork lift and this guy parks his pickup in one of the free spots. After he gets out of his truck, he makes a point to walk over to me in the traffic. With a voice that sounds like he's afraid of something, he starts telling me how all the tower cranes aren't safe to be around because they are all falling down. I think he was talking about the one that fell down in Bellevue, hit that building where somebody was killed. I don't know if you remember that. It happened in the last year or so. Anyway, I've got traffic all screwed up so I can get the fork lift out and this guy wants to talk about how unsafe tower cranes are. His voice is shaky and sounds like he's about to cry. With this shaky voice, he then asks me to do him a favor, taps me on the arm, and says 'Watch my truck for me, okay?'. He then walks off down Cherry street to who knows where. Yeah, I'm going to stop everything I'm doing watch your truck so that big, bad , mean crane doesn't fall on your truck. For the next three hours, he's gone and I'm swamped with traffic, not because of him, but, because it's busy. I probably should have called a meter maid and had his truck ticketed for being parked there over the limit and maybe tried to have impounded. This is the second time I've had something like this. The other time, two girls were walking on the other side of the street from the site and one of them goes out of her way to cross the street towards the crane, while I have traffic stopped because the crane has a big heavy load of iron and I don't want any of it to maybe fall off the pallet board down onto a car or anybody. She then asks if it's safe to be walking over across the street where she originally was because that big load of iron that is now directly over her head doesn't look safe from where she was. Sara, what am I missing here? Here's the kicker though, when that guy came back to truck today, he didn't even give me a wink, a nod or a wave to let me know that he appreciated me personally keeping that crane from falling on his truck. It must be a fear factor that draws these people towards the cranes. If I called these people dumb s.o.b.s, I probably would be giving them credit for something. There's burnt out light bulbs out there that are brighter than these people. Now, remember to keep in mind, that when you're perfect like me, you can criticize others. Well, so much for my little note to you tonight. I'm going to go out to my little gym and pretend to work out and then call it quits for the day. This way I'll be more ready for my people tomorrow. Maybe I should just whack them with piece of that iron, ask them if it hurt, and then determine if I can let them walk under future heavy loads so they won't be afraid anymore. I'm just a retired public servant that can't seem to let go. It's in my blood and maybe will be in theirs one day if they don't knock it off. Lots of love, dad