Trooper Bob Answers the Tough Questions

Thank you all for your questions to Trooper Bob. He printed them out and then he put them under his pillow and slept on them. Then he put them in his back pocket and thought about them some more. Then he went out in his shop and built a few boot tables and a couple of bird houses and thought about them some more. Then he went in the house ate a bowl of venison chili and thought about them some more. Trooper Bob is a very introspective man.

Finally he had his answers. Ok really he remembered he stuck them in his back pocket and figured he better answer them or I would be nagging him to answer them. I would nag him like I used to when I was little. My little 6 year-old Gladys self would say “Daddy, do you know what time it is?” or “Daddy what is the difference between a girl flea and a boy flea?” And Daddy, can I have a Popsicle? Can I have a quarter to get a Popsicle? Can you drive me to the store to buy the Popsicle? Can you unwrap my Popsicle? Will you get the stain out of my white blouse from the Popsicle? Can I go to Kelly’s house? Can Kelly stay over? Can I go to the movies? Can I? Will you? Did you know? Why not? Why? Daddy was I really found under a rock? Daddy, am I really going to get hit by a meteor? You get the idea.

So he picked up his trusty cell phone and called me. “Gladys get your pencil and paper ready because I’m gonna answer those questions.”

So without further flubber from me here are the answers to the tough questions.

1. Terri asked
I want to know if Trooper Bob ever stopped someone for speeding and the offender used the old, "I have diarrhea and was trying to get home before I sh*t my pants" excuse.I have always wondered if that would get you out of a speeding ticket.

Trooper Bob Answers:

Well Terri, my answer is yes lots of times. Men used the “I got to shit” excuse and well most women used the “I just started my period excuse”. Now I gotta tell you I was always a little more leery of the period one than the about to crap my pants one. Then there was this one time back in the early nineteen and sixty-one when I was down south of San Antonio sitting off of Highway 281. It was a nice day and there wasn’t much traffic when out of nowhere came this Lincoln flying down the road like a bat out of hell. I pulled out and caught up with the car turned on my lights and siren (remember to say it SIGH REEN). The big car pulled over and I got out adjusted my hat grabbed my ticket book and approached the vehicle. About the time I got up even with the back door the front door flew open and a woman in a real nice outfit jumped out. She said “Officer, I have got to go to the bathroom really bad. Can’t you just let me go?” I assessed the situation and felt it was just a ploy to get out of a ticket and said “Well Ma’am if you needed to go so badly why you didn’t stop at that Texaco Station about a mile back?” The lady looked at me in disgust and said “Because those bathrooms are filthy. I wouldn’t be caught dead in one. Now you need to let me go because I really need to go to the bathroom.” I looked at the woman and decided to call her bluff. “Mrs. Astor if you need to go so bad then I suggest you go behind them bushes over there.” I pointed at the open field with a few sparse bushes on it just past the bar ditch and behind a three strand barbed wire fence. The woman looked at me and said “Well, I need to shit.” I said “Ok, leave me your license and I’ll write your ticket up for you while you go.” The woman grabbed her purse gave me her license and then tromped off into the field in her nice outfit and high heeled shoes. I wrote up her ticket and waited and sure enough in a few minutes she came traipsing back out of the field and stomped up to me. “I’m going to call your commanding officer!” she screamed “You made me shit my pants.” I gave her the ticket and said “Gosh, I’m awful sorry about that maybe next time you’ll stop at the Texaco.” She grabbed the ticket and was gone.

A few days later the Captain called me in his office and read me the letter she wrote. He asked if it was true and I said yes and told him the circumstances. He listened and said alright sounds like it was all legit. Then as I was turning to go he said “Hey Bob, you might want to keep this with you.” And tossed me a roll of toilet paper.

2. Blue Violet asked

I wonder if turning on the tears ever works or if it just ticks Trooper Bob off.

Trooper Bob Answers:

Violet what a pretty name. No crying didn’t tick me off. I kinda took it on a case by case basis. I mean some people were in serious distress for one reason or another. Like someone who just lost their spouse or family member or broke up with their boyfriend. Now if I thought they were just turnin on the tears to get out of a ticket I wouldn’t let them get by with it. If they were mentally and emotionally distressed I would cut em some slack.

3. LaGirl at asked:

Does he hand out more tickets on days that he's had a quarrel with the wife? Does he have a quota to meet for the day/week/month, etc.

Trooper Bob Answers:

La if I handed out more tickets when I quarreled with my wife I would have burned through ticket books. So the answer is no. You got to just leave all that behind when you go on duty. You put it on hold and take it up at a later date.

We didn’t have quotas not on the Texas Highway Patrol. We were trusted to do our jobs and use out discretion. They didn’t require us to have a certain number of tickets or revenue. That being said we also didn’t have a bent to give anybody a ticket. We would rather you not get a ticket and if you showed an honest misunderstanding. Heck I don't like getting them myself.

4. Girly Stuff at asked:

Did you ever have a close call? What did that feel like?

Trooper Bob Answers:

Girly I have had many close calls. Some more impacting than others. The one that stands out in my mind was one night when I had a drunk driver pulled over on the side of the interstate about 2:00 one morning. I had approached the car on the driver’s side and was talking to the driver. Another drunk driver came along and must have been drawn to the flashing lights on my car like a moth to flame because he grazed the patrol car and then caught me between his car and the car I had pulled over. It drug me along the stopped car and literally peeled my gun and gun belt off of me then took the review mirror off the side of the car. It took me a while to recover from that one and I had to use the roll of toilet paper the captain gave me.
Disclaimer: I have never heard this story and now am even more grateful that I still have my daddy.

5. Renovation Therapy asked:

Trooper Bob - What's the grace speed in a 65mph area? Say, if the driver's doing 72, do you let them pass on and only race after the 75, 78, 80+ mph folks?

Trooper Bob Answers:

We don’t have a grace speed in Texas. That again is left up to the discretion of the officer. Is the speeding car driving recklessly or dangerously. What is the weather, the traffic the attitude of the driver? Now if you are in the right hand lane speeding along at 75 and the speed limit is 70 and a car passes you going 90 I’m going after the other guy just for the fun of it. But in Texas you can get a ticket for going 1 mile over the speed limit and with the new radar there really isn’t much you can do about fighting it.

6. Katherine Aucoin asked

What was the funniest traffic stop you ever had?

Trooper Bob Answers:

Well, Kat I have had too many to count but one that stands out in my mind is the night I stopped a man and his dog. You see this was again south of San Antonio, Texas and it was a hot night with no wind. I was out close to the Mitchell lakes. The Mitchell lakes were the open sewer sludge ponds or better known as the shit ponds. The smell out there would literally take your breath away it stunk so badly. So I pull this old boy over and he rolls down his window. In the back seat hanging over the front seat is a big old German Sheppard dog. The man rolls down his window and kinda sniffs and turns around and slaps the dog and says “Gawdamit Rex! I done told you to stop farting.” Well I just about fell out laughing. I said “Sir I don’t think that was your dog. I think you need to roll down your window and smell outside.” He did and then he wrinkled up his nose and turned a little green and said “What the hell is that smell?” I told him it was the sewer ponds and that it always smelled like that. Then he turned around loved on the big old dog and said “Oh gawsh Rex I’m sorry I hit you, but your farts smell just like that sewer pond.” Yeah I let him go with a warning.

And finally

Queen Goob at asked:

Questions for Trooper Bob:

1. What cannot be seen, cannot be felt, cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.

2. Who is cooler - me or my brother?

3. Who will win Super Bowl XLIII?

4. Why should you never mention the number 288 in front of anyone?

Thanks Bob!

Trooper Bob Answers:

What the hell kind of question is that? Can not be seen, can not be felt, can not be heard and can not be smelt? Burgeous Heslep is that you? Are you messing with me?

2. Your brother is definitely cooler.

3. Who will win the Super Bowl? Well it sure as hell won’t be the Dallas Cowboys.

4. Why SHOULD you mention the number 288 in front of anyone? What should you do mention it behind them?

Thanks everybody for asking these questions and reading the stories Gladys has taken to writing down for me. You see I have a bazillion of them and the older I get the more afraid she is that they will just go away. So I’ll keep telling them as long as she keeps writing them. Y’all stay save now ya hear!

Hello everyone. It's Gladys. Now here is the deal you can ask Trooper Bob questions on any Trooper Bob post. I will compile them and ask him the tough questions and post them here when we get enough of them. So come on don't be shy cause he certainly isn't.

Cha-Ching!

Do you know what twenty-five dollars in quarters gets you? Well if you are into gambling it would get you about five minutes on a slot machine. Only they don’t use quarters anymore do they. They use those cards that you stick in the machine and if and when you win they play a sound track of the plunk, plunk, plunk falling into the tray. What’s the point? I mean if you can’t scoop the quarters into the bucket and walk around sticking a quarter in this machine or that machine why go through the exercise. My mother was the slot machine queen. She was incredible. I can not tell you how many times I have sat down at a machine with her when she stuck a couple of dollars in and the next thing you know bells were sounding, lights were flashing and she had won anywhere from five hundred to five thousand dollars. She had the touch. She had the style and grace and she had a method, a theory, a contrivance. She had the Voodoo that you do when you do that Voodoo that you do.
Meme didn’t start gambling until the last decade of her life. I have mentioned before that she worked eighty plus hours a week as a nurse administrator of a large hospital. She kept an immaculate house and I think she slept thirty minutes a night. She was a go getter. She and her group of friends who had deemed themselves “The Old Broads” would carpool the 6 hours to the casinos and they would gamble for three days. They would sleep very little and play the slots, the video poker machines or black jack for 72 hours straight. They would then pack up their winnings or lament their losses and drive home to work another long week.

On one of my first gambling outings I went with the “Old Broads” armed with about $50 in quarters. I entered the smoke filled casino wide eyed and ready. My mother pulled me by the hand to a big machine with the words Double Double Diamonds Deluxe on the face.

I stood there looking around for one that looked ready to spit out a bucket or two of quarters. Then I heard a whoop and I turned to look. The bells were sounding, the lights were flashing and my mother had a smile bigger than Dallas on her face. “How much did you win” I screamed while jumping up in down clapping my hands? My mom all smiles screamed back above the noise “I don’t know!” We waited for the chink, chink, chink of the change to fall out of the machine but nothing came. We looked at each other and looked around at the people crowded around asking what she won but no change girl appeared. Finally a floor boss came over and told us it would be just a moment that the winnings were so much they would have to write her a check. Again we looked at each other and screamed, still not having a clue what she had just won. Then the floor boss told her she had just won three thousand dollars. He then took her information and went off to write her a check. The slot machine clerk re-set her machine and walked off. My mother stuck a twenty in the same machine and started to pull the handle. “Momma, I don’t think that machine is gonna payout again. I mean it just gave you three thousand dollars. Maybe we should play somewhere else.” Meme with her mad voodoo skills and her inner voice looked at me and said “Nope, it’s going to pay me again.” Just as she said that and about $5.00 into the play the lights started flashing and the bells started clanging. I stared at the machine in complete disbelieve. She had hit the exact same thing she hit the first time! It was another three thousand dollars. That was it I was done. It was time to take the money and go home but not Meme she was just getting started.

My mother again collected her winnings and deemed that machine done. We moved to another bank of machines called the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Now on this game the machine goes haywire here and there and eventually may spin five or six times after the initial spin. It’s a little nerve wracking but hey it’s gambling it’s supposed to be. Next to my mother sat an older woman who looked to be in her late eighties. She was playing one quarter at a time and before she pulled the handle she would rub her hands over the screen and say some words. She would then pull her hand back snap her fingers and pull the handle. My mother watched for a moment and then asked the woman “Would you mind doing that to my machine?” The elderly woman smiled a toothless smile and performed her little ritual on my mother’s machine. Meme pulled the handle and the Chili Peppers danced around and around and then they lined up all in a row. Then they took off again and did this five times which meant she just won five times whatever the winnings were. The lights flashed, the bells clanged and the elderly woman was ecstatic. My mother fed a twenty into the woman’s machine and told her “You play this one.” The Voodoo woman grinned even bigger, her whole face became one big excited smile as she performed her ritual and did a little dance before she pulled the handle. Then the Chili Peppers whirled and twirled and then one by one they came to rest next to each other all lined up like Chili Pepper soldiers. Then they took off again to do the same three more times. The old woman screamed and danced around like a teenaged cheerleader. The floor boss was standing next to my mother when this happened and he laughed and asked my mother if she wanted to put both winnings in one check. My mother smiled at the floor boss and said “oh no! that is HER winnings” as she pointed to the voodoo queen. The voodoo woman stopped and looked at my mother and said “Oh no, honey I can’t take this. This is yours. It was your money it was won on.” Meme smiled and said “Yes, but it was you who got my machine to win and you are the one who pulled the handle.” The voodoo queen hugged my mother and with a tear in her eye thanked her. My mother told her to put that money away and not gamble it just keep playing the money in her bucket. The voodoo queen was glued to my mother. She did what Meme did. The two voodoo women using their mad voodoo skills on the slot machines played on. Meme would tell her “Okay it’s time to play now” and the Voodoo Queen would perform her ritual and pull the handle. She didn’t have any more big winnings but she didn’t lose either. Eventually it was time for her to go as her tour bus was leaving. She hugged Meme thanked her from the bottom of her heart and said “I can have heat now” then she was gone.

I went gambling with my mother every chance I got. I went not because I like to gamble in fact I hate it. I mean if I put money in a machine I want something back. Tadpole says if she puts money in a machine the very least it should spit out is chocolate or shoes and I agree. I went because my mother loved it. We would laugh and talk and act stupid. She would talk to everybody around her and socialize while drinking one cup of coffee after another. She would explain to those who would listen “Don’t play until the quarter of the hour. You see they pay out on the quarter hour.” People would look at her and smile and think to themselves “yeah right crazy woman.” What they didn’t do is watch and learn because she won on the quarter hour.
I digress back to the twenty-five dollars in quarters. I didn’t take it gambling. I did a mountain of laundry. I washed and dried and fluffed and folded twenty-five dollars worth of laundry. I would have rather gone gambling with my mother.

Don't Look Ethel!

I have decided I’m going to sell ad space on my blog for the Super bowl. No really. I saw a news story that said in 2007 a 30 second ad space for the Super bowl cost 2.5 million. In 2008 it went up to 2.8 million and for 2009 it is 3.0 million dollars. THAT IS DOLLARS people not Pesos, not Rubles not even clams that is U.S. Dollars. I am thinking that I could sell ad space on my blog and then watch the super bowl. I could do kind of like the roving reporter thing. You know like in the Ray Stevens song “The Streak”? Don’t look Ethel!





Big name brands that don’t have the money to spend on big time advertising like General Motors and Bank of America could run their spots on my blog for a much reduced rate. Shoot I could even come up with some ads myself. Like for G.M. I could show how homeless people could now live in the left over SUV’s that no body is buying.

The announcer would come on and say “G.M. part of the solution not the problem.”

I mean look at that room. You could recline the seats for beds. Heck they come with 14 TVs, Ipod hook-ups some have mini fridges in them. Why not they cost more than my first house.

See I could be on Mad Men. I could be a copy writer just like Peg. Would I get to wear those great clothes and drink lots of booze? The only thing I couldn’t do is be around all that cigarette smoke. Ok I have to admit I watch this show because of the clothes.

I digress. I could sell this ad space and then instead of paying big bucks to the major networks they would pay me. See how great that works out. Then when it’s time for the half time show instead of showing some lame half-time production with Sting or Madonna or some unknown showing their left breast I would just show really funny commercials. Everybody wins. I mean think about it all these big time players are crying broke and asking for a federal bail out. Do they use their 17 billion to pay for a couple of commercials during the Super bowl or do they save billions and pay me? Bank of America could advertise for 1/1000 of the cost of network time. Remember a couple of years ago when one of the best commercials was some cowboys herding cats for some internet company that no one remembers. Well I would make sure everyone remembered because I would continually link back to the advertisement.

So come on all you ailing big companies advertise with Gladys. She will save you money. She will save you time and you won’t even have to explain to Uncle Sam why you spent so much of the bail out money on advertising.

Big Bertha Got V.D.

Do you think I might use my mouse pad a bit much?

Big Bertha, my H.P. 8000 17” laptop, got sick. Really sick. She must have been out floozy-ing around because she got a virus.

This is Big Bertha. She is 18 inches long and weighs 8.4 pounds.

It was a bad virus too. She was corrupted and not functioning properly. She was well let’s just say not herself. Now I’ve mentioned before that I have Big Bertha and then I have Mini Bennie. Mini Bennie is my little Acer Aspiro lap-top

This is Bennie he weighs 2.1 pounds and is 8.5 inches long.

that Kahuna bought me after I had to run through the Salt Lake City Airport with Big Bertha strapped to my back in a back pack and had some GINORMOUS man try to cram his 200 pound suitcase on top of my laptop. Click here and read about it.

This is Bennie sitting on top of Bertha. Gosh I hope she didn't infect him.

Anyway I have been writing on Bennie while Bertha has been ailing. Techman brought his Doctor’s bag and pulled out his stethoscope and his tongue depressors and found out what was causing Bertha’s regurgitation of a C++ runtime error and the fatal error message fever. He stripped Bertha down to the bare bones and then started rebuilding her just like they did the Bionic Woman. He announced that Bertha had V.D., virtual death, but he resuscitated her. Then he had to hop a plane and travel back to the land of Oz and Oprah. Only Bertha wasn’t Bertha. She didn’t have any programs on her and the version of Microsoft Office that he left me was ancient. It was from all the way back in 2002. I know I gasp too when I saw it. I ran after the plane yelling to TM saying “But Techman, what shall I do? Where shall I go?” Ok that was Scarlett and Rhett and not me but that’s how I felt. Anyway I went back home dejected and depressed but Techman had told me that it wasn’t too difficult to load.

Do you think they had enough room in the airplane for all this stuff?

Here is techman advising me.


So I cradled Bertha in my arms and sat her lovingly on the table to perform the uploadoscopy. I gently ejected her c.d. drive and inserted the disc. I carefully and gently pushed it back in as I held my breath hoping beyond hope this would make her right again. I heard her whir and then she wheezed. I sat patiently by her side while she ran through the files reading and absorbing all the knowledge she needed to read my scribble scrabble that I had saved on my external E-book. I was anxious as I heard the disc slow and then the upload wizard asks me if I was finished. How was I supposed to know? I mean I wasn’t the one with V.D. I wasn’t the one who had just been forced into amnesia and had all my memory dumped elsewhere. I was just the dummy pushing the buttons. Shouldn’t Bertha know if she were finished or not? So with great trepidation and the knowledge that Techman was on a plane 30,000 feet in the air and 1500 miles away from here I said “yes”.

Yeah Microsoft evidently wants you to switch to Vista because they laugh like hyenias when you tell them you have XP 2002.

Things seemed alright. Bertha seemed normal except she didn’t have all my secrets, my images, my blathering blitherings back in her brain yet. She still didn’t seem quite the same. She seemed to have aged. Her screen looked different. She looked as if she had a bad face lift and instead of making her a newer cleaner version she just looked antiquated. You see she had Windows XP 2003 before and Office 2003 now she had 2002 and well it just didn’t seem right. Aren’t you supposed to come out of an upload upgraded? Shouldn’t she have been sleeker and faster? Shouldn’t she have been at least the same? I lamented. I cried “WHY? WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?” I wept “Was it looking at vintage shoes that did this to her? Was it the hours I researched antique cars? What did I do to cause this?” I got no answer. Bertha was too busy living in 2002. She was still in post 9-11 shock. She was too busy wondering who Tony Soprano was going to whack and which vampire butt Buffy was going to kick. She just wasn’t up to snuff. Why when someone isn’t feeling well do they say they ‘aren’t up to snuff’? I mean is snuff all that great? I think it’s pretty gross. Maybe that was Bertha’s problem, she had too much snuff.

Then I got another error message. What was this? Was Bertha having a relapse? Did TM not get all the V.D.? Was it the virus of which you are never rid? Bertha kept telling me that I had to authenticate my Windows. She told me this every time I opened her and several times while she was sitting thinking she would spit this message up on the screen. I don’t even want to tell you what she said when I tried to open some files that were in Outlook 2003. She was pissed. She was nasty. She was like a menopausal woman being asked for sex. No way, no how no siree, she was NOT going to even attempt to open up files that in her mind haven’t happened yet. Not compatible is what she said. I tried to authenticate her. I put in the number that was on the package. I typed in all 25 characters. I did it all in capital letters then when that didn’t work I tried lower case. I did it over and over again. I went on the Microsoft Website and read what to do and followed the instructions to the letter. Nothing seemed to work and that message kept screaming at me from the lower right hand corner of my screen. Then the message got BIGGER and told me that I only had 27 more attempts to authenticate or they would terminate my program. “NO!” I screamed.










So I did the only I knew to do I called Bill Gates. Okay, not him personally but the number on Microsoft help page. It rang once then again and again then finally a recording came on the line and told me someone would be with me shortly. I waited listening to “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” singing along when I realized the music was gone and there was breathing on the other end. “Hello?” I started. “Headoh” I heard in retort. “Is this tech support?” I queried. “Eeyas” was the return. “With whom am I speaking?” I asked. “Dis is Humbedumbe, ow me I hep shu?” the voice said. “Uh?” I asked. Then there was silence. I tried again “I’m sorry we must have a bad connection. What did you say your name was?” Again the voice said only much slower “Dis is Humbedumbe, ow me I hep shu?” I’m at a loss. I have no idea what this persons name is or what they just asked me so I charge on speaking just as slowly “um, I had to dump everything off of my computer and I am trying to reinstall Windows. Only I keep getting an error message telling me my Key Code isn’t correct.” There was silence then a deep breath “Otay, I keen hep shu wid dat” the voice answered. The voice instructed me to go the ‘Activate Key Code’ screen. As I have told you before I do as I am instructed and go to the page. “Ok Humpteedumptee I’m at the ‘Activate Key Code’ page now what do I do?” I say. “No, no me ame id Humbedumbe. New tip id de noomber on de pikadge of de siftwere” the voice said. I sat there a moment trying to figure out what language this voice was speaking. I gave up and said “Did you tell me to type in the Key Code Number from the Microsoft package?” “Des shu tip in di noomber” the voice replied. I tipped, I mean typed in the number and nothing happened. I did this twice and told the voice as I did it. “I nid to sneed to shu to de Ki Cod doptment. Vil shu held peas?” Again the little part of my brain that thinks it has an aptitude for foreign language but really doesn’t tried to translate. Finally I gave up and just said “OK?” I mean either I just agreed to marry some Nigerian Prince who has millions of dollars in a Nigerian bank that he will share with me or I just said yes I’ll carry I bomb. Either way I got the idea that I was being sent to another department.



Suddenly the Righteous Brothers had Lost That Loving Feeling and I again was on hold singing along. “Headoh, dis is Bumbleydumbly, ow meh I hips shu?” The new voice said. “Um, hi I’m holding for tech support” I said with trepidation. “I kin hip shu” the voice assured me. So I charged on and spewed my story about dumping my computer and trying to reinstall Windows. “Wit is do de noombers beno de cold see?” the voice prompted me. “Do what?” I asked not having a clue what the voice had just asked. Silence then a deep breath. They must teach them that when they teach them tech support. If the dumb American can’t understand you breath really deep then speak v e r y s l o w l y. “De id noomber oondah de cold. Tip dem id de bexes” the voice repeated as if speaking to a four year old having a tantrum. “You want me to type the numbers under the Key Code into the boxes on the screen?” “Yed!” the voice exclaimed. Again I did as the voice told me and nothing happened. I typed them several more times to no avail. The voice then advised me “Shu nid to spick wid de otencaltion doptment. Vil shu hild peas?” Obviously when Bertha lost her memory I lost the ability to understand what people are saying. I know I called a number in the United States. It was a number located in Washington state. Either the people in Washington have a really funky accent or I am losing my cognitive ability to recognize the spoken word. So I do what we all do I said “Otay”. I mean if you start talking like them then maybe you can understand them.




“Tall and tan and young and lovely the girl from Ipanema goes walking…” played in my ear as I again sing along “and when she passes, each one she passes goes Ahh…” Just as I sing the ‘ahhh’ I hear “Headoh?” “Ahh, uh, Hello. I need some help re-installing Windows. I had to dump my programs because of a nasty virus and I can’t get the Key Code to work so I can authenticate my Windows program and I have talked to 3 other people and they can’t get it to work. Can you help me?” “Headoh. Hew mi E hip shu?” the new voice asked. WHAT? Didn’t you just hear the 5 minute run-on sentence I just rushed through? Has no one told you that I’m the dumb hick on the phone trying to figure out how to get my product key code to work? Come on people give me just a little bit of a break here. I am computer illiterate. I am a virtual imbecile. I took a deep breath and repeated my long run-on sentence. The voice took a really deep breath and said “Held peas.”




I waited expecting to hear another Burt Bacharach or Frank Sinatra tune when I realized all I heard was a dial tone. Bill Gates had hung up on me. I was crushed. I mean he seems like such a nice guy but he hung up on me. Okay it wasn’t Bill unless he has developed a strange accent; but still he is Mr. Microsoft. I fild didjected, I mean felt dejected. I was frustrated. I looked at Bertha and laid my hand on her humming heap of plastic and chips and said “don’t worry old girl. I will get you better as God is my witness I will find a way to put in your key code.” I went back to the Microsoft website and read and then I read some more. Then I did what we all do. I started pressing buttons. I clicked ‘NEXT’ and ‘NEXT’ and then it told me that my product code might be on the bottom of my computer. I gently turned Bertha over and got her product code. I inserted it in the box and all of a sudden it was as if I had given her a massive dose of Penicillin. She was better. She was beginning look like her old self. Then I stroked her and leaned over and whispered “Bertha, I’m going to buy you a present. I’m going to get you updated all the way to 2007.” I heard her sigh and a beautiful sunset picture appeared on her screen saver.

I picked up the phone and called my Visa card to make sure I had plenty of room to upgrade Bertha. A recording answered and told me to put in my credit card number. I did as I was told and then a voice came on the line and said “headoh? Hew mi E hip shu?”