Ireland 2014

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Really excited to be taking my father on what could be his last trip to Limerick. Rather he is taking me.

Sadly, my mother will not be left behind.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Perhaps an accident?

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I won't go there.

Potential just went to official as I made airline reservations. I might have broken my father's AMEX.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

You tell me to book tickets, I am going to book tickets. Immediately. I'm not going to dawdle. Maeve is the dawdler.

So I now have a bucket of airlines tickets. I fly from Burbank to San Jose (Maybe I should do this in Airport codes?) I pick up my parents and we drive to San Francisco. We then fly from San Fran to Boston. We hang out in Boston for a few days to allow my parents time to recover from Leg One. We then fly to Shannon where we wait for the wedding to happen. After the wedding, we do the whole thing in reverse.

I have the tickets.

Naturally, my father gets a wedding invitation to another wedding that is happening in Boston. It is happening the day after we fly back from BOS to SFO. So someone has to check to see how much it would cost to change the flight. So, I do, since that is my role.

For them to push buttons and access their computers and do other airplane wizardry and make the desired change, it will only cost $1000. $230 per person to change the ticket and an additional $100 fare difference cost.

I'm saying skip it. I've been wrong before. Also, no directs flights on that day to fly home. Good times, I tell you, good times.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I continue to gather assets. I've got the car in Ireland. Now I need the car in Boston.

I do the search on Kayak and I get this really inexpensive price for the car. I book immediately. This is going to be easy. I punch in the numbers for the next part of our trip in Boston and the numbers triple for the car rental. What the hell? It's ten days later. Shouldn't the price go down? I've sent the letter off demanding information about these scurrilous practices.

It was while I was trying to rent the car, I realized I booked the Motel for the wrong night while we are in Boston, should have been the 17th not the 27th. Motel 6 was kind to me and let me change it.

[cranefly]

Ahhh, yes, the joys of car rental. The last time I rented was for 2 weeks in Fort Wayne, IN. And if I understand your issue correctly, the longer you rent, the cheaper it should be per day. And if it's tied in with a trip package, one would expect it to be even cheaper, but haven't ever confirmed it.

Anecdotally, soon after I drove the rental off the lot, I realized there was a crack in the windshield (couldn't see it from the outside). Too late by then. I could only hope they wouldn't flag it on my return. Sure enough, I later got a bill for an additional $240. Bastards.
And last year when Lady Cranefly got her oil changed at Jiffy Lube, they neglected to re-hook up a hose under the hood, resulting in a dreaded "Check Engine" light -- just before she needed to get the car inspected. And a car can't pass inspection if the check engine light is on. There is "no sensible way" to reset a check engine light. Once the problem is fixed (the hose hooked back up), the car simply has to be driven under a complex set of conditions over a period of time before the computer inside the engine has accumulated sufficient data to declare everything okay. We took turns driving her car. We drove city, we drove highay. We went on trips. Nada. With her registration on the point of expiring, we took her car to a Toyota repair shop. They charged $350 up front, and almost immediately the light went out.

So our last two big car expenses weren't even caused by us.

Drone every inch of that rental before driving off, and check the windows from various angles for cracks. My rental one couldn't be seen from outside.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

The trip looms large on the horizon. And one salient fact sends shivers of dread down my spine: I will be spending 17 days in close proximity to my mother. Not only will I be in my mother’s company, I will be her primary care giver. I’ll be the one looking out for her needs and wants, making sure she is comfortable, that I anticipate and correct potential problems that will make her life difficult.

It is my irony nightmare.

Oh, boo hoo, poor Greg and his first world problems. The benighted little lamb has to go to Ireland and take care of his mummy. I know. ‘Ungrateful Son’ will be in large letters on my tombstone.

When this trip idea was first broached by my father, I was ecstatic. Who doesn’t want a trip overseas? Then he said my mother would be going and the sails went windless.
What? Mom’s going? Wasn’t there a moratorium on travel for mom since it is very difficult for her and everyone around her when she travels? Hasn’t mom said on repeated occasions she doesn’t want to go to Ireland since she has already been to Ireland and would rather go someplace new and different? These statements are true and yet there I was adding her name to the booking requests.

Despite all the aforementioned statements, my mother is also a very jealous woman. She doesn’t want to be left out of anything no matter how little she might want to be doing that particular thing. Think Glen Close screaming “I’m not going to be ignored” in Fatal Attraction, only not that pleasant.

So, my mom is on the trip. My mom is going to need a lot of help to be on this trip. Her legs don’t bend. Surgery would fix the problem, but she has a tremendous phobia about surgery. She’d rather suffer. Many of her ills could be fixed with surgery but that won’t happen.

Fortunately, she is surrounded by caring people who do look out for her. Best of all, she loves it. Finally, she is being waited on hand and foot, a position she feels is her natural right.
Please carry my purse. Go get my cane where I left it upstairs. I’d get myself a glass of water, but it is so difficult for me to get out of this chair. Ah, the beauty of it all. Being invalided makes the job of manipulation so much easier.

If she could just get the one recalcitrant child to hop to her tune, her happiness would be complete. And so it is. I can almost hear the cackle of glee.

My interpretation of her agenda might be colored, somewhat, by my longstanding antipathy towards her.

Remember in the last battle in ‘The Avengers’ where they need Bruce Banner to be the Hulk and Captain America tells Bruce that now would be a good time to get angry and Bruce says “That’s my secret. I’m always angry”.

Okay. It’s not much of a secret. Whenever I am around her, I seethe with anger, like a red hot coal burning at my center. The closer the proximity, the worse it gets. I find it very difficult to eat at a table with her, because I can’t make eye contact with her for fear that flames of loathing will shoot from eyes and incinerate her.

I don’t know how to make it better. She did call me on it and I said would you be willing to change your personality in order for us to move beyond this? She said, as I knew she would, no.
Here is a recent example of how my mother’s broken mind works.

We were talking about our bags for the trip. My mom has picked up the extension during a conversation I am having with my dad, since she has to hear all the conversations. See the above bit about being left out.

Everyone is taking two bags since we will be gone for over 17 days. My father tells my mother that for the first leg when we are in Boston for three days, she should put everything she needs for those three days in one bag so we can leave the other bag sealed up in the car. I had the same thought and was already planning my packing along those lines. (I am sure everyone planes their packing weeks in advance)

There is a long pause on the phone as my mother considers making someone else's life easier by planning ahead and curtailing her own needs. My father says, “What?” into the pause. My mother, “It sounds so limiting”

My father deserves a last good trip to Ireland. It is probably one of his favorite places on the planet. But I don’t think he will get much enjoyment out of it. He was serious, and right, when he said he shouldn’t travel any more. He can’t sit for long periods because he has an open wound on his rear that will never heal. He can’t stand for long periods of time because Diabetes has ravaged his extremities. He has periods when he can’t catch his breath. He has dizzy spells.

And he’s married to the Harridan.

He shouldn’t go. But chances are high, he will never go again. I keep asking him what he wants to do when he is there. “Rest”

So, I’m putting damper on the cauldron as best as I can for the next couple of weeks. It always makes my father unhappy when he sees my mother and I go at it with both barrels. I will keep the venom to a minimum as I gaze at the creature that stares out from behind that withered exterior. Hopefully, she won’t say anything too egregious or wake up some morning spoiling for a fight. Sadly, I will always rise to that challenge.

Don’t cry for me, Argentina. I’ll make it. Part of this process was lancing the boil in the hope that there will be a small place to put the pus of my upcoming engagement with she who bred me.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Sometimes, I give in to the stupid, really hard. Okay more than some times. What is worse as soon as I did what I did, my first thought was, “Well, that was pretty stupid”

I’m doing all the little things to get ready for the trip. I’m on the hunt for the best exchange rate to buy Euros. I locate a place in the valley that has the best rate and no commission fees. The only problem, is that it is out in the valley. Sigh. But I’ll save thirty bucks over the rate that my local B of A is going to charge me.

Saturday comes, the day I’m going to make the schlep to Van Nuys to buy money. Before I go, I decided to check the cost one more time at the bank. It turns out to be only a $13 difference. I immediately opt to save myself the thirty minute drive.

I start processing the order online for pick up at my bank. It’s Saturday. They won’t process until Monday. My brain stutters at the calendar math about getting it next day or in 1-3 days. I hit the buy button for not getting it in one day and save that $20 bucks. I read the part that says no quitsies after I hit the button.

Not even a millisecond later, I realize I am a dumb-ass. The order won’t go out until Monday. I am now gambling the money will be delivered by Tuesday, since I leave Wednesday. I’m sure the bank will move fast in my best interest, right. Banks always look out for their customers first, especially a big bank like Bank of America.

I am so screwed. If the money doesn’t come, I will have to get more money. I had hazy plans of the Bride getting the money and then shipping the money overnight to me in Boston. That will cost a fortune, squandering completely the money I had tried to save by going to the Valley. Which I didn’t do in the first place. I am embracing stupid very hard.

But this whole plan is moot anyway, since the only one who can get the money from the bank will be the dumb-ass not near the bank. Worst case scenario, I’ll have to buy more Euros and return the Euros sitting in the bank. And the bank will buy them back for about $100 less than I paid for them.

Next time, just go to the fricken valley.

The scenarios to straighten out this problem run through my head all day Sunday and Monday. I get the rueful shake of the head from the bride when I tell her of my woes. I’ll just go to my branch as late on the day on Tuesday and hope for the best.

I’m delighted and horrified in equal measures by a tracking number email from the bank saying the money has shipped. Hot dog. The luck shines on the dumb people, but not so much.

They have sent me a tracking number so I can find out where the package is at any time. That won’t consume my thoughts for the day at all. The good news is the first line: Pick-up at Los Angeles Facility.

The next line is the killer: Drop off in Oakland. Oakland? Why the hell are you shipping the money to Oakland first? The money probably started in a bank downtown. Why are you shipping it to Oakland?

The money then leaves Oakland at 3:38am Tuesday. I know I can drive to Oakland in 6 1/2 hours easy. I should be getting an update by 10:00am at the latest.

With joy, I see at 8:30, breaking all the laws of speed, that the money is back in Los Angeles. The promise at the top of the tracking page saying the money will be delivered by 3pm seems assured. Stupid has been defeated.

I check multiple times and see that the package is still out for delivery. No problem. I have until 3:00 pm before the worry kicks in hard.

More joy at 1:20 when I see the package has been delivered . Yay. Release the balloons and party favors.

I hop in the car and proceed down Broadway to my branch.

I hand the teller my id and bankcard and say I am here for my euros. He returns in a couple of minutes and says, wait for it “We don’t have any Euros here for you”

You knew that was coming didn’t you? I wasn’t going to get the easy lay-up for the win. No. No. No.

Next stop, the manager. Luckily, I had the email on my phone with the tracking number and the Fedex link to show I wasn’t crazy. But upon looking at the Tracking page more closely, I realize it just says delivered in Los Angeles. It doesn’t give a street address.

I pace the lobby of the bank while the manager makes calls. I hand over information about tracking numbers and order numbers. She continues to make calls.

I run out to the street to put the last of my change in the parking meter. This was only supposed to take a couple of minutes. If this goes on much longer, I’ll be using my debit card on the meter.

The manager thinks she has found money. She has found it in Wichita, Kansas. Where they also have a branch on Broadway. That makes the least sense. I have a tracking number that shows my order is in Los Angeles.

More calls by the manager to Euro headquarters and money tracking.

She calls me back to the counter. The look on her face says I’m going to be buying more Euros in Boston and lose money when I come back, returning the currently missing Euros.

Turns out, I am bad at reading faces. The money has been found. The bank I am in is at 100 N. Broadway. The money is the branch at 100 S. Broadway. What are the odds that there would be two branches of the same bank on the same street with the same address and the only difference would be the North and South designation?

In my world, the chances would be very good. I also get a FB message from the bride saying Betty Robinson has my money. I assume she and the money was at the branch I was now going to.

A few more hoops to jump through as I go to the other 100 Broadway branch. First, I pass another B of A on the way. Then the entrance to the parking lot is on a street that is closed for construction so I can’t use the B of A validated parking garage.

I park on the street and get to see if these credit card meters work. They do. They take the max money and before I can figure out how to change that , the meter says thanks for the bucks. I am saving so much time and money.

I get the money. I call myself idiot a few more times. I’m sure this is just a hiccup. The rest of the trip will be fine.

Long range weather report says rain in Limerick for the next eight days.

[Drunk Monk]

Looking forward to the tale of this journey with baited breath.

Hopefully there will even be a sword fight and a Bollywood dance number.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I'm trying to arrange a visit to a Shaolin Martial arts school that is having it's opening while I am in town. It currently conflicts with the wedding. But we shall see.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Operation 'Bite Tongue' in effect.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

It’s right here, I think.

My first task was to have McCoffees, A Sausage McGriddle, and an Sausage McMuffin at my parents room in the Motel 6 by 10am. I only got lost once on the way to the McDonald’s. Note to Massachusetts Transportation Authority: How about a few left turns so people don’t have to drive miles and make 3 right turns to finally go in the direction they need to go?

I delivered the bagged grease to my bleary eyed father at the appropriate time. I was told that we would meet again at 11.

My mother still was doing her morning ablutions when I returned. Why don’t I come back in another fifteen minutes? I went back to my prison cell, I mean room to finish my scribbling.

The complaints are mounting about the mini-van I picked up at the Alamo rental car agency. My mother is having a terrible time mounting the eight inch step to get into the car. She’s been doing lots of wheezing and sighing about entry. I’m informed I should request a plastic step stool from the rental car agency next time I rent such a horrendous car.

My father complains about his seat, too. It is the most uncomfortable seat he has ever been in. Only later does he realize that the head rest has been folded down into the seat and he has been sitting against that. Turns out the seat is much more comfortable with the head rest in it’s proper position.

We pit stop into my cousin Natalie’s house in Reading, MA. They aren’t home but they’ve left the key in the box. I take a few minutes to tote the bags upstairs to the bedrooms. Steve and Natalie are giving up their big bedroom for the duration while Helen is giving up her bedroom for me.

Thankfully Helen is growing up and wanted a new bed. Last time I slept in her room it was a single size bed with very nice pink sheets and comforter. Thankfully, my manliness is now embraced in a very nice full size bed done in blacks and grays.

The person making the most sacrifices on this visit to the Wadzinki’s is Helen. This poor 12 year old girl had to give up her room to her ancient man cousin for the duration. I mean, he is sleeping in her bed. Blech

The beauty of traveling with my father through his old stomping grounds is the deadly phrase “I know exactly where it is, I think” He wanted to find a men’s clothing store in Saugus that he remembered from year’s past. We only hunted a little before realizing it had been torn down.

A quick call to my cousin Jay verified this and got us a new Big and Tall store to hunt for in Burlington, former Lynch family town. Again my father knew right where we were going. Except until he didn’t. Well, we were only off by one street.

The nice man in the store gave us a hard time in a kidding way, but eventually my father got his new pants. I was told to throw the old pants away.

Next stop my mother’s old High school called Mary Cliff academy. We got to pass the hospital where I was born. We did not stop to see if a plaque had been erected in my honor. My mother’s school had been torn and down and replaced by a newer one, but the old admin building/mansion was still on the grounds.

We talked with man running the historic home and my video services were offered. Gee, thanks.
For lunch, finally, we went to Big A subs in Malden next to my father’s old High School. The man who used to own the sub shop also used to supply food to my father’s school, Malden Catholic.

During lunch my father decided to bait two armed under cover officers about the Red Sox. They ignored my father’s jibes.

During the drive my mother was talking about one of her friends who she was meeting for lunch on Saturday. This friend was in a terrible accident as a teenager and because of that never learned to drive a car. My mother wanted me to agree with her that such behavior was crazy.

Agreeing, with mother is still not on the menu.

I pointed out to her I knew a women who would not have surgery because she had a bad experience as a child. It took her a few minutes to realizes I was talking about her.

I dropped the parents at Natalie’s house and then took a long walk around the local lake to add some calm to my thoughts. It would have helped more if there weren’t cars streaming by the path the whole time. I don’t remember Massachusetts being this noisy. But now that I notice it, I hear the local traffic all the time.

We went to Sam’s Bistro for dinner with my Aunt Eileen and my cousin’s Jay and David. These are cousins from the Lynch side of the family where the Wadzinskis are from the McKenna side. The other three couldn’t make it. It was quite nice reconnecting with the cousin’s I am most closely related.

But the miracle of the evening was when Jay produced some of my grandfather, James A. Lynch’s pictures from World War 2. We’d been told all of my grandfather’s pictures had been lost. But here was a pile of them along with the original diaries he kept during the war.

I leafed through them briefly. All I can is my grandfather has horrible penmanship, really tight and cramped. Thank god, he typed out the book. There is no way anyone could turn his notes into a book.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

My mother is so cute.

My mother just made my cousin Steve hand me a bunch of her hand written notes in the expectation that I would type them up and email them. Too funny. Hell hasn't frozen today.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Stop putting the land mines in front of you.

I’m ten minutes into my morning walk, when I realize I should have worn a sweater. Change a couple time zones, fly further north and all of a sudden the temperature shifts from mid-80’s to high-40’s. Ooppsy. My fingers were only a little numb when I returned from Lake Quannapowwit. To the city of Wakefield, I would just like to point out that just because throw a bunch of letters and vowels together, it doesn’t really make it a name.

Another thing that’s twisting my brain, which doesn’t take much, is that the Wadzinski’s live in Reading on Wakefield st. The town next to Reading is Wakefield. It makes it tricky when I’m trying to remember whether they live in Reading or Wakefield?

Part of the fun of getting to Lake Quannapowwit is crossing the massive rotary during rush hour traffic. Cars whipping by. No stop signs or crossing lights. No crosswalks. It is all about finding the gap in the flow. You only have to run through traffic four times to get to the lake and another four times on the way back. Granted it is not crossing the street in Zheng Zhou fun, but it is still plenty entertaining.

Living in drought country, the sound of toilet running should make you crazy. Hence my agitated state upon hearing the toilet constantly running in Helen’s bathroom. I actually the toilet was running in the same fashion when I was here two years ago.

I opened the top of the tank and saw water streaming constantly out of the broken float. Shoot, I can change a float. I just did the same thing for the same problem at my sister Stephanie’s house when we visited back in June. I travel. I fix plumbing.

I resolved to do something about it. I didn’t want to embarrass my hosts, so I figured I would just do it while they were at work. There was even a Home Despot nearby to buy the parts. I slipped out before everyone arose and got the parts.

The first snare in the road was the lack of the twist off connector from the water outlet to the toilet. Instead there was a nice brass nut, with a thousand years of crust on it. I was definitely going to need a wrench. No good deed goes unpunished.

Natalie was working from home so I asked her if she had a crescent wrench. “What’s a crescent wrench?” She wouldn’t let me down the stairs to to the basement to hunt through Steve’s tools, so we played is this the right wrench from the stairs.

Eventually, I found a suitable wrench and snuck back upstairs to the bathroom. I put the wrench on the bolt and turned. Rather than actually loosening bolt, the whole assembly turned in the tank. I couldn’t find a way to lock in the float to allow me to loosen the bolt. I even tried jamming a knife into the bottom. No Bueno.

At this point I noticed water was spewing out of the valve. All my twisting of the nut had loosened the nut on the valve. A large puddle was now forming under the toilet. Time to retreat and come up with a new plan to change the float, maybe even going further into the hole by buying another wrench.


Plans are very fluid. Stay on your toes. We were to drop my mother off at the Chateau for her lunch with Mrs. Dorothy Smith, an old friend from our Burlington days at 1pm. That plan has shifted to Friendly’s Ice Cream parlor at 12pm.

I do this crazy thing where I look up the address for the restaurant before we head out. I note it’s location and figure out a route to get there. I acquire this information on the off chance I need to find the restaurant.

As we head out, I tell my father I know how to get to this restaurant but how would he like to get there? Well, he has a way. And let’s just say it wasn’t the quickest way. We hit a lot of the same territory as our trip to find pants yesterday.

But it was scenic. We cruised by the minuteman statue in Lexington. Saw my mother’s old High School, again. Lots of little roads with lots of traffic. But as my father kept pointing out, the Friendly’s was just up the road.

For those of you not familiar with the Northeast institution that is Friendly’s think of them as a Foster Freeze with more indoor seating. Dorothy Smith always goes there for lunch for a grilled cheese sandwich followed by a sundae.

Miracle of miracles, we were on the right road and found the designated target. Dorothy’s daughter, Karen also joined them so I go to see her too. For much of my childhood in Burlington, the Smith girls and the Lynch girls used me as their living dress up doll. I didn’t have any bad flash backs about seeing her at all.

On the way back, I used the directions I had looked up to get us back to the 95 Freeway in about a minute.

When I was finding out where my mother was having lunch, I should have probably spent a minute to find where my father and I were having lunch. Cindi and I visited here many years ago and we found this restaurant in Burlington called Lester’s that I really liked. Good BBQ with really great side dishes. And I was sure I knew where it was.

I’m sure my father was laughing on the inside when I kept driving up and down the street looking for Lester’s. I knew exactly where it is, I think. At this time, my phone decided not to have Cel reception so I couldn’t look it up on Google. Time was also running out since my father made the dreadful statement “I’m going to need a bathroom soon”

I punted. We opted to go to a pizza place my father wanted to go near the town center. But we stopped for a second so he could try his phone. It kind of worked but no one at Lester’s would pick up the phone.

So, we are heading back passed the spot where we had made the original left turn in search of Lester’s. It was an interesting spot since that was where the first McDonald’s had been built in Burlington and was now some other restaurant.

Turns out that other restaurant was Lester’s. Sigh. We pulled in.

My father had been poorly all morning. He started the day atop the toilet and was still recovering. So, the idea of a bunch of slow roasted meat probably wasn’t the best thing for him. I offered to go somewhere else, but he was going to soldier on.

He soldiered on by having a brownie and an ice cream bar for lunch. I don’t think I would have ever gotten away with have a brownie and ice cream for my lunch as a kid.

Afterwards, we stopped at Ray’s Barber which my father had always frequented. I was sent in to ask about Ray and was informed Ray passed away in the 1990’s. The challenge is to find someone that my father knew who is still alive.

We headed to the Oak Grove cemetery in Malden to visit my Grandparent’s graves. I also got to see the statue of Winged Victory in the cemetery that a friend of my father’s had made. He remembers going by the artist’s studio and seeing plenty of nude models. I might have to go back and get more information on that story.

We picked up my mom and headed back to Reading. I had nice little spat with my mother. There wasn’t a lot of rancor in it since my tongue is firmly clenched in my teeth. But she asked me what I thought about Zachary’s drinking. I told her I don’t talk to her about other members of the family. It was like throwing the mine in front of me.

She didn’t like that and wanted more from me. I told her I had said all I was going to say on the situation. If I had said more, it would only have gotten uglier.

I dumped them at the Wadzinski’s and headed off to Lynn Wood reservation for an afternoon hike. The reserve was quite pleasant, surrounded on three sides by water that you could only catch in glimpses. Lots of school running teams using the trails. A couple of hikers smoked as they climbed which I thought defeated the purpose.

One of the highlights of the Reservation was the Dungeon rock where pirates had supposedly buried gold back in the 1700’s. The small steel door under the granite boulder was locked by the time I got there.

I was only attacked by one pit bull on the way out. It wasn’t much of an attack. The dog grew confused when I tried to pet him and scampered away as his owner called him to heel from far off down the trail.

For dinner, we went to the Wadzinski’s favorite restaurant, Hayes Bickfords. I guess it’s an east coast chain. It’s main attraction for my cousins is that it serves breakfast all day long. Natalie is a bit of a finicky eater and French Toast is in that small group of things she will eat. So, if you want to take them out, you better go somewhere that serves French Toast.

Hayes Bickfords isn’t that good. It seems kind of grimy and the wait staff was really slow. It didn’t help that I was crammed into a booth with barely any room to flail my elbows around.

My cousin, David McKenna, was also there. He is in charge of taking care of my Grandfather McKenna’s old house in Cambridge. I’m not all that impressed from what little I heard about the job he is doing.

For instance, the latest tenants have a dog. He didn’t run this by parents to get their permission or even get more money on the safety deposit. His feeling was as long as the rents paid, I’m sure a dog will be fine.

Um, no? We will be heading to the Cambridge house tomorrow to scare the tenants.

Back to the house to lock myself in poor Helen’s bedroom.

[Drunk Monk]

Imagine - Greg as Bilbo, Greg Sr. as Thorin and Mrs. Lynch as, I dunno, Gollum? That was be a side-spliting, shooting-milk-out-yer-nose read.

Soldier on, Greg. At the very least, you can be comforted that your misadventures are bringing DOOM great amusement.