Car Talk

I daydream about “accidentally” driving my car into a Monster Truck arena to be mercilessly crushed. Or sawing partway through a limb of the giant oat tree in the yard, parking the car in the driveway and eagerly awaiting a good gust.

Wicked Felina is the name of my 2-door Honda Civic. She’s 7 ½ years old. She has about 112,000 miles on her. We’ve travelled a lot together. She’s been through the hailstorm of the century.  She’s had several factory defects that have tried to kill me. She’s slowly crippling me.

Since moving to Dallas a few months ago, I’ve become intimately familiar with Wicked Felina. She’s always been uncomfortable and loud and the a/c puny, but it wasn’t a big deal when everything was only 20 minutes away.  But, after averaging 2 hours a day driving, little would bring me more joy than pushing her off a cliff and walking away.

Let me preface this by saying, I am so grateful this car starts and runs like a champ. But, let me also say, if that champ is subjecting you to physical abuse, you don’t have to like it no matter how many good things it may do. Seriously, this car is SO UNCOMFORTABLE.  My body hurts all week long, just waiting for the weekend when I don’t have to drive to straighten back out.

By far, the worst feature in this car’s awful design are the headrests. While I am generally mellow, this particular feature enrages me like nothing else I have ever experienced in my life. The headrests are hard as rocks and force your head and neck to sit at the exact angle your p.e. teacher told you to avoid when doing situps.  

*This is not me.

And for that extra touch of absurdity, Honda did not make the head rests adjustable. THANKS HONDA.  On long trips, I have found myself on the verge of rage, trying to force the headrest backwards, to sheer off at the posts, or to simply break my neck so I feel no more irritation. I have developed a wicked pinched nerve in my neck that runs down my shoulder blade and to my elbow. I can only gingerly and decrepitly lift my arm above my head. THANKS HONDA.

I cannot even describe what’s wrong with the ergonomics of the seat top to bottom, but coupled with the headrest, it somehow manages to curl your body into a banana shape. I didn’t have hip problems until I started driving it regularly for long bouts of time, and now, I’m like a 75 year old woman, sore and limping when I get up. THANKS HONDA. The seats sides wrap around to provide commuters’ upper bodies with that nice taco-fold shape, marked by slumped shoulders. It’s as though the seats are trying to collapse your body in on itself to create a black hole. Round out the discomfort trifecta with a peculiarly hard seat, and you’ve got misery in the form of a bucket seat.

Lest you think it’s just me, for I certainly thought it was, I recently googled “Honda Civic uncomfortable” and was awash in complaints of back, neck, and hip pain, one with the same sentiment to roll the car off a cliff, and another with the suggestion that every sale come with a chiropractic referral.

Wicked Felina came equipped with sun visors attached with plastic that wasn’t up to par with summer heat. When it gets hot, the plastic splits and the visors fall down and swing around, blocking your vision or smacking you in the side of the head. Luckily, this surprising event happened to me at a non-critical juncture and did not cause a wreck, but that has not been the case for some unlucky owners. Honda issued a recall (which I, along with many other owners, didn’t receive notice of – even though I get every single one of their crummy birthday cards and ads to buy new cars – THANKS, NO THANKS HONDA), and I had one repaired years ago. The other one recently split, but because the car has over 100,000 miles, Honda won’t repair it (because faulty workmanship is dependent on the mileage of my car? THANKS HONDA). So it remains taped up. Where it will remain until I find a cliff.

I have had several unusual/dangerous/expensive problems with this car early on that consumers are lobbying Honda to rectify because they are very commonly occurring. I mean, I might consider purchasing another one of your cars if it maybe endangers my life. But make it uncomfortable or provide poor customer service, and I’m never buying one again.

I have firmly adhered to the financial school of thought that you drive a car into the ground before buying another. With this car, it’s going to be a race to see who is going to be driven into the ground first – me or it.  The first repair it needs over $500, I’m ditching it and to buy another car. If I am still able-bodied enough.

Baked in Sexism

It's no secret. I work with unbalanced people.  They aren't unbalanced in a bemusing, kooky way where they have unruly hair, and maybe talk about about Criss Angel or insist you watch youtube videos that don't involve hilarious animals. They're unbalanced in a bitter, angry, controlling, you-really-should-see-a-medical-professional sort of way.

As it is with any workplace, there are some things that co-workers do that annoy you.  These are the things that by ignoring and getting over them, make you a better, less uptight person.

And then there are things co-workers do that are so offensive, that by pointing them out to the offender, they have the opportunity to become the better person.

Now, addressing these issues is not easy under the best of circumstances, but when these conversations need to happen with borderline sociopaths, the difficulty rockets off the charts.  It becomes a minefield jam-packed with psychological pitfalls, with the fallout lasting on a geological scale. Almost daily, I listen to my co-workers angrily talk about grudges they have held for years. YEARS, people.  One of them extends back over a decade and is resurrected on a bi-weekly basis.

Knowing about my co-workers' preternatural grudge-holding abilities causes me pause to re-evaluate whether these issues are worth addressing. So whilst I contemplate my tolerance for idiocy vs. an assured workplace grudge match, I will put it all out here.

The first scenario isn't an assault on the emotions so much as the senses.

I have a co-worker that goes tanning on a daily basis. When I say tanning, I'm actually referring to a  nearly spiritual, full body baking ritual that results in skin so orange and burnished, it's like a bad photoshop filter has been applied to her person.  She regularly chides me on how white my skin is. I tell her, IT'S BECAUSE I'M A WHITE PERSON AND I'M SUPPOSED TO BE THIS SLIGHTLY BLUISH COLOR. And I also want to say, YOU'RE 100% IRISH WHY DO YOU LOOK LIKE A PENNY?

My irritation at her blatant disregard for her heritage and health aside, it's the pungent aftermath of these tanning sessions that bothers me. The woman smells of burning flesh the rest of the day.  Literally. Burning. Flesh. She comes into my office and it fills with the sickly, sweet smell of a hunk of steak left out in the summer sun. It's one of those weird smells that, like, bio-accumulates in your nose or something.  The first few times you smell it, you think, "huh, that's a weird, not great smell." Then it grows to be be righteously unpleasant, and before you know it, you stop breathing when you see her slightly pink irradiated body - signs of a fresh roast - marching towards your office door.

When the office visit lasts for more than about 15 seconds, I find my hand rising to cover my nose and mouth as non-nonchalantly as you can cover half of your face during the middle of a conversation. After she's gone, the sickening smell lingers, hanging thick and heavy in the air. Even now, writing it, my lip is involuntarily curling as I catch an imaginary whiff of burnt death. I just...I can't do it anymore.  I have got to say something, but this is obviously a delicate situation and I don't want to embarrass the woman...or suffer her wrath for the next decade.

The second scenario is seriously offensive. My only male co-worker and my boss are hard-core, subtle sexists. At first, I refused to believe it because, come on. We're in the 21st century. These are educated men with daughters. I'm highly competent and professional. Why is this happening?

Until these two lunkheads, I'd never really experienced sexism, and often I didn't realize what was happening as it happened.  Minutes after conversations, I would realize how demeaning their comments and attitudes toward women were. At first, I thought I was just being overly analytical, but as time has gone on and I've listened, I am confident in saying it is definitely not me. Often the sexism comes out in subtle ways, which makes it extra infuriating because it's very difficult to address without coming across as unprofessional/crazy.

I would give them the benefit of the doubt and say they may not even realize they are harboring this cretinous bias, but other times, their comments and actions are so outrageously bold I can barely contain my rage.  The most recent one being my boss, when I mentioned a kind of serious problem with a male co-worker said, "Well, it's women's natural inclination to criticize men."
 What a witless relic.

Though there have been hundreds of minor comments and incidents, this one angered me and lead me to seek advice on dealing with this type of bias. Suggestions ranged from carefully pointing it out when it happens so they are made aware of their bias, to using "power poses" to assert silent power, which I am pretty excited about trying out.

All this to say, I have no idea how to actually approach people about issues, whether they smell like fresh death or force you into awkward power poses in an effort to affect their caveman subconscious.

It's a fine balance between knowing what's okay to expect for yourself and when to shut up and deal. Far worse than the fear of enduring someone's grudge for the next decade is the fear of overstepping reasonable boundaries and becoming a selfish, self-centered hack.

Lunch in My Car - Episode 3

I was pretty excited about lunch today. While living in Austin, I discovered one of the world's greatest foods: the Galaxy Cafe fish wrap. I had concocted what I thought to be a pretty accurate knock off, including the unbeatable jalapeno-lime sauce.

I grabbed my lunch out of the fridge and headed for an open breezy spot for Lunch in My Car.
I parked, opened my wrap and dug in, quickly made aware that my concoction was a poor excuse for the real thing.

As has become ritual, I checked in with my sister and brother-in-law to see what they were doing.  Here is where they were:

 Here is where I was: 

I thought perhaps I wasn't being fair in displaying the landscape to its full advantage. Here is a more favorable rendering:

I think anyone can see the similarities; Abilene just substituted plastic bags for blooms.

Lunch in My Car take away:  If you squint hard enough and use your imagination, you can maybe confuse yourself into thinking you're somewhere more palatable, eating something more palatable.

Lunch in My Car - Episode 2

Today at Lunch in My Car, I checked in with my traveling family:



This was captioned:  "I don't want to make you jealous, but I'm about to eat a delicious salmon sandwich in Olympic National Forest. It's so beautiful it's overwhelming!"

 A little while later I got another picture that said, "It was actually a forest with a beach behind it."






























Well today at Lunch in My Car, I ate leftover spaghetti squash and asparagus behind a liquor store at 3pm.
I too, was overwhelmed by beauty:

I am never eating lunch in this parking lot again. It's so much worse in person. What you can't see are the vast expanse of gullied parking lot littered with beer bottles from the enormous, beige, bleak Lucky Mule Saloon next door and my haunting pre-teen memories of parties for school acquaintances I didn't really like at the ghetto skating rink. IT IS SO DEPRESSING. It wasn't even a little bit funny.

The take away from today's Lunch in My Car:  Spaghetti squash with asparagus is really good 1-2 times. Then it becomes kind of soppy and old. Like Wednesdays behind a liquor store.

Lunch In My Car - Episode 1

I cannot stand to be in my office any more than absolutely necessary. The windowless room with glaring green fluorescent lights and the irritating high-pitched and too loud hum of my computer are grotesquely grating.  Add to that the incessant phone ringing, and it's like I'm a character in a stereotypical dystopian movie.

So, I have taken to eating lunch in my car. I take a little drive, park, and eat. It may be freezing, it may be scorching, but no matter where I end up, it's assuredly better than being in my office.


Today while lunching in my car, I texted my dear sister and brother-in-law, who are visiting the northwest, to see what they were doing.  She sent me this:

She asked what I was doing, so I sent her this:

This is in broad daylight. That is dirt in the sky. And it is so hot.

My sister responded with, "I am laugh-crying. That is so awful. Even the Target sign gave up."

The take-away from Lunch in My Car today:  I'm pretty sure Abilene, TX is going to be the first place destroyed by global warming. And when it is destroyed, I'm moving to Washington.

The Blobfish

Let me introduce you to the most regal creature in the sea:

Is he actually drooling?

That nose!   Those lips!   That chin!

After I stopped laughing at the sight of this dignified animal, here is what I learned:

These natural beauties live at depths of 2,000 - 3,900 feet off the coast of Australia and New Zealand. The pressure down there is 120 times higher than at sea level, meaning the normal swim bladder (air sac used for buoyancy and balance) found in most fish would be popped by the great pressure.

The blobfish compensated for his lack of a swim bladder by becoming flabby. He became so flabby that his fat is less dense than water. So, like a fat kid breezily floating in a pool eating his Cool Ranch Dorritos, the blobfish easily skims above the ocean floor, mouth open, catching edibles floating by.

Rachel Smith, post-Thanksgiving meal, 2012

Bobby Blobby here was awarded the title of "World's Ugliest Animal" in 2013, but I came across an article staunchly refuting this title. Like a lady removing her Spanx, taking a creature from an area of extreme high pressure to an area of low pressure removes the very thing that was holding it in, and suddenly he's left to all hang out.

This is what the blobfish actually looks like with his invisible pressurized Spanx on:

Nature and the King of Herrings

Nature and wildlife are fascinating.
As a kid, we had subscriptions to Ranger Rick and Zoobooks magazines.

 

I hid old copies so my mother wouldn’t throw them out, each an edition to be savored. I’d occasionally pile them on my bed and pour over them again, as though I hadn’t already read every article about wolves 12 times already.

Since I no longer receive Ranger Rick subscriptions and my travels mostly take me to the concrete wilds of north Texas suburbs where the wildest animals seen are escaped house cats, I forget how varied and unique wildlife can be.  While the variety of wildlife is just fantastic, perhaps the best part is that it often veers toward the bizarre; creatures with outlandish forms and habits, totally shrouded in mystery.  Some of this stuff is otherworldly.  It’s like real life X-Files.

Recently, I was drawn into a creepy fact-sharing spiral on facebook about lampreys.  As mind-blowing fact after horrifying mind-blowing fact was exchanged about these disgusting, freakishly adaptive bottom dwellers, I was reminded of the wonder of nature.  Even when – or especially when – it’s gross or scary, it’s just fantastic.

Thus I’ve decided to begin a series on wildlife to pay tribute to the fascinating variety found in nature and to remind myself of the natural world that has become so far removed from our modern lives.

This week: 

The King of Herrings – aka the Giant Oarfish

Back when I hatched the idea for this series, this was one of the first creatures I looked into because of it’s terrific name – King of Herrings (how has this not been a character in Spongebob yet?) Then I saw a picture of it, and, not to be dramatic, it took my breath away.

 

HOW IS THIS THING REAL??

Then, a snorkeler came face to face with a dead one off the coast of California, and the mighty King of Herrings swam right out of a fantasy novel and into the news. 

Though thought to be quite common, very little is known about the giant oarfish as they are very, very rarely seen in their natural habitat. In fact, only one video of them exists. Most of what is known about them comes from dead specimen washing up on shore. They inhabit depths of around 1,000 - 3,000 feet.

 For those of you who like your sea monsters displayed against the backdrop of Navy Seals

These bad boys usually top out the charts at a Shaquille O’Neil crushing length of 16-26 ft, while the longest recorded was FIFTY SIX FEET.  That’s a 600 pound, five story building of scaleless, silvery flesh. That’s right, these fish don’t have scales and the unlucky few who have tried feasting on their gelatinous flesh found it to be “flabby and gooey,” which is probably why these fish have no natural predators, because, ew, gross.

And it gets better. These giant fish swim vertically. But they’re not good swimmers, as their giant bodies don’t really move, only the flimsy dorsal fin along the length of their backs moves, so they mostly just passively float. They can also jettison parts of their tails in an effort to conserve when pickings are slim and to make swimming more efficient. They may also have the ability to gender switch. Queen of Herrings, anyone?

Where are your parents, children?!

The King of Herrings name comes from the red crown-like crest on top of their heads.  In Japanese folklore, slender oarfish, which are a smaller version of the King of Herrings, were known as the “messengers from the sea god’s palace” because they washed up on shore prior to earthquakes - the King’s portenders of danger.  This has been observed with the large earthquakes over the past few years, and though it hasn’t been verified, scientists speculate this phenomenon could be due to a heightened sensitivity to seismic shifts.

So, chalk this creature up to another reason swimming in the ocean is incredibly spooky.  Can you imagine their king crest tickling your toes as it comes to the surface?

Leaning Tower of Pizzas

The other day, I was tasked with picking up a pile of 16 pizzas from Little Caesars.  I arrived a few minutes early and was greeted by Dennis, a disheveled, clammy looking 40ish year old man with smeared, whomperjawed glasses, a smashed baseball cap covered in flour, and a soiled, rumpled orange apron. 

Despite his disheveled appearance, Dennis was highly professional and intensely focused.  Pizza was his goal and he aimed to please.  I arrived about 10 minutes earlier than the stated time the pizzas would be ready, which seemed to fluster Dennis.  Ever the pizza professional, he quickly recovered and told me to have a seat just before he darted back to the kitchen.  Between the appliances I watched as pizzas magically materialized from dough.  Dennis was whipping pizzas in and out of ovens and boxes, and before you know it, an enormous stack of pizzas was ready.  Rarely have I been treated to such wonderful, competent customer service in Abilene.  Dennis was totally working beneath his skills.

Down to the exact minute quoted, the pizzas were - fitting to their name – Hot ’n’ Ready.  As Dennis double checked the order, it was clear he was both satisfied and relieved at pulling off this pizza feat.  Dennis and his manager each took a large stack of pizzas to carry to my car. 

As I held the door for them, the manager passed through first, followed by Dennis.  Unfortunately, Dennis didn’t even make it over the threshold before calamity struck.  Somehow, he lost his footing and began staggering. His legs crossed and bent and tottered, as though they had instantaneously transformed into big ol’ Jello Jigglers. Dennis swayed grandiosely to one side, and just when you thought he was going to topple over, he would right himself. But no sooner had he straightened up than he severely listed the other way, having over corrected, this time in even more danger of slamming into the sidewalk.  Just as I squinted my eyes, sure of a disastrous pepperoni splattered impact, Dennis would again regain his balance and come back up.  Each stumble and recovery brought him closer to the curb.  No one breathed. 

This precarious bobbing and weaving continued in slow motion for what seemed like a short eternity. It went on so long, a man in the parking spot next to us had time to get out of his car and stop breathing with us.  Arms were outstretched in all directions to help steady Dennis, but his movements were too erratic. He could not be helped.  

What gravity and 9 pizzas could not bring down, the curb finally did.  Dennis’s ankle rolled.  His knee came down hard on the sidewalk. His shin scraped the curb. His body was jarred. His arms lifted up in a sacrificial pose.

Those pizzas did not move. 

Upon impact, everyone concernedly hovered above Dennis and asked if he was okay.  After a few seconds of remaining frozen, pizzas lifted high above the crash scene, Dennis says, “I’m okay. I’m okay. *wincing breath*  I was NOT going to let anything happen to those pizzas.”

Dennis, the truest lover of pizza, sacrificed his body for my $5 Hot ‘n’ Readys.

False Positives

My hair is way past due for a cut and spends everyday in a balled heavy, saggy wad at the nape of my neck. My bangs are overgrown, wavy, and limp. I need a haircut.

Unfortunately, the woman who is so very skilled at cutting my untameable hair in just the right way so that it doesn't look like a hairy pyramid, is also uncomfortably loud, crass, and very into gossip - both celebrity and bystander. But worst of all, she is excessively rough.

She has yet to provide a haircut wherein pain didn't send streams of involuntary tears running down my face. She violently shoves my head to my knees and flips my hair over.  This allows her to simultaneously tangle my hair with the blow dryer and rip hair from my head with a hard wooden brush, all from the most delicate parts of the scalp.

Then she commands that I sit up and she repeats the process from the top side - ripping and tangling; tangling and ripping.  The first time it happened, I was simply aghast that I was actually paying for this to be done to me. At one point, a whimper/yelp escaped my lips, and I surreptitiously brushed the tears off as I sat up. The next time, I dramatically bobbed my head and did my best impression of a fountain and openly let the tears roll down my cheeks hoping she would take a hint. However, she was too busy talking about shoving her rear end into the Palace Guards at Buckingham Palace in an attempt to make them flinch.

Most people emerge from salons looking refreshed, I come out looking like I've been mourning the death of a beloved pet - eyes red, tight-lipped, face damp - but by golly, that hair is unbeatable.

So, I've been putting off that cut I so badly need.  My hair stays balled up and I self-consciously tuck my perma-greasy forehead swatch behind my ears. Yesterday, the weight of the hair wad became too much so I let my hair down. I had a family come in to apply at work and no sooner had I sat down with them than their middle school daughter coos, "Ooooh! I like your hair - it's so pretty!" This is so nice to hear.  I mean, she looked to be in about 8th grade, which for me was the absolute height of awareness about fashion and looking cool. (This is probably not a ringing endorsement of my sense of style, as I thought Girbaud jeans, Nike Airs, and No Fear shirts were IT.)

Her compliment sends a warm feeling to encompass my normally crusty heart. Not 4 seconds later, I pick up an ordinary, cheap, plastic Bic pen and she instantly coos, "Ooooh - that pen is so pretty!"

It is then that I realize it is utter vanity to take a compliment from a middle school girl to heart.
And maybe she hasn't quite reached the zenith of her fashion sense.

A Time for Everything

Ecclesiastes 3 says:
“There is a time for everything,
        and a season for every activity under the heavens:…”

I am unclear as to whether this includes the activity of rocking in an Ab Lounge smoking a cigarette.

I am sure that season is not while at work.