I should really write

It has been too long (again) since my last entry. You know, the funny thing is that I’ve told a number of people that I should sit down and type an entry up and they have, of course, agreed with me, but I just haven’t felt the desire to “write.” I still really don’t have the desire but know that I need to put something in here else I’m going to end up doing what I did years ago and leave it for too much time. Besides, I have stuff on my mind.

First things first – Happy New Year everyone. I know we’re in February already but it’s been since the holidays that I’ve put an entry in here so I need to say that at least.

My work has gone through the roof. For those of you familiar with the Mississippi area, I generally cover a corridor that is along I-55 from Sardis to Grenada and extends out from there to Marks, MS going west and Mt. Olivet on the eastern side. During the first 3 ½ months of my employment, my calls were minimal to say the least. In other words, I was getting about 4 calls a week in my area.

However, now I am moving and grooving from 8 a.m. until sometimes 9 p.m. every day because another technician in the area has had a family emergency. The tech that turned me onto this job, whose name is Sherry, has had to go to Jackson, MS and sit with her daughter who was in a horrible car accident and has been in a coma since arriving there on the 29th of December. And, it’s not looking especially promising for Sherry’s daughter because the cranial pressure was so high for so long that it looks as if she’s going to have brain damage. They are moving her daughter to a facility in the Atlanta area sometime in the next week and Sherry is going also.

And that leads me back to the work portion of this entry. In addition to the area I normally cover, I have added, essentially, every town east of I-55 from Sardis and Grenada over to the Alabama state line to include a line from Sardis to Hickory Flat to Corinth and up into that part of Mississippi also. So, I’ve gone from my typical 4 calls a week to 30-34 calls a week. I feel like a one armed, one legged man in a paper hanging, ass-kicking contest sometimes. And why can’t that be an Olympic sport? Hell, they’ve got the biathlon where you ski for a while then shoot a target. Why not a one armed, one legged paper hanging/ass-kicking event?

Speaking of an increase in calls, since I am also covering one of the poorest areas in the country (I’m VERY close to the Delta area of Mississippi), can I make a suggestion? If you are in a single wide trailer that only has PATHS that take you throughout your “house,” perhaps you should NOT own three freaking computers and have them all stuffed in a room that isn’t big enough for me to turn around in without bumping into my OWN ass. I mean, GEEZ!, I know I’m a big guy but I shouldn’t encounter my own ass as I’m turning around to wedge myself into the space you’ve designated as your “computer room” so I can take apart your laptop or desktop. I will need what is commonly referred to as “elbow room” to complete a repair. It doesn’t work well when I leave with divots in my ribs from having to hold my elbows in close to my body.

And, segueing into the fact that I’m a big guy, I’m not as big as I once was. Back at the end of October (the 28th in fact), I went to my doctor and got weighed. An even 300 pounds is what was put onto my chart. Since then, I’ve been reducing the amount of food I eat and the number of times I eat in a day and by the time I went to see my doctor in the middle of December, I had lost 12 pounds. Since then, I’ve lost an additional 12-14 pounds (I seem to be hovering around 274/275) but I have hopes that I will continue to lose weight as time goes along. It really helps when I eat breakfast and lunch at a later time in the day which keeps me from eating anything major for dinner.

Now, if only the calls would keep up and allow me to purchase some pants that now fit. I get sick of having to stop while walking into a customer’s house to pull up my pants because they decide they want to fall to the ground. Plus, it’s just plain embarrassing!

Time Next Time,