Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 26, 1990 TAG: 9004260025
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
And this April, whether you like it or not,I am going to tell you how this went.
For those of you who want to be surly about it and say you don't have time, here is a short version of how this went:
Not very good.
But now to our unexpurgated version:
On Monday, I was up early, made an omelet that would have given a horse some trouble and set about washing windows.
That is, I set about cleaning windows. You don't wash windows any more, Thurman, and you don't use those cakes of Bon Ami either.
You use products with names like Blap! and Cleanzo and Squirt. They are examples of the very latest in window-cleaning technology.
Even with the use of such advanced materials, however, cleaning windows will make a grown man cry by 5 p.m.
I was a little misty eyed as I poured me a pretty good one and sat down to rest.
The next morning, I washed and waxed a small car now driven by the greatest station wagon driver of them all.
It took me four hours and I sat around kind of stunned for the rest of the day.
I found that washing windows one day and washing and waxing a car the next is a good way to become paralyzed in both arms.
It probably also partially destroys your fingerprints.
The next day I cleaned up a brush pile that was started a long time before anybody heard of acid rain.
The following day, I mowed the yard and used my handy electric trimmer.
This is a fine tool, if you do not go insane during the four hours it takes to get several thousand feet of cord untangled.
The next day was Friday. I rested and slobbed about - doing X-rated things to my diet.
This gluttony didn't get me in good shape for Saturday - a day set aside for washing and waxing the Cherokee, which brought us near to disaster.
Stated briefly, I scraped a fourth of the right side of this machine on the door frame of my son's garage. The door itself is 10 feet wide, as he pointed out several times.
You should have seen both of us laughing and jumping around after that.
Unfortunately, I was unable to spend last Sunday doing good things for the Earth.
What I did was lock myself in my room. I figured the Earth didn't need to be hurt anymore than it had been.
by CNB