Condo Craziness: An F Word Kind of Day

Today started out all right. I was going to meet my friend for breakfast, then head on over to my condo to paint the living room. Breakfast went well, and I was on my way to Home Depot for some light shopping.

Problem #1: Home Depot does not = light shopping. They don't even have regular paper towels. They only have the kind made from steel wool for auto mechanics or something. OK, scratch that. I'm going to ACE Hardware, where they sell both regular paper towels, popcorn and cheese graters!

I find everything I need at ACE, including some advice from an employee who told me I might need a primer. Duly noted and promptly ignored.

Problem #2: Finally I get to my place where I discover the roof leaked from the rain and there's a big bubble on the wall in my bedroom. Oh, and the washer and dryer that "came with the place" has not arrived yet. I call some dude and alert him to the problems. He says he'll take care of it.

Problem #3: After nearly an hour of preparing the living room for paint, I'm ready to apply "Plum Creek" to my walls. Unfortunately, I discover that the paint is not sticking to the walls very well, and I need a primer. Back to ACE, where their computers are down and I accidently grab exterior paint instead of interior.

At day's end, I did prime my living room. But I was in a wicked mood, and getting stuck on the freeway behind a slow girl with a Dopey sticker on her windshield did not help. And this is only my first day of condo construction. Stay tuned.

Areas of My Expertise

I've recently been trudging through a book called "The Know it All." It's about a man's quest to read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica and become the smartest man in the world. It's funny, but it's pretty long and gets a little tiresome. I've made it to the V's.

Reading the encyclopedia is one way to become knowledgable about the world. You'd think that working at a newspaper would be another way. But you'd be wrong, my friend. Dead wrong.

I can't tell you what's going on in Lebanon today. I assume someone's getting blown up. I also couldn't tell you what Congress is up to. Accepting bribes? I'd believe it.

What I CAN tell you is about the condo craze in Scottsdale. Or the effort to ban lap dances at the local strip clubs. When it comes to local news, I'm your gal. Well, if it falls under my beat.

But if you want to know what's going on in the WORLD, don't ask me. Go read a newspaper or something.