Noreen Manvell

Spooky Moment

Very proud of my creative moment in carving our pumpkin. We bought two pumpkins this year - if we had seen David we were going to give him one. But she didn’t bring him by or call, so I carved one myself and put the other out by the mailbox. You have to appreciate the fact that I carved it with just a steak knife at 2 in the morning and with my new contacts I can’t see anything at all close up, so I was just stabbing wildly in the dark to get it done. But I think it turned out nicely.

Scored Some Cheap Gas

Finally scored some cheap gas - at a little independent station on the corner of the trucking terminals and warehouses by the airport. Only paid $3.29 a gallon. That’s a dollar a gallon less that 2 months ago. Plus the gas does not have any ethanol in it. Bonus! Real gas!

Huuzah!

Excuses Excuses

We thought about making a list of the most outrageous excuses that drivers have used as to why they are quitting or why they need a night off. Some of them are really out there.

Some of the ones that stand out in my memory are:

• I can’t work tonight. I have to go to my doctor tomorrow to get my blood pressure checked and I can’t do anything that will make my blood pressure go up.
• I have to quit. My wife says she can’t sleep in the bed without me.
• (At midnight) I can’t work tonight. My boyfriend went downtown today to look for a job and he hasn’t come home yet and I’m too worried to come in.
• I can’t work tonight. My boyfriend fell down the stairs.
• I couldn’t come in last night because my husband fell asleep in the living room watching TV and didn’t wake me up. (Well, tell your husband it’s his fault YOU’RE FIRED!)

How Corporate

On Sunday we spent the entire day taking apart the coin mechanisms of every paper rack and inserting little brackets to make the adjustment necessary to change the price of the papers. For the past 12 years the local daily paper has been 50 cents and the USA Today newspapers have been 75 cents for as long as I can remember.

But as of September 29 the price of the local daily went up to 75 cents. So all the vending racks had to be switched by Monday morning. That was a joy filled day fighting with 105 racks spread out all over Williamson County.

Then, today we got an email that says the size of the newspaper is about to get smaller. They are going to print on smaller sheets of paper, about an inch less on each side.

All I could think was, “How corporate. Raise the price and give them less!”