It's 9AM
Who you gonna call
“This isn’t working,” she said.
It was the coffee maker
Or the door
Or the ice dam in front of the garage where her boyfriend broke my shovel piling up the ice and snow to make a path to his truck
He moved it while it was soft
And in the act built a two foot high ice wall that froze solid that ran the width of the garage
Since we were in a week of sub-artic temps, eleven days below freezing
It turned into a chunk
And when he left to go back to his house after a week at hers
He left the mess
And she sent me a text
Simple ones like
“The coffee maker isn’t working”
Or
“Can you look at that ice by the garage.”
Because she knows who I am
The guy who solves problems
There was a song that came out a decade ago
On the country side of things
About finding out who your friends are
Which made me wonder
Who is the guy you call at 3 AM when you’re stuck on the side of the road
Or to bail you out of jail
There’s a joke that the best friend is in jail with you
And I don’t have one of those
Not anymore
Unless you count a 13 year old who texts me to come pick up him to take to a batting cage
Or to pick him up after school with a friend and drop them off somewhere
To which I say yes, because we get rare moments of him telling me “things”
How they’re going
How he’s feeling about the new boyfriend or how mom is acting or school
Or his own lady friends
Which lets me know who I am
at heart
A sucker
No, I’m not the guy who gets into trouble with you
I’m the guy who fixes the trouble
Even if that trouble is just transportation to put in some reps
Or to stop by the store, get some vinegar, and clear the lines on the Kueurig so that morning joe gets made
Or the guy who knows how to chip at the edge of the ice block to break it up and clear off the driveway
Helped a lot by high temps, for sure, but I’m the guy who knows about that
Or re-wiring the stove hood and replacing the lights
Or maybe she knows the first thing I do when I step in the foyer is look at the triple stack dirty clothes hamper
And if one basket is full, I put on a load to wash, and then dry
And if there’s more than one load, I end up folding them and putting on the bed
And she knows I’ll swift the floor and maybe mop it
Because the dogs are in and out of the back door a lot, and their tiny little fluff balls of paws pick up dirt
Even if they don’t mean too
A dozen little things get done every time I show up to solve a problem
Because she knows I’m the guy who does it
But…
I rarely get thanked
The guy you call to fix things
But not the guy you invite for a happy hour beer
Not anymore, though that was a pastime we did for a decade
Where we snickered and talked
She said her boyfriend didn’t feel comfortable with her hanging out with me
Even if it’s okay if I come clean up the mess he makes on half ass jobs
Which is a huge pet peeve of mine
Any half ass job done by anyone, not just him
Because if you’re going to half ass it, you’re just setting up a bigger problem further down the road
Like me saying stay on top of washing the clothes and sweeping and wiping and dusting the ceiling fans or corners for cobwebs
If you do just a little bit every day, it never becomes a problem for someone else to solve
Except I know these things are true
We live in a world of half ass’er’s
Millions of them making small problems bigger for the rest of us
Like making an ice wall that blocks the garage
A twenty minute job to clear right after the snow fell
And a four hour mess to clean up weeks later
So the lesson I guess is do it now
Whatever it is you’re putting off
Go Get After It right now.
And if it’s a problem you can’t solve and you don’t have someone like me
Then let me know
I might have some time
Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense Freebies ~ February Edition group promo
FREE Sci-fi, Fantasy, & Paranormal group promo
30 Thrillers for the Price of a Pizza
WARNING: DO NOT START READING AT NIGHT
If you’re the kind of reader who says “just one more chapter” at midnight… you might want to clear your calendar. These thrillers are addictive.
If you’ve been waiting for the right time to stock your digital shelves with action-packed, heart-pounding thrillers… this is it.
I’ve bundled together almost 30 full-length books from two of my most adrenaline-fueled series:
The Shadowboxer Files
The Declassified Files
That’s thousands of pages of twists, cliffhangers, and “just one more chapter” moments — the kind of stories you lose sleep over.
Normally, if you grabbed each one individually, you’d be looking at about $75 worth of books.
But right now?
You get them all for only $24.99.
That’s less than the price of a pizza.
Except instead of ending up hungry again in a few hours, you’ll have weeks of non-stop, edge-of-your-seat reading.
📚 30 thrillers. One unbeatable price.
🎯 Only $24.99 for a limited time.
This deal won’t be around forever — grab your copy here:
👉 Get the Big Thriller Boxset for $24.99
Buckle up. It’s going to be a wild ride.
Stay dangerous,
MASSIVE THRILLER BIG BOXSET FOR YOU
Picture this: a stack of nearly 30 edge-of-your-seat thrillers on your nightstand. The kind you can’t put down. And you got them all for less than your last gas station fill-up
Such a nice guy for the right reasons