My one whole day this week for myself alone. I buckled down trying to make the most of it to push myself forward to a better life.

I worked the house and I worked the desktop of this laptop which was in way worse condition than the house. And the non-virtual desktop beside me that mirrors it.

While I did these essential things, I watched most of what is available on the Tubes in clip form of The Sopranos, which is a twenty-year-old show now and one of the few premium ones I had the chance to watch a lot of, in those days.

This put me in a tough guy mood of course.

The fourth thing I worked on a little bit was the truck. I’ve been trying to find a locking gas cap for it, and I went to the two tiny auto parts places here, searching one out.

All the two places had in stock was the same identical plastic piece of crap that failed to work when I bought it and took it straight out to the parking lot to try on.

The second place said they could order a real metal one and it could be here the next morning. I told him great. He asked for my phone number. I gave it to him. He said, you’re not in the system. I said, yeah, I know, and that’s how it’s going to stay.

He did the retail fluster and said he couldn’t order it unless I signed up to be in the system. It was a safety thing, he said, but I refused to bite down on that cruelly tantalizing bait.

I said, well, that’s too bad. Just give me my money back then. For this crap you sold me that doesn’t work, and we’ll call it good.

While I was waiting for him to try and process that through his brain and his terminal, another guy was having another conversation with another guy, and mentioned he was the one who did locks around here.

I asked him how much it would be to just install a lock on the gas door, and he quoted me a number about half of what the damn metal cap cost.

He gave me a card and I tucked it away with my refund in my big shirt pocket like some kind of shitkicker Paulie Walnuts.

All throughout the incident, I refrained from beating anyone to death with a tire iron, or blowing off any kneecaps.

So I’ve got that to pat myself on the back for in this holy season of the birth of our, uh, lord.