McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: used books (Page 108 of 128)

Last gas(p).

December 22, 2012 /

The nozzle on the gas pump is supposed to click off when the tank is full. That’s so you don’t just keep pumping until the fuel starts spewing back out at’cha. (That’s also why there is a big black rubber stopper-looking-thing on the nozzle. To protect people from the spewing gasoline, after they kept pumping into a full tank.)

Here’s the thing. Sometimes the super-magic sensor that makes the nozzle shut off doesn’t work exactly right. Sometimes, it snaps off and you are standing there with the suddenly silent nozzle in your hand thinking:

Wow! This big V-8 engine cruiser is getting some great mileage. Only took $18 to fill it up!

The van hasn’t had a working fuel gauge in years. The way to tell the tank is full is to stand at the pump, nozzle in hand, and keeping filling until it stops. Then, during subsequent drives, it is imperative to keep in mind the approximate number of days or miles since that last fillup. In other words – it’s a shot in the dark thing.

Oops.

That $18 fillup the other day, wasn’t. I’m guessing the nozzle just quit because it wanted to play a little game with me, and I fell for it.

The engine died twice on the drive to the shop this morning. Thankfully, the van is also forgiving in that area. It allows you to restart twice and continue an indeterminate distance after each stop, before the final, nonnegotiable gasp for fuel leaves you stranded. It was my good fortune that – right after the van died in the intersection of Kenosha and Elm (I mean, right in the middle of the intersection!) – I was able to restart and pull into the QT.

There, I pumped more than $50 into the tank before the nozzle snapped off the flow.

It wasn’t the super-magic sensor that stopped the pump this time.

It was my wallet.

Frosty pop.

December 20, 2012 /

A few ice crystals this morning took me back to my old schooldays. The frozen bits emerged after I opened a Diet Coke bottle that had been positioned too close to the freezer in the mini-fridge.

There was no ice before I unscrewed the cap – there is some sort of physics phenomenon that causes a liquid near freezing to suddenly turn to ice when air is introduced. Maybe you can look it up and explain it to me.

Back when I was a boy there was a soda machine at the Texaco station in McAlester, within walking distance of my house. The machine’s thermostat must have been set low enough that the same phenomenon occurred when my friend Craig and I would walk down for a bottle of pop and pried the cap loose.

It was a dime, back then. That sounds crazy to admit these days, and no doubt is proof of my geezer-hood.

“Yessir,” the old man wheezed. “I recky-member when a cold bottle of sody was only a dime. Yessir – ‘member it like it was yesterday! Hee-hee!”

Back then, on a hot summer evening as the sun was lowering itself behind the little mountain we called “Old Baldy,” drawing a mouthful of that deliciously cold drink was a taste of pure heaven. There was something about the ice crystals that bunched up at the neck of the bottle before they finally slid onto your tongue. There was something about being small enough to be comfortable sitting on the curb like it was a king’s throne and watching the last traces of the day disappear. There was something about having a good friend to enjoy it with, sitting there talking about nothing and everything. Important stuff that was so insignificant as to remember none of it.

But that bottle of pop with its cluster of ice crystals floating on top… That image and those moments are frozen forever in my memory – to be recalled only when that rare soft drink is chilled, just enough.

Cheers!

Extreme blogging.

December 19, 2012 /

It’s late to be asking this, but when did everything turn – Extreme?

One of the earliest appearances, as far as I can recall, had to do with ESPN and their Extreme Sports. Compared to four hour baseball games and Sunday afternoon coverage of quietly-announced golf events, leaping from a helicopter to ski down the snow-covered face of an Alpine mountainside does seem pretty extreme.

But it didn’t stop at sky-diving, bull-running, or Snake Canyon motorcycle jumping.

Okay. So maybe skateboarding in those events that have contestants shooting fifteen or twenty feet into the air could be considered extreme. Pushing yourself one-footed down the sidewalk and then coasting for six feet – not so much.

On my way to work this morning, I noticed that Broken Arrow has an Extreme hair salon. I’m not really sure what that means. Will you leave later with all your hair hacked off? To the point your friends will notice your ‘extreme’ style change? Or is the trim achieved with a chainsaw? That, even I would admit, would be a fairly extreme way to get a haircut.

What about the Extreme nail salon? There is one of those, too. It makes me think of those pictures of oddballs who never, ever, trim their fingernails and have those long twisty things hanging off the ends of their digits. That’s extreme, in my book. Clippers and a nail file? I don’t see how that qualifies. Applying nail polish and paint? Extreme? Maybe if it is done with a snow-blower.

Most of these, I’ve seen. Some are courtesy of Google. They are local.

Extreme sports camp. Extreme nutrition. Extreme DJs. Extreme food couponing.

Then, there are the products. Drink down a No Fear Extreme energy drink and perhaps you’ll experience supersonic flight – without the jet. The Extreme-Clean drink promises to run through your gastric system eliminating toxins on its merry (but extreme) journey.

Are things better, when Extreme?

If so, then let me show you some Extreme Books, or try the Extreme Irish Stew!

Nah…

On second thought, I’ll stick with moderate to slightly-exciting.

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