The Saturday Morning Report

Well, summer seems to have finally arrived! It's been nice and warm the last couple days and Suzie and I are just eating it up. We're both sun lovers (or is it just heat and skimpy clothing?) and we look forward to this time of year so much.

I rode the Harley to work Thursday and Friday both and was the only one of the four of us at work that own motorcycles to do so. Kinda weird. I'm sure Harry would have ridden if he had been at work, but he was off both days. He rides an old Kawasaki cop bike that he bought used. I call it his Kopasaki.

Sue has been working a lot of overtime all week, and that included starting earlier and staying later most days. She decided it would be cool to ride in with me yesterday morning on the Harley all decked out in her leather finery. I agreed it would be most excellent.

Well... Not so fast. When she brought up the subject to Bernie (the office manager of the two LaCroix brothers) he "started in" on her. All she wanted him to do was to let her in from the shop side as soon as he got there. See, when he or his brother, Phil, come in and open up the office the shop area is already functioning and work is underway. They'll come in, shut off the alarms, and maybe make it back to the shop door quickly or maybe not. Sometimes they get sidetracked by a phone call or email or any number of things. She just wanted him to be aware that she would be in the shop waiting to go to work and to let her in as soon as he got there. Well, he started flipping her all kinds of grief.
"I'm not about to start altering my schedules to suit my employees," he said (or something similar). After more ranting and raving she finally said "Okay, okay--Never mind" and went back to what she was doing. The bottom line is that the two brothers are "old school" and have a severe problem with letting the distance between themselves and their employees get too slim. They want to maintain absolute power at all times. This seems to be why they have such a problem with Suzie and I seeing each other. They see it as nothing but trouble for productivity, creating distractions and all kinds of things. They hate "us".

Anyway, back to the ending of the little story: When I came to work yesterday morning I glanced up at the alarm lights and was surprised to find them already "winking out" one by one at 5:55. That meant that one of them was already in the office, unlocking and turning things on. At exactly 5:59 Bernie came blasting out of the door, looking around, and said a hasty good morning and went back in. I couldn't believe it. It was as if he actually hoped or expected to find Suzie sitting there so he could chew her and/or us out! It was obvious that that was exactly what he was doing--You could tell by the way he popped out like a prairie dog and looked around--He never does that. What an asshole. When Suz and I were talking about it last night I told her, "I wonder what they would do if we both gave our notices at the same time?" We both got a good laugh out of that, and Sue postulated that both of us departing the company at the same time would most definitely create a problem. Although we are a couple of people there that do a lot of things to keep the business running smoothly, her departure would send some serious ripples through the office. There would be some serious problems if we both left--No doubt about that. The more I think about it, the more I want to do it just out of spite...

I got home after work yesterday and had no beer, so I parked the Harley and hopped in the car to take care of that. When I got back I enjoyed one while I went over my email and stuff. At that point, I had to get back on the bike--It was just too nice out! I did a little ride around town and filled up the gas tanks. At $14 (it uses premium) it's sure a lot easier to take than filling up a car is! On the way home I stopped at my folks' house and yakked with them for a little while. When I got home Suzie was already there, sitting out on my patio in the sun, and after I stripped down I joined her. We had a good time laying out there talking, drinking beer, and "misting" each other with a spray bottle of water. When we decided it was time to eat, we opted to walk uptown to have burgers at the Spunky Monkey. It was a beautiful night for a walk! On the way back we stopped at my brother's house and visited with them for a while. It was a great evening.

Because each of us have funerals to attend today (which is extremely weird) she opted to stay tonight instead of last night so we would have plenty of time to get all the stuff done that we need to do. It's going to be quite the weekend... Forecasters are showing mid to upper 80's here.