Day NinetyOne: Humpday again... as early as our day starts as usual the wife is long gone before Lawson and I get moving. Grabbed a shower, breaky and hopped in the car. Showed up to take sidekick to town for his doctors appointment. Sat in the car and waited for him. Afterwards I finally broke down and decided to look for some things I have been needing for some time... Glasses, my glasses broke months ago, I had old ones, I made due, but Lawson's glasses broke the other day too... now it was just a missing screw on his and a broken wire on mine that held the lens in so I know it's only about a 2 minute job... I get stopped at the door... after all you need an appointment and a hazmat suit to go into the office now... I told her I don't need to come in and left my glasses on the the table at the door, just take these and fix them... she wanted my phone number so she could call when they were done... Um, it needs a screw just fix them and I will be back later to pick them up, I'm in town now, I'm not making an appointment and coming back in 2 weeks for a 2 minute job... they agree, she talked to the guy who does their work, he had time to do them in 20 minutes, I told her I would be back later and asked when they were closed to make sure they didn't bag off at noon or something stupid like that... 5pm when the mall closes... fine... then we went to Crappy Tire... APPARENTLY I was correct about the staff there all this time... they can't count. The COVID Door Nazi had a new Rule for us to follow for the day... EVERYBODY MUST TAKE A CART! I'm like ya, I don't need a cart, I'm not touching that germ infested thing, I need to go to that end cap literally 9 feet away from the carts, pick up one thing and leave. Their madness for the rule: They use it to keep track of how many people are in the store... my mind reeled at the possibilities here... do I take the cart, head out side with it and put it behind the store some place and keep doing that every five minutes until all the cart are gone and no one is left shopping in the store and see if they notice? Naw, too much work... I took the cart... didn't actually touch it and then abandoned it 8 feet into the store. I was looking for a gas bottle for one of those Soda Streams that they have in isle 1... like they have a whole isle in the store dedicated to this colossal piece of shit. After all it's just a big plastic button that squirts gas into your water, the actual cost to manufacture it has to be almost nothing and the markup must be huge... and they have a whole isle of machines and squirty flavors for it... but no fucking bottles of gas to work the fucking thing... I'm not sure what the status is on these things in other parts of the world but if you live in Northern Ontario... just know before you buy one... you need to buy $10,000 worth of little tanks filled with gas when you purchase the unit because you will never see one again. this will mark about 4 or 5 months we have been looking for a refill tank... out of stock... there was actually a guy standing beside me asking an employee WTF... big empty space on the shelf... none in stock... AGAIN... we have even tried the CT in KL... no luck... been checking sporadically for almost half a year, NEVER ANYTHING... not even any idea if they will ever get them again. I go to the service desk... nothing they can do for me, no idea when they are getting any, glad I wasted my time... I went to leave the service desk towards the store... I got stopped. "YOU CAN'T GO THAT WAY" - Like listen lady where the fuck do you want me to go? Apparently backwards though the line of people towards the Cart Nazi was the answer, like that made any sense. Fucking stupid people with stupid rules are going to get us all killed. I gave up and went to shop someplace else... BestBuy, at least I don't have to deal with stupid there... I took Melanie in that one tie-dyed shirt that looks like it has an M on the front of it... what to buy... I needed a tape cartridge for the label maker, a bottle of gas for the soda stream and an adapter to go from the regular side headphone jack to the smaller one so Lawson can plug into the xBox controller and stop using the phone all day long to play with his friends. Thay had none of these things in stock... but is was good to see Melanie again after all these months... we let her get back to work and left the store empty handed... OK, emergency shutoff switch for the lathe... this is going to cost me... I went down town to the electrical repair shop, you never know what they will have kicking around... in the widow is the same motor hooked up to my lathe so things look promising... but I'm batting 1000 today... nothing in Stock... screw it, going to the electrical supply place to see if they will sell to the general public... if they ask, it's for sidekick's business... Now it took some digging but they found the switch I was looking for but it had been around since before the invention of the computer and wasn't listed in any of the software... remember back when you would buy parts and they would look them up in a parts book, get a number and then look in the pricing book, add their mark up and give you a price... ya it was from that long ago... pretty sure those books were long gone... he says, 'How's $20 sound?' - Sounded like a hell of a good deal to me... then I bought a box to put it in, metal, explosion proof, water proof, stupid proof, approved by the world federation of electrical supply geeks... ya, I knew that wasn't going to be cheep and it was in the computer... $80 for an empty electrical box, but if you're going to do a job, you might as well do it right... oh and a box of wire staples while I'm there because their small box (500) is going to cost less than a 10 pack at Crappy Tire... and I don't apparently shop there anymore so... lol. I got the first items on my list taken care of and found a new shop to buy stuff at. 　 Glasses should be done by now... I head back there... door is closed... she comes to the door and hands me back the glasses and apologises for no one being there right away... apparently they close the doors for lunch from 12-1 and forgot to mention that when I was asked when they were open... doh. OK day was starting to get better, electrical stuff and glasses done. OK nuts and bolts...

-- Hit my word limit again (I had a copy of it before I hit enter this time...) more to follow, see below.

(continued): OK nuts and bolts... there's a store for that, you need an account, sidekick has one... the doors are locked... ok here you need to call in your order and pick it up at the loading dock in the back... Ya, I need 4 of these bolts but an inch longer, how do we do that over the phone... he took the bolts and I sat in the car on my cell phone to finish the order... Hello? Ya, I'm looking for some nuts... do you have any there? They did, 'the staff'... so we wait at the loading dock door... I need 4 carriage bolts and 2 nuts, one for the lathe and the other to fix the car... they bring out a bag of 50 carriage bolts, 50 nuts and the one other nut for the lathe... um, ya I need one of those and 4 of those... 50... smallest bag they had... now a few weeks back I needed 50 carriage bolts, I bought them at the same place but they didn't have a box of 50, I needed to buy them in bags of 8... go figure... different size... SO... what about regular bolts... I may be able to use 50 regular bolts... definitely have no use for 50 of that size carriage bolts... and the price triples... and same with the one size nut for the car (which they didn't have the castle nut I wanted, just regular nuts)... hmmm... ya ok never mind, I'll go next door and get it (the actual auto parts store). She was applauded that we were going to go next door and get the stuff... lol... no she was more applauded we told her we were going to go next door to get the stuff... LOL Well we did come there first... even though it was a car part we are actually looking for. She gave me the one nut for free... didn't want to do all the paperwork for 30 cents. Never did get the nut from the auto parts place. It was well past lunch, we went to look at one more spot for that stupid Soda Stream gas shit... once again, no dice... or gas... Fuck it, threw the bottle back on the floor of the car, which is where is has lived for months now. Stupid fucking piece of shit. Went for lunch, drive thru... ate in the parking lot... the parking lot of the hardware store... As Lawson and sidekick finished eating I went inside to scope out the hardware... found the nuts and bolts I needed but not the one for the car. Grocery store... we stagger our entry so they don't realize we cam e in one vehicle... remember when carpooling was going to save the planet and now it's a crime that's going to kill us all... ah... good times... MUCH better than last week... I grabbed some cheese chicken and shrimp. Now Boy had been good so far... lots of waiting in the car, not much anything fun... I asked him what he wanted from the store... he asked for a Hazmat Suit so he could go play with his friends... he would settle for Oreo's with Double stuff... I bought him 2 bags full. Pushing up on 2pm sidekick gets a call and needs to do some work... we have to head back. I dropped him off at home... didn't remember eggs at the farm and just when home to put the chicken on for dinner. Heather got in and put on some cauliflower, dinner was served... Sidekick messaged back... seemed like he was spent to... we will get to the car tomorrow. Watched some more Flash on Netflix and packed it in for the day.