Plumbing

            On Saturday in the late morning I went out to do some grocery shopping. On the way I stopped at the Lucky Supermarket to buy two bags of hot and spicy plantain chips. At No Frills I got black sable grapes. strawberries, bananas, detergent, mouthwash, hair conditioner and dental floss. Since I had less than $38 I paid by debit, which is something I very rarely do. After I’d bagged everything I remembered that I’d forgotten to buy green onions, so I went to get some and paid the 75 cents in cash.

            For the last several days my next door neighbour, Benji’s bathtub has been backing up from his end but when I use my water it comes up there as well. A few days ago he and I tried to figure out from which drain at my end the water was coming up on his side. I tried all the taps one at a time while he watched his tub and it turns out that it only backs up when I run water in my kitchen drain. The landlord had told Benji to tell me he might need to check my drain and he was supposed to come by at 16:00 but I went to bed for a siesta at 15:37 and hoped I’d get an hour and a half of sleep. I was nine minutes short of that when Raja knocked. If I hadn’t locked the door he probably would have barged right in. I wanted to make sure he had my rent receipts before I let him in and he confirmed he had them so I opened the door. He didn’t do much in my place besides run the water but it was a disturbance anyway. He gave me my rent receipts after fixing Benji’s drain. He was there for a couple of hours.

            I weighed 89.7 kilos in the afternoon.        

            I re-read part one of Thomas De Quincey’s “Confessions of an English Opium Eater” in preparation for my exam in eleven days.

            That night I had a salad with lettuce, cucumber, green onion, tomato, avocado, artichoke hearts, roasted seaweed and raspberry vinaigrette while watching the Rifleman.

            In this story a gang is planning on knocking over the bank in North Fork but one of the men, Tom Birch is an old friend of Lucas McCain from before he was married. Despite the fact that he's planning to commit a crime the next day, the night before that he comes to visit Lucas. They spend the night reminiscing and Tom says he's going to Denver in the morning. At sunup, while Lucas is sleeping, Tom rides off, but Mark just happens to have gotten up and sees him riding not west to Denver but east into North Fork. When he tells Lucas about it, he sends Mark off to school and then rides into North Fork. The sheriff has been tipped off that a gang might be planning to rob the bank and so he’s placed a guard with a rifle behind a door with a slit for firing. When Tom gets to town he has breakfast in the saloon with another of his gang. At a certain time he tells the man to give one of the other men in a hotel room the signal to start a fire in the room. Lucas walks in on Tom and holds him at gunpoint from participating in the robbery. When the robbery starts, the sheriff and his men easily take out the gang. Tom calmly tells Lucas he's going to get on his horse and ride out of town. Lucas warns him that he’ll shoot him. Tom doesn’t think he will and he's right. He gets on his horse, tips his hat to Lucas and begins to ride away. Lucas aims his rifle but can’t shoot. In frustration he throws the rife, butt-first at Tom. It hits him in the back and knocks him off of his horse. The sheriff walks up and Lucas introduces him. Tom is very cool and relaxed about being arrested.

            Tom was played by Richard Anderson, who later would play the character of Oscar Goldman on both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. He’s also the first actor to have played the same character on two different networks at the same time.