This all started yesterday when we went to get the pottery wheel we gave our daughter Mary for Christmas out, so we could enjoy a little arts and crafts time. No, scratch that, this actually goes back farther, to a few weeks ago when we were trying to get the amplifier we got my other daughter Sophie for Christmas to work.
Her electric bass guitar was tough to hear without an amplifier and we couldn’t find its power cord, since discovering its disappearance when we unpacked all the Christmas gifts we shipped home from our Omaha yuletide extravaganza. I had meticulously repacked all the toys, musical instruments and other various bits of holiday joy, making sure that everything was in its original box, resealed and ready for transport. Only to find, to my OCD shock and dismay, that Sophie’s power chord was missing. Impossible as it may seem, I had made an organizational blunder. I know, right! It was like finding out that Steven Hawking made a math error or hearing that Gandhi punched someone out in the chia tea line at the Bali Starbuck. It was just too impossible to believe that it could happen.
We looked all over and couldn’t find the chord to the amp. I even went to Radio shack and was prepared to lay out $30 to get a chord that would fit. But alas, they just didn’t have anything that would work. Being a guy who never waists a trip, I decided to buy two adaptors (plugs that have a USB in slot) for the boys, so they could charge their iPods in the wall and not only on the computer at a $45 bargain. Sophie went on to her bass lesson to try to get a chord there (there being adjacent to a music store) only to find that her amp was not a bass amp but guitar amp and a cheap on at that. Apparently Toys-R-Us isn’t the best place to shop if you’re a roadie. So $75 later we are properly equipped. I decided that with no power cord and no future use in site, I might as well throw the useless amp away. So I did.
Flash forward to yesterday, and getting the pottery wheel out. I was setting it up when to my dismay the power cord didn’t fit. I think we all see where this is going. Yes, this was the elusive amp cord. Wiping away the irony that was dripping into my eyes, I still was unable to discover where the cord to the pottery wheel was? I started to look everywhere again. While I’m looking I stumble onto two adaptors in an old pile of electrical gear that, you guessed it are plug/USB adapters. Awesome! Well, at least I know now I have a couple of spares.
It’s off to Radio Shack again. While the guy is trying to find a chord that will work on a pottery wheel and figure out what planet I’m from, I realize that for $30 I might as well just buy a new toy. So now I leave the store and a clerk who is absolutely positive that I am the antichrist sent straight from hell to break his brain, and head to Wal-Mart to buy a pottery wheel (and extra clay pack) for $30. Gad, I’m such a genius. The entire ride home was a barrage of self-administered positive affirmations for my brilliance at not wasting money at Radio Shack.
As I’m telling my wife how smart I am, Mary opens the box and says, “There’s no power cord?” As I examine it I see a hole for a power cord but now power cord in the box. I turn the device over and notice that there are panels for batteries on the bottom. “Oh,” I mutter, “It must be optional. You must have to use batteries.” As I’m speaking these words, my son turns the original pottery wheel over and shows me the panels for batteries on it. Cue the anvil that should be hitting me, ala Wyle E Coyote, at this time. So now it’s back in the car and back to Wal-Mart to get batteries (two sets now).
The pottery day was a success and I’m glad we have two wheels with all the kid, but it was on the whole a $155 object lesson on the subject of “Steve’s not nearly as smart or as organized as he thinks he is”
My wife could have told me that for nothing.
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