Loyalty

Are you loyal to brands? Because I am absolutely not. I feel a bit guilty about it really. I mean the whole point of companies giving you a good deal on something is that they hope you'll get addicted to their stuff and then come back for more, right? I mean, isn't that the whole idea of Priceline? Randomly get assigned a hotel, love the hotel, never want to stay anywhere else?

Not I!

Give me the cheapest! Give me free! Give give give and I will forget about you the next day. It's really sad sometimes, but I can't overcome the cheapness.

Today I was sitting out on the lawn enjoying the nice spring day (94dgs, yowza) and watching Bentley play on his cozy coupe. I was debating about whether or not I should chase Swiper down. I had given him a chance to be the dog of my dreams. You know, the kind of dog who lazes about in the shade whilst the children play. A dog that just kind of sits in the background, seen but not heard, loyal and true and an overall joy to be around. So I let him out and he stayed by us for all of a millisecond before running off down the street. I started chasing after him but then decided that my loyalties lay with protecting my actual children from fire ants and babynappers. So I let him run free. Free as a jay bird. He didn't even have his collar on since I had given him a haircut the day before. At first I was a little concerned about him not having the collar, but then I realized how liberating it was. If he really wanted out, really really badly, then fine. No big loss. Well, no big loss except for financially and property value-ly. Big losses there. BUT who am I to keep an animal who doesn't want to be kept? So I let him run free.

Anyway, that was not part of the story. A strange man in a truck came and parked at my neighbors house. At first I thought he was probably a kidnapper or burglar, because I am paranoid about that kind of thing. He went up to the neighbors door and then just kind of walked around the house for a while, then back to the truck. Very strange. And...I can't help but mention that the main reason we keep Swiper around, besides to eat the food that Bentley throws on the floor and to pee on our carpet and chew up our stuff, is to scare away bad guys, so where was he now? Now, the one time we needed him he was off gallavanting through the 'hood. Awesome.

Eventually my neighbors came home and it turns out that mystery man was a handyman, fix-it guy. And he was fixing their sprinklers.

We've lived in our house for two years (wow, I think it has been EXACTLY two years, yep, two years tomorrow!). And the sprinklers have been broken for exactly two years. I keep meaning to call but then I keep thinking Blaine will get around to fixing them, or I will or Bentley will or someone will.

Anyway, I asked the guy to come and tell me how much it would be to fix my sprinklers. We have two main problems 1) half of our sprinkler heads are broken 2) the timer box doesn't work.
And while I sat there and talked to him he totally fixed the timer box. He told me all I owed him was a coke.

What a guy!

And because he was nice like that I am not even going to call and compare prices. I am going to have him come fix the sprinkler heads.

He got the no-conscience bargain hunter to give him business, and such a thing is not lightly done. Kudos to you sprinkler repairman. Kudos to you.