"We managed to stop the other 103 power plants from melting down. That's what America will remember, that we stopped you." - Jack Bauer, 24

 

Wow, there are literally butt-loads of concrete that need to be power-washed in Houston. Thank heaven that The Boy and I are there! Okay, The Boy mainly fiddles while I power wash, but, you know, he fiddles well.

Today, The Mrs. declared that, since the Wilders were having company, we had to clean the house. The Boy and I were okay with that, since we generally scoot by through leaving The Mrs. and Pugsley to clean out the house while he and I go outside and do guy things. In this case, we decided to power wash the concrete.

Power washing, for those uninitiated, includes connecting your household hose to a big machine that, through the 22,000 power of little itty-bitty elves, increases the pressure from, oh, say 12 psi to 2200 psi (psi is “pounds per square inch” as in 2200 psi would be enough to rip the smile from your face right at the moment you found out you were the illegitimate kid of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and were worth $12billion dollars). 2200 psi is a lot of pressure. You can plug in your own Paris Hilton joke there.

Anyhow, I decided to pressure wash the concrete today, mainly because it was really, really irritating me that the concrete, concrete! for heavens sake, in Houston gradually becomes a whole palette of colors other than light gray under the influence of rain.

The Boy and I began pressure washing the concrete around the house. Even a six-year-old like The Boy can see how wonderful pressure washing is. That must explain the chain of e-mails I got from, well, a pressure washing company:

From: SOME NAME
To: northtoalaskaATmyway.com
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 13:54:57-0600
Subject: links exchange
Hello,
My name is SOME NAME, I m working in a company
which sells power washers (the name is A WEBSITE and our website is(NOT MENTIONED HERE) and we would like to exchange some links with you. We could actually give youan
article about power washers that you would put on your blog with our URL, and
we would include your blog in our links.
Please, letme know your answer,
Best regards
SOME NAME

How could I pass up this opportunity? THEY COULD ACTUALLY GIVE ME AN ARTICLE ABOUT POWER WASHERS!!!!

From: northtoalaska[mailto:northtoalaskaATmyway.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 200710:01 PM
Subject: RE: links exchange
Do I get a free power washer?

--- On Thu 06/28, SOME NAME wrote:
From: SOME NAME
To: northtoalaskaATmyway.com
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 12:38:16-0600
Subject: RE: links exchange
No, but you would get a free article about power washer!

My response? Did I gig her about grammar? No, I was still looking for free stuff.

From: northtoalaska[mailto:northtoalaskaATmyway.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 8:27PM
To: SOME NAME
Subject: RE: links exchange
How about power washer soap? See, I already wrote an article about power washers.
Hey, perhaps ya'll could put me on salary, then I could write funny power washer stories for you?

Perhaps I could translate this into a job where I made $300k a year writing adventurous power washer stories?

From: SOME NAME
To: northtoalaskaATmyway.com
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 10:13:33 -0600
Subject: RE: links exchange
No thank you but that’s not reallyinteresting for us! GOOD BYE

(note: all of SOME NAME’s replies are unedited, except for removing name stuff.)

Man, that was worse than when that girl I asked out for a movie said she was busy that night, and I hadn’t yet specified which night or which movies. I don’t think that SOME NAME will call me again soon, and, alas, I don’t think that anytime that the sweet, sweet crazy Intraweb money from power washer sales will be hitting me soon.

Drat.

Regardless, The Boy and I spent hours outside tonight power washing oodles of concrete. Isn’t that the real basis of fatherly love, anyhow?

Besides, when you have company over, isn’t power washing your concrete your first thought?

Egads, what would the neighbors say if your concrete were not freshly powerwashed?