Five Days in the Life of Tom

Written by Tom Being Tom

This is going to be one of those “quick updates on life” kind of posts. You know, the kind where, after I finish, I get to click several categories on the right because this one talks a little about a lot. Nothing life-altering or traumatic, just 5 days in the life of Tom. Ready?

Beer

You like it. I like it. It’s a great first topic. It is also a great first thing to indulge in after our last post here at TBT. As it happens, after posting about my entire life history with a hated rivalry, I had a party to go to. A beer party. Oktoberfest. Actually, truth be told, immediately after my last post I had to go to work. But, after that I went to the party. I ubered. Should that be capitalized? Hyphenated? Should one just say “I caught a ride”? Regardless, I got to the party and, because it started a few hours before I got off work, there were already about 50 happy drunken people to greet me. And they did. Some of those people I hadn’t seen in a while and it was so nice to catch up. I swear I was handed about 20 “samples” of unique beer before I ever got to the sample table. I got home on the early side, pretty smashed from beer and brats, and didn’t realize until the next morning that I took 0 pics. None. Nada. That ain’t like Tom, lemme tell ya. The only conclusion? I never stopped talking and listening. It was that kind of fun. You’ll have to take my word for it. My phone reveals nothing.

Triumph

The morning after Oktoberfest I went back to the scene of the party and helped clean up. I also helped drink some of the leftover beer. I’m a giver like that. Some ten of us sat around after and talked about the party and made plans for the future. I have a very important pronouncement concerning that: I want to see more of them folks a lot. Last year the fires, then the home ownership thing falling into my lap, then the appliance business takeover possibility, then the new Marvel in my life all colluded to keep me from my peeps. I declare that era over. My peeps rock.

Tragedy

Then I got home and my Rams got skunked. I declared my season over. I declared the Rams a failed project and began searching for coaches and players the world over. Of all the teams to put the nail in the Ram coffin…

Have I mentioned that I hate the Niners?

Keto-ish

Still, I persisted. After the tragedy – and a long weekend of beer – I sat down with Mrs C and came up with a plan. See, when she switched from mad-dash retail to desk-job banking, back in May, she decided that the best stay-fit plan was starvation. Exercise? No, we’re both wildly against that kind of thing. So, starvation seemed like a good plan. Only it wasn’t. Not only was it a recipe for bad health and bad disposition, it wasn’t actually working. We’re both a few pounds over our ideal weight, so we came up with a plan. Pretty simple, actually. Meat. Meat and vegetables. Not entirely carb-free, that would be very difficult for a beer drinker such as I, but a serious reduction in sugars and starches. And it’s already working. My scale said 182.2 yesterday which is about as low a thing as it’s said to me in a couple of years. My goal is 178 and I’m willing to bet you a Rams 1st-round draft pick that I’ll get there by the end of next week at this rate. We both notice differences. After three days. Meat, folks. Meat and vegetables. Who would have thought?

IT Man

My boss uses Quickbooks for finances, and Uncle Gary comes in to help with that. He’s a brilliant man, and a genius with numbers and such. He also keeps up pretty well with stuff. So when he turned to the boss last week and said “Your computer running Quickbooks 2011 on Windows 7 is not only obsolete, it’s absolutely unsupported as of January 1st,” my boss panicked. So he went out and bought all new computers and gave me a command: install them, install them all. I’m the IT guy at my work, since I’ve fucked around enough with computers the last 30 years to have made all the mistakes, so I got busy. That was my Tuesday. And most of my Wednesday. While selling a good 20 or so appliances – and getting our stocking order done in frantic, free moments – I reconstituted our entire computer and POS system this week. We’re set, now. Until 2028.

Jalen Ramsey

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Rams traded two 1st-round picks for arguably the best cornerback in the NFL, and traded away arguably the most inconsistent cornerback in the NFL, causing a firestorm of guffaws, cheers, and controversies throughout the league. I’m a happy Ram guy again. The nail has been removed from the coffin. This team will not rest on its laurels. I declare the season renewed.

Goliath and the Post Man

The only other two things of note this week are that the missus and I started watching “Goliath” on Prime and I am battling with my postal carrier. Well, not so much battling as disagreeing. Really, we haven’t spoke. But a few days ago I ordered a pole saw to tackle some trees in my yard and instead of a pole saw I got a slip of paper in my mailbox saying “too long!” Well, duh. I really didn’t expect my letter carrier to put a pole saw in my mailbox. That would be some Bullwinkle magic shit. So I went online and said “redeliver” and “leave at door” and expected that would clear it up. For shits and giggles I marked the same things on the little slip and put it back in the mailbox. Several days later no pole saw, no slip taken, and the online tracker says I already rescheduled and it is meant to be delivered, as I asked, three days ago. I’m thinking, unless my postal person has a DeLorean and 1.21 gigawatts in the van there is probably no way at this point they’re making that 3-day ago deadline. But since I can’t change my appointment online now, and they seem determined to still make that a go, I’ll have to march down to the post office today and claim my pole saw. How much you want to bet their system says “already delivered” or “currently on the truck for delivery on 10/14”? I just want to trim a tree, man.

Also, Billy McBride is my new hero. A well-written and formed dog-loving drunk with integrity on a show that shares a name with one of my favorite superheroes of all time? Yeah, that’s a win.

That’s all for this time, folks. Sorry I rambled on. 5 days can be a really long time in the life of Tom, particularly when he drinks beer, watches the Rams, starts a diet, works on a computer network, trades for a football savior, battles a post office, and finds a drunken TV hero.

Please stay tuned.

Lord only knows what the next 5 days will bring.

29 thoughts on “Five Days in the Life of Tom”

  3. With any luck the next five days will bring a pole saw. Or just a pole and you can stick a saw on it. Maybe your saw was at the Oktoberfest party. Like you said you didn’t take any pictures, so who knows what you saw? Maybe your mail carrier will compromise with a copy of Tom Sawyer.
    And here’s hoping we hear from you before 2028. My workplace just upgraded to Windows 365 which accurately describes the number of problems with it.

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    1. My work called me five times yesterday with snafus; new systems suck. Still, I picked up my pole saw, which was so long it didn’t even fit in the Rogue without removing the box, and marked that tree trimming off the master list. And then I got the lawns done, vacuumed the house, grilled some rib-eye and asparagus for the missus and I, and watched the penultimate episode of Goliath S1 before bed. I watched football, too, but not the Rams, and had a couple of beers.

      I guess you could say that Thursday, my day off, was a microcosmic reenactment of “Five Days in the Life of Tom.” 😏

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  4. Tom,
    Wow, you’ve had a full, well-rounded week (I’m rounding up); which goes to show you, moderation is the way to go in most things in life! A little drink here, meat and veggies there, a little work here, a little binge-watching there! Friends, family, football and blogging — it’s all good! Hope both our teams do better this week! Also, I’m glad you finally got your pole saw, which is always better than getting a pole cat! Heheehee! Mona

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    1. Yeah, I’ve heard them polecats can be mean! We head to Atlanta to face the struggling (1-5) Falcons. We’ll be desperate for a win and to make it look like we are back “on track,” but they’ll be desperate, too. We have to stay out of our own heads and play our game. We’re better than we look.

      Y’all, however, are fighting for the division lead against the arch-rival Philadelphia Eagles. Looks like the Cowboys are favored by 3, but the home team automatically gets 3, so this is as even as it gets. Good luck!

      Since you mentioned the “full week” (rounded up!) I took a second to wonder what this post would have looked like had I waited two more days:

      Essentially the same. Having procured the pole saw it was a yard day at Casa de Cummings. At the end of it, I grilled. During the day I got FIVE calls from work concerning the new network. On Friday morning I corrected some things about it. The work day was solid. Season One of Billy is under our belts, the finale of it satisfying (even if I thought the show, overall, lost some luster down the stretch). Looking forward to Season Two!

      Thanks for reading and responding, Mona! Go PoleCats!

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  5. Well Tom, I’m glad you found some renewal of your NFL team, at least you have hope. I’m cheering for my secondary team (yes I have one) The Chiefs, I loathed Patric Mahomes when he played for Texas Tech, just because I hate Texas Tech, lol. But he’s a fantastic QB for the Chiefs, I have also given up hope for the Steelers this season, nail…..coffin, you get the picture, right?

    Billy McBride is an awesome character, Billy Bob Thornton does such a great job of portraying him. I think it’s his alter ego if you ask me, it’s a nail biting series and I’m all done. I binge watched all of season 3, ready for season 4!

    So Mr. Pole Saw, do let us know how the retrieval of said package goes, I’d like to know how or if it was delivered. At least it wasn’t UPS, where it was kicked over your fence by an angry driver because you ordered a pole saw….😆😂

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    1. LOL @ “angry UPS drivers!” 😂😂😂

      We finished Season One of Goliath last night, and it had a satisfying ending. I thought the show lost momentum a bit down the stretch (did they change writers mid-season?!) but still good. Billy is a great character; I hope they expand him going forward. Much potential!

      I went down to the Post Office on Thursday morning, no line. The only guy at the desk looked like a linebacker in his football days and I handed him my slip and said “I guess they couldn’t fit this in my mailbox?” He took the slip without a word and left for the back. I heard him laugh. He walked out with a box that was about 8′ long and said “No, I imagine they couldn’t fit this one.” We laughed. He told me to take it out of the box to fit it in the Rogue, and off I went. I did about 3 hours of tree trimming. Happy ending.

      You see what happened to Mahomes? It’s the Madden Curse, I tell ya! 3-8 weeks. Essentially this means the Chiefs are battling for a Wild Card instead of homefield advantage, and all but ensures another Super Bowl appearance by Tom Brady.

      Which doesn’t suck. The Patriots happen to be by backup team. 😉

      [You might remember my current rankings of teams, 1-32: https://tombeingtom.com/2019/07/14/ranking-stuff/ 😁]

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      1. Lol, at least the post office linebacker guy had a good sense of humor about this entire pole saw saga.

        Yes, Goliath is definitely a great show, since I’ve seen all three season I’m not going to give you any spoilers. Only to say that somehow, Patty makes his character more depth.

        I’m sorry Tom, if your backup team is the Patriots, we can’t be friends…..Tom Brady, Bill Belichek……should be tied to the goal post and have every kicker in the league take turns kicking footballs AT them not past them! Lol
        And even though Brady came from Michigan…….I DONT LIKE HIM. So we see, we can’t play together on the playground that is the NFL. Sorry Tom Pole Saw…😂😆🤣

        Liked by 1 person

      2. I had a feeling that would strike a nerve! 🤣🤣🤣 The good news is that the Steelers and Chiefs are me 5th and 7th favorite teams, respectively!

        Can we just agree to both hate the Cowboys and leave this behind us? 💐

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      3. Done and Done! And I’m only going to say this once, if anyone deserves to be America’s team it should be The Patriots NOT the Cowgirls. There, I’m never going to utter those words ever again, lmao 🤣🤔😝

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      1. Thank you kindly, Tom! You will find, I expect, that I’m all over the place. Like you, I’m interested in many different things. I’m still smiling about your pole saw! Oh and my name is Patricia. When I started the blog a few years ago I had no idea what I was doing and somehow managed to make eponine3 my name (Eponine is my granddaughter, we call her Eppie). Anyway I am stuck with it now I guess! Smarter minds than mine would figure out how to change this, but I have other things to do 🙂
        Thank you for stopping by and following. I am honored!

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      2. Nice to meet you, Patricia! I think, from reading you, we will be fast friends. I had no idea what I was doing when I started blogging, and that still holds true. And yet, I persist. Sister, you and I are peas in a pod!

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  8. I’ve never even heard of Goliath but now I need to watch it. Why is it that every time you mention your pole saw, I think of pole dancing? Can you pole dance with a pole saw? That would be a good way to keep the weight off;-)

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