Never mix shopping, daiquiris
It’s not a dry heat in South Texas, it’s a hot heat
The Front Page
Morning Update
Friday, July 8, 2022
By Ken Tingley
It seemed like a good idea at the time. In my defense, the second daiquiri was a lot stronger than I thought it would be.
It was a couple days after Thanksgiving and our family was in San Antonio to celebrate the holiday with my son. We took everyone to the historic market square downtown the day after Thanksgiving where the first stop was the frozen daiquiri stand. In San Antonio, frozen drinks are a staple - even in November.
We were all browsing hoping for some ideas for Christmas presents. That’s when my brother and I got the second daiquiri.
Upon reflection, that may have been a mistake.
Shortly after that, I spied a two-foot tall metal penguin with a Christmas hat. If you read this space regularly, you know of my fascination with penguins and my trip earlier last year to Sea World to walk among over100 real penguins in their natural habitat.
I thought the metal penguin was pretty cool and would look great by the wood stove. Then I took another large gulp of the daiquiri.
My brother asked me if I wanted it for a Christmas present. He asked me just as I was looking over a large metal cactus in the same store. That’s when Jose stepped into our lives. I don’t know if that was his real name, but his accent suggested it could be. Jose’s job was drum up business by trying to make customers out of window shoppers.
We started negotiating a deal for the penguin. We went back and forth on the price several times before getting an even better idea.
How much would Jose charge if I bought both the cactus and penguin?
I threw out a price, Jose countered and we quickly reached a consensus. I was feeling good about the purchase. Or maybe I was feeling good from the daiquiris.
That’s when my wife and her sister happened upon the scene.
When I showed her our purchase, she expressed some skepticism.
“It’s kind of large,” she said of the five-foot ball cactus.
“That’s what I like about it,” I countered. “It will look great by the pool.”
“But how are you going to get home?” she asked.
I reminded her we were going to drive down to Texas to spend a month or two over the winter. I told her we could bring the cactus back with us then.
But the my son took a temporary assignment in Boston for the winter and the trip never happened. My brother had my son mail the penguin back north - it seemed only right - so I could have my have my Christmas present. But the cactus remained on my son’s patio in San Antonio. He is now moving to New Orleans and as we helped him pack this past week, I decided to have the cactus shipped home to Queensbury.
I first used orange bubble-wrap from head to toe to protect it, loaded it into the back of the SUV and set up an appointment at the local UPS store where my wife assured me they could handle any type of shipping.
The man there said they did not have a box to handle my cactus and I would need a custom box made. He told me the store over on Babcock did custom boxes. After driving the 10 minutes to the Babcock store, the man there said they did not do custom boxes either and the other store should have known that. He suggested the store on McCullough, but that was a 20-minute drive. So I drove out to McCullough.
“Do you make custom boxes,” I asked.
“Yes, we do,” the woman said. “But my husband handles that.”
Five minutes later, the husband came out of the back room. I described my metal cactus. I told him the dimensions. He said he had to see it for himself.
I wasn’t sure whether he really needed to measure my cactus, or if he wanted to see for himself what those daiquiris had wrought seven months earlier.
After measuring the cactus, he went back inside and made the calculations on his computer. It was going to cost $79 for the custom box.
“Are you sure you want to ship this?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said tentatively. “As long as the price is not crazy.”
The price to ship it home was $479 on top of the $79 for the custom box.
The cactus will be heading to New Orleans in a couple weeks and I’m not sure if it will ever find its way to Queensbury.
The moral of the story is that you should never go shopping at the historic downtown marketplace after drinking two daiquiris.
Heat of the night
We drove out to College Station this week to check out the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.
As the sun set, the outside temperature remained 98 degrees. When we returned from dinner the next night, the temperature was 103 degrees and it was nearly 7 p.m.
My son works outside for most of the day as a park ranger in San Antonio. I had new-found respect to his handling of the heat.
Tweet of the Day
Thanks Ken, I needed a good laugh and you sure delivered!
Very funny! I can see you doing