Joe's post- knee replacement insomnia.

Voicemail I got from Joe:
Leesha, it's dad.  Hey, uh, sometime today when you're running around, if you & Lloyd come out here for the football game, pick me up some sleeping pills, will ya?
Slept good until about 2:00, woke up, had to go to the bathroom, could not go back to sleep, could not go back to sleep.  So I laid there until about 5, got up & took 2 ibuprofen, for some reason, I don't even know what the hell I did that for, I thought, "shit, I'll take some cyanide pills I guess, if I thought they would do some good for somethin.'"  But, uh, my time is off, cuz I just woke up now.  So I don't even know when I fell back asleep.  Everything's just out of whack.  Pick me up somethin.'  You'll figure it out.

Morning routine

Joe was going to drop off a few things for a coleslaw recipe in my car while I was at the gym.

Joe:  You got the recipe printed out?  How much oil & sugar do you need?

Alicia:  Looks like a cup of oil & a cup of sugar. What time do you think you'll be there?

Joe:  Well, you know, after I get my coffee & pick my nose a couple times, I'll be up there around 9:30.

Then I started some unrelated story, going off on a tangent.

Joe:  What's this got to do with the g#ddamn coleslaw?

Cords and Banjos

Names changed for anonymity

Joe:  You know Keith called the other day and asked me how long of a cord he should get for his lawn work.  He's got a 25 foot cord & a 50 foot cord & he's always borrowing my 100 foot cord. 

I told him to get a 100 foot cord so it takes care of the whole lawn.

He said last time he had a 100 foot cord his wife cut through it with the hedge trimmer so he thought he should get a shorter cord.

So he's thinking of getting a shorter cord.  That thing will be stretched out like a g#ddamn banjo string.  He just needs to tell his wife to get her head out of her a$s. 

The picture of health

We were at my grandma's nursing home & I was reading the dinner menu outloud:  "braunschwaeger sandwich."

Joe:
You know braunschweger is high in iron.  So is beer.  I read that in my information from my surgery.  A little braunschwaeger, a little beer, a little velveta, sh#t man, I'm the picture of health.

Alicia:  Does velveta have a lot of iron in it?

Joe:  Oh yeah, it's right up there.

Dalai Joe

Joe:  You know how that lady down the street took me to my doctor's appointment and then we went out for coffee afterwards?   I got a real nice Christmas card from her saying happy holidays & she really enjoyed talking to me at coffee because i'm easy to talk to and open. 

Alicia:  Oh, you are?

Joe:  Hell yes.  Alright, I'm gonna put my psychology degree away here & take a leak. 

Holidays filled with pie plates & screamin' knees.

Joe has 2 recipes that call for a 10” pie plate, so he’s been on the hunt for one.   I wish I could have a recording of his conversation because I'm sure I'm missing some of his eloquence.  (He had already looked for the pie plate at Walmart, Kmart, Target, & Big Lots)

Joe:

So I go to the mall to look for this pie plate.  I parked by Penny’s, went in & they ain’t got nuthin.’

So here I’m walking to Macy’s looking around at all these ladies & their old men just following them around, like baby skunks behind their mother.  I thought to myself, “this is the last place Joe Herbst needs to be.  What the hell am I doing here” And my knees are screamin.’

Here I see my buddy Bill.

So we were talkin’ for about a half hour & I says, “Hey Bill, you want to get a seat somewhere, my knees are screamin.’”  So we went to that Starbuck’s & he got us some coffees.  I told him I didn’t want any of that “expresso” bullsh#t, just regular coffee.  So we talked a little more & then he had to go.

So I go prancin’ down to Macy’s and figured out that the pie plates are on the lower level, so I find the escalator & I’m at the up instead of down escalator.  I thought, “g#ddamn, how much time am I going to put into this looking for a g#ddamn pie plate.” 

 So I get to the right section & they ain’t got all their pie plates together, they got them organized by brand, so it’s all Martha Stewart stuff, and then the next brand.  Son of a b#tch, I gotta look through all these products for some sh#ttin pie plate.  Some young kid comes up to me & asks if he can help me.  I thought, “this kid ain’t gonna do me no good,” but I tell him what I’m looking for.  He checked the computer & says they don’t have any at that store but he can order me one.   I told him no & he told me to try Dillards.  Well by this time my knees are really screamin & I just had to get out of there.  I walk way back to my car by Penny’s. 

 I’m driving along Lemay Ferry & see the entrance for Dillards, which I had already passed.  So I go up to Forder, turn around & come back because I just want to get this over with.  I don’t want to spend another day looking for this bullsh#t.

So I go to Dillards & had to get on the escalator, which I walked to the wrong side of again.



Alicia again, not to draw out the story, but profanities ensued & he finally got a 9.5" pie plate & at Big Lots because apparently 10" pie plates don't exist in the STL; the world was happy again.

The Rotation

Thursday night I was over at Joe's & I was hungry, so I had a peanut butter sandwich.  I noticed there was a used toothpick (Joe is very green & recycles lots of things) on the top of the peanut butter jar, which was sitting on the kitchen table.

I went over there today & noticed the toothpick was on a box sitting on the table instead of the jar of peanut butter.  

Alicia:  Oh, I see you did the rotation.

Joe:  Oh yeah, you noticed that, huh?  yeah I turned the table cloth around so the holes wouldn't be where you & Lloyd sat for dinner the other night.

Alicia:  No, no, I don't mean the table cloth, although that's a great move, I mean the rotation of the position of your toothpick.

Joe:  Ha ha ha.  Oh yeah, the other night I was too lazy to turn on the light in the kitchen so I just felt around for something to set the toothpick on, so I put it on that box.
I can't just set it on the table because I'll lose the g#ddamn thing with all those colors in the table cloth.

Alicia:  Ohhhhh, no, you definitely wouldn't want to lose it.