More First World Problems ...

Yeah, I went down to Starbucks, but my coffee got cold/

My Rolex needs windin', my Mercedes is gettin' old …

From Whitebread Blues

My leaf blower shorted out last week and died. Plug wire had been getting chippy and there came a bzzzt! and the extension chord and leaf blower cord became one as the prongs and socket welded themselves together …

So I had to get another leaf blower and extension cord …

For years, I resisted the very notion of a leaf blower, which I considered a noisy abomination spawned by the Devil to ruin Sunday mornings. I had a rake, by God, what kind of pansy needs a leaf blower?!

Turned out, on me, it didn't look so bad, and it was ever so much less work. Never use it before ten a.m weekdays, noon on the weekends, my attempt at balance.

After one of the driest Decembers on record here, the forecast was for a week of rain, ending in a visit from the Pineapple Express, which means a lot more rain, so I wanted to get the leaves off the walks and patio, and also clean out the gutters, which were full.

Why a leaf blower in full-on-winter January, when most of the country is freezing its nuts off?  Because my stupid gum ball trees out front are still dropping leaves, that's why. Last to lose 'em in the winter, last to green up in the spring. 

These kinds of tree lines the walks up and down my street, and mine are always the last and last, go figure.

So, got the blower. Got on the ladder and hand-scooped out the gutters. Even though it was a dry December, there was still a half-inch of water under the dried leaves, go figure that, too.  Cleared the walks. Which already have more leaves out front from the retarded gum ball trees.

All done, at least for now.

Came the rain, and I felt good about having beaten it to the task.

Then the clothes dryer died. Well, it had a major heat-attack, in that the drum still rotated but there wasn't any warm air, which meant that it takes about three days of tumbling to dry one's clothes. Last time that happened, it was a thermal fuse, repair guy was in and out in fifteen minutes, relatively cheap. 

This time, it was the heating element. Not as quick a fix, and not as cheap, but still less expensive than a new dryer. He also found a quarter that had gotten into the werks and was worn almost completely smooth, so now le drier runs fine and is also a little less noisily.

Had the plumber out a couple weeks ago for a couple of leaks. All fixed. Well, except for the one out back that drips a little when you run water through the hose. That would have involved tearing out sheetrock and fairly big bucks for something that a bowl under the faucet takes care of just fine. 

First-world problems are often those which, if you throw money at them, go away. If you have the money, of course, which in this case, I did. So I don't get to bitch about them. 

If you want to see how people who have no right to gripe do so anyway? Drop by WhiteWhine.com. Some of these are so laugh-out-loud funny you will, but mostly, you'll just shake your head and wonder how some people have enough wherewithal to remember how to breathe ...