Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - A Pretty Good Day deserves to be savored

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Brooks Peterson

Monday, July 23, 2001
A Pretty Good Day deserves to be savored

You ever had one of those days in which the music of the spheres reaches a lyrical crescendo, all of creation appears to be coming together in a sublime harmony, and you realize to your delight and astonishment that all is right with the world?
   It's been a while since I've had one of those. Generally speaking, I'm content with having survived another day in the journalistic journal and found that the Caller-Times parking lot birds have chosen someone else's car to decorate.
   Now and then, though, I'll have a pretty darned good day. I even got a column out of one: the day the dentist's office called to let me know they were going to have to postpone my cleaning. Talk about bliss . . .
   And last week (actually, as I write, this week, but by the time you read this . . . oh, never mind) . . . Last week, I say, I had a surprisingly satisfying day.
   And it all began with a pane. Not "pain;" pane - p-a-n-e.
   A story, of course, goes with it. Remember Hurricane Bret? Surly customer, sloshed ashore in August of '99, did a job on Falfurrias and inconvenienced a whole bunch of cattle out in the brush country. As is our practice, we went into full bug-out mode, to include boarding up our windows.
   That included the big circular (opaque) window in the downstairs bathroom. The old man (that would be me) was hammering merrily along, fueled as always by his absolute conviction that Bret had our street address and was bearing directly down on us . . .
   Then what do we hear but something along these lines: "KEE-RASH!tinkletinkletinkle . . ." Dad had busted the window.
   Time passes.
   Well, you can't rush these things. How does the song go? "I haven't got time for the pane . . . "?
   Finally, almost two years later, I call the glass people, and the man comes out, takes the specifications, and we're just barreling along. Except.
   It's a round window. And it's double-paned. And since it's right next to the bathtub, it has to be safety glass, so it won't shatter if someone should fall through it (kind of tough to envision that happening, but I suppose if the merriment just got entirely out of hand . . .).
   We're looking at a special order here. It'll come on the Tuesday truck Tuesday, or it'll come on the Thursday truck.
   It does come on Thursday, and I go out to watch the experts. Now, if I tried to take a broken pane of glass out of a window, let alone a round one, klaxons would be shrilling in blood banks throughout the Coastal Bend. But these guys: Out goes the old, in goes the new, and no unanticipated extra charges. Such a deal.
   An embarrassment of riches
   But that's not all. Even as the glaziers are finishing I up, I get a call from the cable TV people.
   See, we have this . . . situation. The channels in the low-number range - 5, 6, 7, 8 - are clear, but as you go into the double digits, things just get fuzzier and fuzzier. A couple of techs had come out, but no joy.
   Ah, but wait: Another serviceman is en route, and sure enough: There he is at the door, just as the glass guys are finishing up. He takes a few readings and tells me . . .
   Tells me the problem is in their cable: It's their problem. It's their fault! And they're going to fix it!
   Time passes.
   A phone call reveals that this is going to take a little more time - Further Action Will Be Required . . . but c'mon: The movement's in the right direction.
   Now, if I could just manage to put out of my mind the fact that the dentist's skip tracers finally ran me to ground the other day and locked me into a Date Certain.
   Fact is, I blew a couple of appointments, and, well . . . I know they'll be using the picks and gougers and scrapers from the Special Drawer. The ones fashioned from rusty old fish hooks. (They of course deny the existence of the Special Drawer. But we know better, don't we?)
   Anyway, it's nice to know that as they do their fearful work, I'll be able to think back on that One Pretty Good Day when Everything, generally speaking, Came Together. For the most part.

   Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com


Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com

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