Hey Brother!

A few things about my brother and I’s relationship:

Nick is 4 years younger than me. Well sometimes 5 years younger, but for most of the year he’s 4 years my senior. ((Side note: I have no idea if I used that phrase properly. “…4 years my senior…”.It just sounded right, and I’ve always wanted to use it in a story. Ultimately, I just wanted to sound cool. Did I? No? Damn.))

Nick can make me laugh so hard, tears will come streaming down my face. He is very sensitive, and though he tries to act nonchalant about, oh say EVERYTHING, he does wear his heart on his sleeve and I like that characteristic about him.

He has an unconditional love for all animals. For example, our Mom accidentally ran over a kitten on my Aunt and Uncle’s farm when Nick was about 5 years old. I thought Nick was going to file legal papers for emancipation from her right then and there. Of course, later he did realize it was a complete accident and let it go. But that's how mad/sad he was about the death of poor Kitty Kitty.

He loves to play video games, and normally is a good sport. THAT IS until he starts losing. Then it’s ‘let’s hope you have an extended warranty on your flat screen TV because his remote is more than likely going to be embedded it if you don’t let him win’. When we were younger Nick had no reservations. He was a dare devil. The thought “What I am about to do may actually hurt me, maybe I better not continue” not once would enter his mind. He was full throttle. All the time.

Roughly 20 years ago on a sledding excursion he managed to slide head first right into a building. Hearing Nick’s screams, my friends and I rushed down there to assess the bloody situation. After a minute we all concluded that my brother NEEDED to get stitches. Part of his ear was just hanging there. Gross. I know. Anyway, as soon as we said, “Ok, let’s go home Nick.” he immediately got mouthy, and moronically stated “nope, I’m not done sledding yet”. We had to physically remove him from the hill and drag him home so Mom and Dad could take him the hospital.

Nick absolutely loves BBQ sauce. It’s his favorite food. Not condiment, but food. He adds any and other foods to his BBQ sauce. ANYTHING is a go for the marination of BBQ'd edibles. Pizza, chicken, French fries, Bologna sandwiches, scrambled eggs, corn on the cob, tuna, tacos, calamari, BBQ flavored chips, ice cream, fruit loops, a glass of milk, hard boiled eggs, sauerkraut, mushrooms, hot dogs, rye bread, and mayonnaise. Ok, so after bologna sandwiches I just listed different foods, but I’ll bet you $1.00 that he has at least tried BBQ sauce on everything I listed, and more. The weekend of my brother’s 23rd birthday (it was a Sunday and his birthday was on Monday) my Dad and I drove up to Kearney to take him out to lunch, miniature golf, and shopping. We dined at Applebee’s, played some putt putt golf (pretty sure I won, and Nick tried to cheat), and then hit up Target to get Nick some video games. Towards the end of Nick’s special day Dad decided he wanted to purchase a printer from Office Depot. My brother and I were done. We were sick of walking around retail stores. So Nick and I began our “let’s-goof-off-in-a-store-and-do-things-like-sit-in-fancy-desk-chairs-and-push-each-other-down-aisles-like-scenes-from-Jackass-while-our-Dad-pretends-not-to-know-us” game. We are very good at that game. So is Dad. Anyway, while Nick and I are messing around with desk chairs we happen to (literally) run into our cousin Tim. Nick: “Hey Tim! What are you doing here?” Tim: “Oh Hey Voss kids. I’m here getting some reams of paper and white out. (I made that up; I cannot remember what he said he was shopping for) What are you guys doing here today?” Me: “Oh, we’re here to preemptively celebrate Nick’s birthday.” At that moment my lovely brother kind of turned towards me, did a very tiny eye roll move at me, and his jaw dropped just a smidge, which then gracefully turned into a smirk. In my mind I thought it was because I used the word “preemptively” and it was more than likely out context. I have a tendency to do that with words I don’t use on a regular basis. Not sure when exactly to use the word, but hell! It sounds good! Throw it in there! Tim: “Well Happy Birthday Nick!” Me: “Yep, my little brother turns the big 2-3 on Monday” Tim tried to say “Happy Birthday” again to my brother, but Nick cut him off. I could tell something was wrong, that my brother was annoyed. Very annoyed. He turned from Tim to me saying these words: “Thanks Tim, but actually, I turned 24. Today.” I had gone the whole day thinking Nick’s birthday was actually on Monday, and not that fine Sunday. And not only that, but I had the wrong age! Poor Nick…his older, wiser, sister can’t ever get his birthday right. Seriously. It’s been a problem his whole life. Not sure why, or what it is, but I can never remember what day his birthday falls on. Even right now, no idea. February 21? 23rd? 17th? In closing: I love my very funny brother. He puts up with a lot from me. In a way that story is a semblance of how our relationship works. I never pay attention, Nick calls me out on it, and then we laugh till our sides hurt. It’s great.

I Am Cursed Worse Than The Kennedy's!

I finally have my, MY car back and oh how I missed driving it. Having MY car back made me feel like I had got my independence back, you know? Like I didn’t have any restrictions as to where I could go.

Alright, let’s talk about the 3rd part to my saga:

It’s Monday, August 3, 2009 5:00 p.m. I’m leaving work, and I am just getting ready to pull out onto E Street to go home. I am only going maybe 4 miles per hour and while I’m turning there is a THUD, physically and audibly! This is quickly followed by me fearing I just ran over someone, or something. I sit there for about 10 seconds, and then I go to open my door to get out and assess the situation. My door wouldn’t open.

Oh God, this can’t be good. At all.

So, I climb over to my passenger side and crawl out and walk over to the driver’s side. What do I see? What in the hell do I see!??!?!? MY WHEEL FELL OFF. Let me repeat, MY WHEEL FELL OFF. Holy hell. I am cursed. I know it. I am fricking cursed. Seriously. What is the matter with me? MY WHEEL FELL OFF MY CAR. And it wasn’t just like the lug nuts came loose the tire rolled off, the whole f’n like shaft thing was completely detached from my tire. (I do not know much about car parts, so bear with me as my description of this incident will be full of thingies, whatchmacallits, etc.)

For the second time in less than a month, I had to call AAA to come get my car and tow it to a garage. I wonder if AAA is like when people fly a lot, they earn frequent flyer miles…? Maybe if I need to have my car towed one more time this year they’ll buy dinner and movie?

AAA towed my car down to Doyle’s Repair, and in the meantime my mother drove up to McCook to get me. She decided to kindly let me use her minivan while they worked on my car (she only lives like 3 blocks from where she works).

The next day I speak with a Greg from Doyle’s Repair and he tells me, get ready for this, he tells me that it appears that the cotter pin was not put back in after they (Salina people) took it out to replace my transmission. Here’s the importance of why cotter pins are necessary: they hold your car together. Ok, that was a bit vague; but basically me driving my car around without a cotter pin was dangerous. Deathly dangerous. Since they (Salina people) hadn’t put that pin back in, I could have, at any moment, had the tire fall off, and it would have caused some serious damage to myself, or to another person. Just think, if that shaft thingie would have fallen out while I was driving on the interstate, I honestly don’t think I would be here today!!! My boss, ever so nicely, said “your car would have rolled, and rolled, and rolled. It would have been awesome to see, without you in the car of course…”

I am going to take back my words on the ‘I am cursed’ part because frankly, if you evaluate the situation, you see that in fact I was lucky my tire fell off when it did. I was only going 4 miles an hour, half way in a parking lot, and no one in my path.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pissed because when the tire fell off, gravity happened and the body of my car slammed onto the pavement. That is why I couldn’t get my door to open.

Greg tells me he can fix it, but it’ll take a week. They were booked, plus some dude was on vacation. So, I got to rock the minivan for a week! Woohoo for soccer moms!

The next Monday I call Greg to check on my car, and to see if it’s ready.

“Hey, this is Stephanie Voss, how is my car coming along?”

“Well we fixed the tire. I went to take it for a test drive and before I left our garage I decided to make sure the other wheel had its cotter pin properly intact, and it was missing. So I put one in on the passenger side as well for you.”

“What!!!??? They forgot BOTH pins?”

“Yep.”

“Wow, ok well thank you. How much will this be?”

“Oh, no, we’re not done; I’ve got some more news. The new used transmission they put in your car is bad. When I took it for a test drive, your “CHECK ENGINE SOON” light was on. So I took it back to the garage, ran a test, and determined you still have a faulty transmission”

At this point my pulse goes up, tears are on the verge of streaming down my face, and I notice I my blood is starting to boil. I have only ever felt that angry before once in my life.

I get off the phone with Greg, and immediately call my dad and my mom to tell them the news. Then I call the Salina people, and I have them call Greg. Two hours go by and I call Greg back to see what he and the Salina people talked about. Greg said there were 4 days left on my warranty, and so they were coming up to McCook to get my car, and take it back down to Kansas, to once again replace the transmission.

So it looks like I’ll be rockin’ the minivan for a bit longer than I wanted to. Oh well, soccer moms are hot right? Or would this just be more of the grocery picker upper? But alas, it wasn’t long before I screwed it up too. Apparently I was rocking out too much in the ol’ minivan…blew a fuse.

To be continued, yet again….

Back to the Future II

It’s been over a month since I started to unfold the sad, sad story about my car. This is a continuum from the blog I posted on July 10, 2009.

Buzz, the mechanic, and I now have a love/hate relationship. It’s complicated. Let me explain. It’s going to be like a 4 part-er by the way, btw.

So, Buzz called me to tell me that yes, my transmission was toast, and he said it was going to take a couple days to find a used transmission in the Salina area.

Oh man, this totally sucks. What am I going to do? I need to get back to McCook.

Right after I got done with my mini, internal panic attack, Buzz said “We’re going to give you our pickup to drive while we fix your car. You can drive a pickup right?”

Uh, yeah dumbass, I grew up in southwest Nebraska. Geesh!


“Yes, I can drive a pickup. Thank you so much. I really need to get back to work.”

We made the arrangements, and before I knew it I was on back on I-70 headed into the sunset, yet again. This time I made it home without any troubs.

However, a week into driving a 1995 Chevy around McCook, something happened. So I go to my favorite gas station after work to get my daily fill of Mt. Dew. I am damn near religious about having a Mt. Dew after work. Anyway, I get back outside, climb into the vehicle, and lo-and behold the mother doesn’t start. I have yet, another mini panic attack, then decide that just sitting there crying won’t help anything. So I climb out, get the gas station cashier dude to give me his advice on the code red that is upon us.

He nicely and kindly helped me determine that it was the battery. Whew! I know about batteries. I can jump start any battery, anywhere with my eyes closed and one arm tied behind my back. So, we jump start it, and it starts. Then it dies again. WTF?!

Ok, so then he took a closer look and noticed that the cord that connects the battery to whateverthehell it goes to is loose. So he gets a wrench and tries to tighten it. That was a pointless effort, b/c then he figures out that somehow the nut/bolt on the inside of the battery was basically striped. What he suggested is getting something to prop up the cord with so it will keep the connection live.

I was able to get home, and went into MacGyver mode. I tried looking in my yard for a branch or twig to jam in-between the cord and the battery box to prop up the cord, but that didn’t work. Then a novel idea popped into my head. I tore out about 100 pages of paper from my version of a 'doodle book', and folded them over and over into a little, yet thick square. It worked perfectly. Sometimes, when I would go to start the pickup it wouldn’t turn over, so I would have to pop the hood, and adjust the paper, but, at least the vehicle I was borrowing was still working for me. Minor issue.

This is the beautiful pickup I was cruising around in for two weeks.

Well, after waiting patiently, I got the phone call that my car was ready. So I drove myself back down to Salina on a Friday evening, got my car and headed back home. Which way you may ask? Well I shall tell you. West, into the sunset. For the third time.

Finally! I’m back in my beat up little car. It was a little funny, after driving a big old honkin’ pickup around, my little car seemed foreign to me. I noticed how tight the steering wheel was. Very jerk-y, you know? Like the wheel would shift a little bit while I was driving.


Eh, it’s probably nothing, I probably just forgot how different my car’s control is from a 1995 pickup.


BIG MISTAKE IN IGNORNING THAT PECULIARITY I NOTICED. BIG MISTAKE.

To be continued…

I Suck At Bumper Boats

When I was little, I absolutely looked forward to riding the Bumper Boats at Fun City in Estes Park. It was soooooo much fun. That would have been in circa 1986. Fun. Fun. Fun.

Now, it's not. There isn't much to say, the pictures speak for themselves.

This is kind of when we started out:

Now, look at these, you can see my stellar bumper boating skillz:

Fin.