URINE REMOVER

We were walking around Lowe’s the other day.  We had just moved into a new house.  It’s the only time my wife likes being at Lowe's.  She gets to decorate.  Organization.  Under the sink storage; closet storage.  We were walking down the cleaning product aisle.  In Lowe's.  Cleaning products.  How did that happen? 

I get how it started.  I'm betting it started with push brooms.  That’s a man’s broom.  Some manly man doesn’t want to use a pink broom to sweep out the garage, so he has a huge push broom.  Then they said, “Let’s add mops.  That’s kind of like a broom.”  Then they had to add the cleaning products to use with the mops. 

And there's toilet paper.

Yes, Lowe’s sells toilet paper.  Really?

I won’t even go there.

HAHA!  Go there………nevermind.

So we’re walking down the cleaning aisle, looking at something to clean our new hand scraped wood floors.  Hand scraped.  I scraped our hardwood floors once and got yelled at.  NOW, they’re the nicest thing to have in your house.  Go figure. 

So I’m a couple of steps ahead of my wife, and she taps me on the shoulder.  I turn around and she is holding a bottle of Urine remover.

Urine remover?  That’s GENIUS!

I look at the shelf, and there is plenty of it.

“Stay here,” I tell her, as I rush off. 

I come back with an empty cart, and start loading up.  Little bit of useless trivia for you here.  You can fit 119 bottles of Urine Remover in a Lowe’s shopping cart.

We get to the register, and the woman obviously wasn’t happy I chose her lane.  Maybe she was at the end of her shift.  But kudos to her; she is trying to be nice.

“Goodness,” she says, looking at the cart.  “Do you know how many you have?”

“No,” I smile.  “I didn’t count.  I just dumped them all in.

She is trying to be polite, but I can sense the tension.

“You must have a LOT of dogs,” she says, shaking her head slightly.

What kind of dumb statement is that?  How did she make that assumption?  I look at my wife, and she gives me a look that seems to convey that I’m the one not understanding something.

She grabs her little scanner, and comes around to our side of the counter.  She grabs an empty basket, and pulls it next to ours.  Picking up the bottles, she begins to scan.

“One, two, three…”

I can see her smile leaving as she gets to around thirty.

“Guess I should have counted them,” I offer.

Her smile is completely gone now.

She empties the partially filled basket and starts over.

“One, two, three.”

I look back at my wife, who is smirking and shaking her head.

I give her the look that only people who have been married for fifteen years have learned to comprehend.  She steps toward me, and says I messed up her counting by talking to her.

“…twenty-one, twenty-two…”

Being the nice guy I am, I quickly apologize.

I hear the sigh escape her lips as she stops.  Once again, she empties the mostly empty cart into my almost full one.

“One, two….”

I feel badly for her.  I was only trying to be nice.  She has a hard job.  A lot of people shopping at Lowe’s are men, and they aren’t there because they get to do something fun.  They are there because something broke, or their wives have decided they want new shelves put up in the laundry.  It’s the weekend, and that means the projects are cutting into our football time. 

I look behind my wife at the other people in line, and there isn’t a smile to be had.  I look back at the checker, still counting.

“Wow.  No wonder you’re so grumpy…”

Ever feel the words coming out of your mouth, right as your brain tells you NOT to say it?

“Thanks, brain.  I know it NOW.”

It’s not even a sigh.  It’s a full-blown groan.

I’ve learned my lesson.  Not another word from me.

Just then, I hear the call come over the intercom.

“We need all available checkers to the front please.”

She was doing wonderfully, and was almost pleasant again as I heard her nearing the eighty mark.

“…76, 77…”

Then the beeping stopped.  I can see she is pressing the little trigger, but there are no beeps to be had.

She looked at me like it was my fault. 

I looked at her apologetically, and said, “guess you should have checked the battery on your scanner, huh?”

Okay, so I hadn’t learned my lesson.

I was happy to get out of there with my loot, and couldn’t wait to try it.

Think about it.  What an awesome time-saver.  And I’m 50.  I need all the time I can get.  No more middle of the night trips.  In fact, I’ll never have to go to the bathroom again.

Yeah, well…that night, the Emergency Room nurses were laughing too.  My wife was laughing so hard she could barely get the entire story out.  I thought that was pretty rude.  I had my head stuck in a little bucket, getting rid of everything I had eaten in the last six months, and they are all laughing at me.  

I think that may have been worse than dealing with the grumpy people at Lowe's.

Bruce Cameron

If you are unfamiliar with Bruce Cameron, you need to check him out. 

He has been one of my favorite columnists for more than ten years now.  I don't remember how I originally found him, but his humor is much like mine.  And he has written several dog books now which thrill me.  I'm an animal lover, and dogs are at the top of my list.

His newest one, available now, is The Dogs of Christmas.  I haven't read it yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

If you love dogs, humor, fun, and just enjoy life in general, you should really check him out.

http://www.brucecameron.com/

There, you can find out about him, his books, and sign up for his emails, find links to his Facebook pages, etc.

 

Am I Prepared?

It was a Tuesday afternoon, and my wife was meeting friends after work for dinner. Both our son and daughter were at work, so I was the first to arrive home.

We have two rescued dogs who tend to get into stuff when they are bored, so we keep them closed out of the bedrooms when we’re gone during the day. Opening the front door, they did not greet me in their usual manner. In fact, they were greeting me from the bedroom. I double-checked the driveway, thinking maybe I just had not seen my daughter’s car.

I walked down the hallway toward the bedroom, and found our bedroom door closed. Not completely, but enough to keep them from nosing their way out. I dismissed it, thinking my wife just had not pulled it completely closed when she left. It was odd for her, but certainly possible.

 

Letting the dogs outside, I also noticed the bottom drawer of her jewelry armoire was halfway opened. The younger dog is certainly curious enough to paw the drawer open, especially if she thinks it may contain food, or a racquetball, which is her favorite toy. Standing on the patio, waiting for the dogs to do their business, I turned, and suddenly saw something that twisted my gut.

Just to the left of the doorknob on our French door was a softball-sized hole. The entire glass door was spider-webbed. Suddenly, the entire scene repeated itself…the open bedroom door, and the open jewelry armoire drawer…and the fact that I had just walked through the house unprepared.

 

 

We moved into our current house five and a half years ago. The neighborhood is decent enough, although there are some lower-rent duplexes just a couple of blocks away. In spite of that, we have never put a gate on our lock because there was never a need. One time, several months ago, someone got into my son’s car when it was parked in the street. It had been unlocked, and they only stole some change, so it was not serious. However, we had never had any issues where we felt in danger in any way.

I have been a CHL holder for a few years now, and was carrying at the time. But suddenly, I was hit with the realization that I may walk back into the house to face an intruder, or two. I was carrying my S&W .40, but inside were my .12 gauge shotgun and a 9 mm handgun. All of the stories you hear on the news could potentially describe my situation.

 

 

 

I also knew at any moment, my son and or daughter might be coming home. I pulled my gun, and put one in the chamber. I had fourteen shots, and feel I am proficient with the Sigma. However, I could be facing seven shots of 9 mm and five shotgun blasts. I said a quick prayer, and entered the bedroom again, holding my firearm out, ready for battle.

 

 

A quick glance told me my shotgun was undisturbed. One down; one to go. The dogs came back in after me, but were not barking, which gave me a little peace. Quickly making my way to the Kel-Tec, it was just as I had left it.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

Refusing to get complacent, I continued making my way through the entire house, checking every closet, under the beds, and the garage. My dogs and I were alone.

Making my way to the back door, I saw both the knob and the deadbolt locked.

Maybe no one came in,I thought. Maybe it was just someone throwing something from another backyard.

Finding a rock in the living room, thirty feet from the back door negated that hope.

I walked next door, to a neighbor who is home frequently during the day. It was a shot in the dark, (so to speak), but maybe he had seen, or heard something. As we were talking, a Sheriff’s Deputy who lives a few houses down drove by in his cruiser. I flagged him down, and he looked at the damage.

“Someone definitely tried to get in,” he said.

I told him I had briefly looked through the jewelry, and nothing appeared to be missing. We thought at the time the dogs may have prevented them from entering. It was not until later we found some things were missing, and others have been disturbed.

I called the police, and was told they could send someone by, but it would be awhile. As I waited, I cleaned up what I could, and replayed what had happened. One question kept coming to my mind:

Had I been prepared for a confrontation?

Thankfully, that question was not answered in a physical way that afternoon. Yes, I was armed. And yes, I feel proficient. In addition, I have studied Krav Maga for a while to learn to defend myself and my family. But I potentially faced more than one attacker, and possibly more than one gun. Was my knowledge, or my gun, enough?

We have all read stories about criminal encounters, and people interrupting burglaries. We live in a world where evil is always ready to invade our quiet, peaceful lives. Violence does not need a reason to destroy our world, and turn our lives upside down. That is exactly the reason I carry. I want to know that wherever I am, and whatever may happen, I am at least able to increase my chances of survival.

And I ask again:

Was I prepared for a confrontation?

Reading this, you may think I was. I have gone over it dozens of times. Entering the house the second time, I believe I was. However, I walked in the first time,completely unprepared for anything. If someone had met me by the front door, I would have been taken by surprise, and they would have had the upper hand. As soon as I saw that the dogs were not at the door, and verified my daughter was not yet home, I should have pulled my gun.

The preparation I had before entering the second time did not happen by accident. And it did not happen because I bought a gun, or even because I have a license to carry. It took a lot to get to that point.

How do you pass a physics test in school? You study. You do not go buy a physics book, and put it on your shelf, and decide you know physics. You do not sign up for a physics class, and attend once or twice. You read the book; you learn the formulas; you ask questions; and you go over it and over it until youknow it.

If you have made the decision to carry a firearm, I applaud you…if you are doing it for the right reason, and in the right way. Do not get a license so you can be “cool” because you can carry a gun. If you want to be able to protect yourself, your family, and the innocent people around you, that is awesome. However, even that is not enough. You need to spend time on the range, learning to draw and shoot your weapon. Can you hit a target consistently? Under stress?

If you take a martial art, or some other form of self-defense, that’s great. But are you doing it so you can say, “I know Karate?” Or are you doing it to learn to defend yourself, hoping you will never have to actually use it? And do you just attend class once or twice a week so you can say you “do” it? Do you study and practice outside of class?

I recently saw a posting on a school board close to our house. It read:

“Do not study until you get it right. Study until you cannot get it wrong.”

I am very thankful I was not actually put to the test that afternoon a couple of weeks ago. It was just enough of a shock to make me realize how close I may have come to a horrible situation. Had I walked in on someone, it could have become very ugly very fast.

Every time you drive, I hope you wear your seatbelt. If you don’t, you are being foolish. No one expects to have an accident. But if you are ever in one, you will not have time to put your belt on. No one expects to face an intruder in your home, or on the streets. However, if you ever do, you need to have prepared ahead of time.

Have a defense, or two…or three. Do not leave them on the shelf. Use them; learn them; practice them;know them…until you can’t get it wrong.