Natasha Fondren

Right after Glenn left, the Wednesday before last, my phone stopped working. I could hear people talk, but they couldn’t hear me. Luckily I had equipment protection, so they gave me a brand, shiny new one, free and clear.

That was nice. And it relates to the wonderful day I had on Friday.

I got up early, excited to buy an air conditioner. My cat broke my favorite (and only) real-glass glass, but I was too excited to care.

I’d been forgetting to put our new plates on. That was bad. I was told this could negate my insurance, should I get into an accident, and that if I got pulled over, they could impound the car.

Those might have been exaggerations to inspire me to finally put the plates on the car. Which I did.

While I was wrangling with the rusted screws, Sprint Customer Survey called me for the fiftieth time to ask how my service was when I replaced my phone. (See? I told you it related!) I’d tried ignoring their rings, as you all know I only talk to my best friend, my niece and Glenn on the phone. But if I wanted them to stop calling me, it was clear the only way would be to accept the phone call.

So I grabbed my phone from the Jeep and replaced the license plates as I took the survey. I have short patience for these things, so after five questions I hung up and put the phone on the taillight while I worked a really tough screw.

Ohio license plates are made of metal, but South Dakota license plates, the new ones, are made of this bendy-plastic. Cheap, but shinier. Didn’t like, though.

Then I went to get my AC. $50 off! Woo-hoo! It’s portable, because that’s all that will work with our setup.

When I came home again, (two hours later because it’s 40 miles away) I realized I didn’t have my phone.

Yeah.

The taillight.

Not still there.

Go figure.

I installed and turned on my AC, then hit the road to retrace my steps to find my lost phone. I was shocked that I actually did find it. It was in the middle of the road, overheated in the sun, run over and warped.

It won’t close, now that it’s warped:

And you can totally tell it was run over several times and ground into the gravel road:

But it works!

So I drove on to find a health food store in Tucson that has all the fixings for the macrobiotic diet I did pre-Glenn. I’m trying to get the body here in shape for “The Back-up Plan,” so I need to avoid all the foods I’m allergic to, which is basically all the yummy food in the whole world.

By that time, it was mid-afternoon and 100 degrees out. I was soooooo happy to get home to my camper with AC.

Except my camper was 100 degrees, too. I futzed and sorta fixed it. By the time it finally cooled the camper down to 78 degrees, it was 80 degrees outside.

I was hot and bothered, and not in a good way.

Didn’t my dinner look great, though?

Um, yeah. If you mention ice cream, I’m not sure I’ll be able to forgive you.

I was glad to call it a day. As I was getting changed into my nightgown—would you believe it?—I stepped on a glass shard I’d missed that morning. Couldn’t get it out. Couldn’t find my tweezers. Had to hop to a neighboring RV to borrow tweezers. After bleeding and crying and soaking and pulling and tweezing for thirty minutes, I got it out and successfully made it to bed. (About the only successful thing I did that day.)

So what do you think? Don’t you think it’s Sprint’s fault that my phone is broken again? If they hadn’t been spamming me with phone calls I never asked for, I wouldn’t be in this situation!

And how was your weekend? Don’t you think it’s so weird to say, “Happy Memorial Day!”? How about “An Honorable Memorial Day!” instead?