Home Visit/Truck Accident/Water Leak/Spider Colony in New Beginnings

I went back to my childhood home and retrieved that road cycle I ordered. Since I didn’t get a response to my emails or phone calls, I just showed up unannounced around noon that Saturday. I backed into Mrs. Johnson’s driveway in my dad’s truck, the same truck that was parked in the garage just one house over when I was in high school. She and her husband just happened to be outside when I showed up, and catching up with them was very soothing for lack of a better word.

That neighborhood is still a pleasant place to live. A not quite young but not middle aged couple live in my old house. They have one daughter who’s in 5th grade. It’s quite a big house for a 3 person family, but seeing my old house be put to good use was food for my soul. It’s not the dilapidated garbage museum that my dad turned it into after Mom passed. Knowing that good people are there making good memories with it makes me happier than I could have imagined. Seeing Jasmine’s old pet door in the garage door almost made me tear up.

I drove around the rest of Snellville while I was there. It’s peculiar how certain images from childhood are just embedded in your memory no matter how much things change or how much time passes. New businesses stood where woods and fields used to be. My hometown was more suburbia than cattle country when I was a child, but now it’s almost like Atlanta Jr. Seeing certain staples unchanged made me feel grounded, and they weren’t the ones I would have expected. The SunTrust bank where I started my first checking account when I was 15 was a different establishment. The gym I joined when I moved back home to finish community college was gone. I remember when I first joined, the sales person told me that they owned the entire property with no debt, so there was no danger of going out of business. Either he was lying or management eventually drove it under with stupid decisions (my bet is the latter). However, the shoe repair shop, which I had never really noticed until I went back that day, was still there, as was the Daisy-a-Day florist. I figured those small businesses would have been the ones to disappear, but they somehow held on.

My high school had grown, but that growth had long since paved over my honor student parking spot, so I was at peace with those changes. I remember working out at the track during my college summers off, and feeling nostalgic about high school back then. I was sorely tempted to reach out to Lauren, my old high school friend who I eventually ghosted when my career aspirations went down the crapper and I was too ashamed to face anybody. I decided not to. She’s a much different person today going by my social media stalking, and I don’t think we could have a meaningful friendship. The memories were still very pleasant, though. Of course, I also went to visit Mom and Dad’s graves. I didn’t know what to say, so I just stood there for a few moments, hoping that they’re happy in Heaven.

At this point, the good times of the past couple of weeks give way to more frustration. I got home and assembled my bike, but the blasted rear derailleur isn’t set up. I tried to adjust it myself using video tutorials on YouTube. I might have been able to do it, but the barrel adjuster that came with the bike is hot garbage for lack of a better word. It’s impossible to rotate. It’s just a knob you’re supposed to be able to turn to adjust the cable tension for shifting gears. My cheaper bike from yesteryear had a very simple but effective design, but this higher end model has a weird mechanism encased by some sort of plastic sleeve that makes it impossible to turn.

After exhausting my patience, I decided to put it in the back of my truck and take it to the local bike shop for tuning. As I was on my drive, my engine hood unlatched and popped up at a point where the road had no shoulder on which to stop. Funny how you learn something once eons ago, and it’s still there in your mind when you need it. When I was 16, I took a driver’s education course before getting my license. One emergency procedure I learned but never used until last week was that if your front hood ever opens up while your driving, use the resulting sliver of visibility at the bottom of the windshield to stop yourself from driving blind and navigate to the nearest stopping point. Fortunately, I was on a section of road with no traffic, so there was no danger. Unfortunately, the wind resistance pushed the hood so far back that its hinges bent, preventing it from being shut. I obviously couldn’t drive it anywhere in that condition, so I called AAA and requested a tow truck to return it to my house. The driver had to force the hood down to tow it safely, further damaging the hinges. Now it sits in my garage with the hood askew.

I’ll have to take it to a body shop to get it fixed. I have some bungie cords I think I can use to secure the hood, so I can drive it. I’m wondering if I should just get rid of it. It’s a 1996 Dodge Ram 1500, so it’s technically a classic car. The few times I’ve taken to get tuned up, I had someone offer to purchase it from me. Truthfully, I wouldn’t mind selling it, if it were sold to the right person. If someone who specializes in auto restoration who would fix it up and take care of it indefinitely were to make me an offer, I would probably accept it, even if it were a lowball. I don’t like the idea of it rusting in someone’s backyard who commits to projects but never follows through with them. I guess I’m just sentimental like that.

All that aside, during my trip home, I noticed a few of my neighbors cars hadn’t changed. Mr. Johnson still had his blue-green Dodge Ram extended cab from when I was in high school. Even more compelling, one of my neighbors (who I don’t even know), still had his 1980-something Chevy Blazer parked in his drive way. That car had been there since I was in grade school! Seeing those people hold onto their auto histories makes me all the more reluctant to let go of mine. I thought so harshly of my dad for holding onto every single item of mom’s, and now I refuse to get rid of this jalopy. I appreciate the irony.

I also have a slowly growing pond in my front yard. It’s right around the water meter, which I initially concluded must be leaking. I called the city government and asked for assistance. It sent a technician who determined if it’s leaking, it must be from a spot farther from the road, meaning fixing it is my responsibility. I then called a plumber, who said the water meter isn’t running, so it can’t be leaking at all. He suggested it might be a leak in my sewage line, which might run adjacent to my water line. Everyone keeps passing the buck. I’ll call the city tomorrow and ask for clarification if they can investigate a possible sewer leak, but I get the feeling I’ll be paying for some plumbing services.

Finally, do you recall the Bible story from Exodus in which God afflicted Egypt with seven plagues to free the Israelites? I think God could have achieved that result with just one plague of spiders because that’s what’s going on with my house right now. I don’t know why, but all around the outside of my house, there’s this one specie of spider that is breeding and building gargantuan webs. I first noticed them when I was going to water my bushes last month. One had build a giant web in that vicinity, effectively walling off the water valve. Now, there are several more around the front of my house, two of which have built giant webs blockading the walkway to my front door. Again, these webs are huge! One even built a web from a pine tree to my house, and that top line of webbing must cover a 60 foot diagonal at least.

I’m a live-and-let-live kind of a guy. The only bugs I kill are mosquitoes (when they bite me), bed bugs (when I had them) and fleas (when I comb them off my cats). I even relocate spiders and roaches from inside my house to the backyard and release them when I have to. I especially don’t have any beef with them when they’re already outside minding their own business. Earnestly, I even think spider webs can be kind of beautiful and fascinating as feats of natural engineering. I also appreciate the bug control.

I didn’t do anything because I figured they’d get eaten by birds or the various lizards I see scurrying around my yard, and yet they keep multiplying. I don’t even see how they can be sustaining themselves because their webs are conspicuously empty of captured insects. Nonetheless, their numbers keep growing. If things haven’t gotten better by this weekend, I’m going to relocate them to the woods. On second thought, maybe I’ll leave them be for another month. They’d make for one heck of a Halloween themed obstacle course for the trick-or-treaters!