Last weekend the girlfriend and I purchased a treadmill. Simple little thing right. You get on it and run. You lose weight. You feel better about yourself.
I have to have something to take my mind off the running, otherwise my mind just repeatedly starts counting the steps, and before I know it I’m singing army cadences in my head while I run, and then that makes me think about being in the army. Being in the army makes me think of having to take orders and do things I don’t want to do, be places I don’t want to be and talk to people I don’t want to talk to. All those thoughts bring me down and then I don’t want to run anymore, I just want to curl up into a little ball and cry.
So instead I figure if I can watch TV while I run, then it will take my mind off the running, the cadences, the army, the places, the people and the crying.
Awesome plan right?
So I bring the treadmill into the living room (it’s a great one that folds and has rollers, so it’s easily moved) and set it in front of the TV and stand on it. Crap. My TV sits about 20” off the ground and the bar for the treadmill readout screen is EXACTLY in the way of the TV.
No go.
My entertainment center is built into the wall of my house. It’s actually a pretty nifty setup. It goes in about 18” deep and has two shelves. Bottom shelf is about 20” off the ground and the second shelf is about 2 feet or more above that. So I get the bright idea that moving the TV to the second shelf would work.
No problem, right?
Except that to move the TV from one shelf to another I not only have to move the TV itself (42” flatscreen), but all the attached cords attached to the PS3, and the surround sound, and of course I have to move everything off the top shelf like DVDs, CDs, speakers and reroute everything.
Two fucking hours later I have everything rerouted, the TV positioned perfectly, the PS3 plugged back in, the surround sound hooked back up and I sit back on the couch to admire my handiwork.
Fuck.
Looking at the TV now from this angle it hurts my neck. This just won’t work.
So, back to the drawing board.
What if I moved the second shelf down about 15 inches? Then it would just about right to not only see it when I am on the treadmill, but also perfect for sitting on the couch!
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Back to taking everything out of the entertainment center. TV, PS3, surround sound, speakers, DVDs, CDs, cords.
Hmmmm, really needs to be cleaned. So hot water, soap, sponge and vacuum cleaner.
NICE! Haven’t seen it this clean since I moved in.
Now to move the shelf.
The shelf is also built into the wall of the house. Kind of a simple setup. 1”x4” pine boards painted white and nailed to the wall, and then the shelf screwed into those. Simple. Right?
Except whatever bastard put this in decided for some unknown, god-forsaken reason to use caulking inbetween the shelf and the wall, and then painted over it. What the fuck was he/she/it thinking? Did they often have problems with liquids dripping from the top shelf down to the bottom? And, of course, when I go to use the hammer to pry to board off the drywall the fucking hammer presses into the drywall creating about a 1” round hold in the fucking drywall. So now, not only do I have a hole to fix, but when I pulled the boards off the wall (with the attached rubber caulking and paint) they ripped the drywall paper off the wall creating a not-so-smooth surface that looks like bubba’s house out in the woods.
Fuck me! In the ass with a garden hoe, sharp side in!
So, off to the hardware store for spackling, trowel and sandpaper. Get home, mix spackling with water, make a paste and fill holes. Wait for it to dry …. for-fucking-ever!
Luckily for me I have some left over paint from the bed fiasco. (Don’t fucking ask.) The paint is a nice blood red, so it should look good inside the entertainment center. And for once I am right, it does look good. (Someone please mark down the date that I actually did something right please.) Except it takes 2 coats, with 2 hours to dry between coats.
Now, I’m ready to put everything back in its rightful place. TV, PS3, surround sound, DVDs, CDs and cables all re-routed back to their correct places.
POP. POP. Fucking. POP!
What the hell was that? Turns out, the fucking surround sound reciever decides now, while my blood vessels are already about to swell and pop out of my bald head, to have a major meltdown.
Fuck me! With a jupiters fucking cock and trident in my ass — ALL THREE PRONGS!
Fuck it. I can go without surround sound for a while. Its not that important right? At least I can fucking watch TV while I jog.
Except ….
Somehow moving the TV up 18” somehow clearly cancels out the reception coming from the antenna I just put up outside a couple weeks ago.
See, I had the brilliant idea to save some money by cancelling cable and getting my TV fix from Netflix (which I watch all the time) and from the few TV shows that I watch on the network. And it worked fine. I got clearer reception from the antenna then I did from cable. And I got all my favorite shows on NBC, ABC and Fox.
Until I moved the fucking TV up eighteen-fucking-inches!
So, spend the next fucking two hours playing with the antenna, going to buy more antenna parts and rescanning for channels repeatedly. Now I can at least get ABC and Fox, but no fucking NBC … which of course my favorite show “Chuck” is on. I could fucking care less about most TV shows. Really. They just don’t interest me. But fucking “Chuck” I can’t live without.
And I can’t fucking get the channel now.
And, of course, I am too fucking tired now to work out!
Moral of the story: Never fucking leave me alone at home and bored. I will fuck things up.
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