Something for Nothing/I’ve Got Everything

The car ran out of blinker fluid late Friday night and Willie barely got it home.

And when I say it ran out of blinker fluid, I could just as well be telling you that the piston-ring end gap was loose or that the windshield solenoid’s pvc valve needed replacing and it would all sound the same to me. I know nothing about cars except how much I like how some of them look.

Vin, knower of cars, competent drinker – ha! – and previously-used (and relatively unscratched) citizen of the U.S. (thank you, Great Britain!) offered to come by the next day and help fix it.

What should’ve been, by all accounts, a 20-minute job has turned into a multi-day event. The head of a bolt, apparently, rusted to the point of snapping off, has left a left-threaded bolt in a hole.

Or something like that.

While the men were outside, Jenn (wife of Vin, friend o’mine) stopped by.

It was a good day for an afternoon in a sunny room, and we sat in the sitting room, the iPod on shuffle.

I really do need to keep a nice danish on hand. I really need to get to the grocery store more often.

Hours later, hungry, tired, and dirty, the men’s manicures ruined, they came back into the house. Wwe headed to the Spring Street for dinner where we went crazy, ordering pitchers of beer and hamburgers, sides of green beans, onion rings and tater tots (both seasoned and unseasoned).

Seasoned and unseasoned tater tots! That’s how we roll in Nordeast.

Of course, you can’t go to the Spring on a late Saturday afternoon without playing Springo (Bingo).

What do you get when you win at Springo? A free drink, a travel mug, a “light stick”, a “whacky” St. Patrick’s Day Fiasco cum Dr. Suess-style felt hat…

There's no charge to play Springo.

The very best thing you can win is a $26 bar tab.

Twenty-six dollars. I have no idea where they got that number, but who cares? Willie won it on the cover-all...




I love Saturdays. I love that Vin spent the afternoon helping Willie fix the car, I love that Jenn showed up not long after, just to sit on the couch and talk for hours, that we had dinner, that we joked and talked and toasted each other.

You don’t have to have a lot of things to have everything, do you?