I think I’m on to something here. It’s a simple way to save the car industry, so bear with me…
I was driving home from work on Good Friday and the traffic came to a sudden stop. I managed to stop in time, the guy behind me didn’t. It wasn’t a serious accident. We both drove away. But now I have to find time to take my car to the body shop to get fixed. (I thought, for a brief second, that as soon as my motorcycle is fixed, I could drop off my car at the repair shop. Some of you might be jumping up and down, “But how will you take those two little monsters to school every morning?” I thought of that too. My son would fit behind me and there’s room on the gas tank for my daughter. They even have straps and stuff I could use to secure them. My daughter thought this was a fantastic idea. My son, apparently wise beyond his years, didn’t bother to hide his disgust at my suggestion.)
So, how did I get from endangering my kids’ lives (ok, I never really seriously considered it, but it was so much fun torturing both sets of grandparents. Even though they won’t say it, I know there’s always that thought, in the back of their minds, that I am just irresponsible enough to try it.) to another groundbreaking discovery? (Check out my article on Terrible Threes being genetically triggered.) Immediately after the accident, I didn’t really look at the damage to my car. I was more concerned with; a. Could I drive home? 2. Was my neck normally this stiff? and iii. Where did my cell phone go?
When I got home, I had my first good look at my poor car. The back left corner was no longer a corner, by the accepted definition. I started paying attention to the dents and dings on other cars. Then I relooked at my wife’s minivan. Could it be that I owed her an apology and she was, in truth, a visionary? True, the driver’s side of her minivan was relatively free of any dents.
So, what is my plan to save the auto industry? I think we should follow my wife’s example. When we bought the minivan, we were living in Washington, DC. Our daughter was on the way, so we were in major money-saving mode. There was no way a car was going to be able to handle our trips to Ohio to see the grandparents and, at that time, SUVs and minivans were at the very very very top edge of our budget. So, we bought the one minivan that we could afford, and to my surprise, my wife didn’t complain that it was too big or too wide.
I’ll give those of you that know her a few minutes to regain consciousness…. The reason she didn’t complain is, much like the women that struck out west to tame those savage lands during the pioneering days, my wife is part of a new breed. Just like those men and women made do with that they had, so does this new breed. Just look at the other cars as you drive.
Rather than spend the extra money for the smaller and thinner vehicles, especially when they might not come as small as wanted, these people are doing it themselves. I can see that clearly now. For years, my wife has suffered with too-wide cars. That is why she runs over curbs. She’s been telling Detroit to make the cars thinner (but since Akron makes the tires, I don’t think they’ll be too happy when this idea makes it mainstream. From my wife alone, they will be loosing thousands of dollars in income.) The dents in the bumper are her trying to make her minivan shorter. The huge dent on the passenger side, right where my son sits, I’m hoping is another effort at making the van fit into smaller parking spaces...
So, how can this save Detroit and the auto industry? Lack of customization. Think how much cheaper it will be to produce one size of square car and let the buyers customize the width, length, and (I’m sure my wife will soon figure out a way to do this) the height! The only problem is that I was really happy with the length of my Prius, but in that split second, I didn’t have a chance to tell this to the guy that was trying to make his car shorter.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Sarcasm
“No, daddy was bored and decided to fall down the stairs to see if it was fun. It wasn’t.”
That’s what my son told my daughter the other night as we went upstairs for bedtime. The statement was prompted by my daughter trying to grab the cane that was steadying me as I limped upstairs. She was grabbing it because it was her horsey that she rode around the house when she and my son played cowboys.
I was limping because I’d spent the day curled into a ball of whimpering snot-filled miserabilty. (Yeah, go ahead and look that word up. I have a critique partner for my fiction that is constantly telling me, “Jack, you can’t just make up words and ignore the rules of grammar!” I tell her it is creative license and sets the mood. She usually has some sarcastic comment about it pulled her out of the story. Being a mature writer, completely open to all constructive criticism, I usually respond, “That’s cause your stupid.”) I’d stayed home with the plan of either sleeping until I felt better or they buried me. (It has been suggested that I might be a little melodramatic when it comes to being sick, mornings, work, growing older or pain. To those suggestions, see my usual response.)
Eventually I woke to my stomach growling. I remembered the age-old phrase, “Feed a cold, starve a fever. (That may be backwards, but I was hungry and it gave me the motivation to crawl out of bed.) Between bed and food was a flight of stairs. I remember most of the steps. I even remember seeing the floor. What I don’t remember is levitating several dozen feet into the air. I know it was at least that high cause I have no problem remembering the landing.
My first thought was, Well… there goes the hip. (At my age, hips, gray hair and soft foods gain importance.) I had visions of my wife arriving home with the kids to find me broken and maimed at the bottom of the steps. Fortunately, nothing was broken and with a few groans I made it to the kitchen and made my lunch, chips and salsa.
So, why did my son tell my daughter that I was bored and decided to fall down the stairs? (You gotta admit, that was a pretty good hook.) Well, that morning I’d promised him that we could build when he got home. For the past year he’s been into the Transformers. Of course we bought him the required toys. (However, I did not have the required doctorate in Advanced Particle Engineering and only thing I could figure out how to transform it into was a truck. Since it came as a truck, it was rather anti-climatic.) My son, being patient and understanding, took matters into his own hands. While I was grumbling and cursing, he came back with his own version. He’d used his Legos to make his own version of a Bumble Bee. (That’s an Autobot. They are the good guys. By now I know all the Autobots and Decepticons and each one’s abilities.) We looked online and went though all the different ones. He’d spend a few minutes studying the picture, then come back with his version. He now has his own shrine. A corner of his room is carefully organized with blocks (that he stole from his sister) and each transformer is placed on its own block.
That was our plan for when he got home from school. We were going to build Transformers. “Daddy, don’t you want to build with me?” (He learned the whole guilt thing from his mother. I’d say his mother’s mother, but we might need her to baby sit again.)
“Of course, buddy, just give me a few minutes to get down to the floor.”
“Daddy fell down the steps and hurt himself today,” my wife added helpfully.
I didn’t want to burden my family with pain and agony from my fall or worry him, so I had barely mentioned it passing to my wife when she got home. (broken hips, no more stairs, delirium and agony.) My son looked at me with grave concern. I nodded. “Yes, I fell down the stairs and hurt my hip and elbow.” I even showed him the beginning bruise on my elbow.
He thought before he asked, “Why did you fall down the stairs?”
“I was bored and thought it would be fun. It wasn’t.” For a six year-old, that was a perfectly sensible explanation and we went back to building and crashing his Transformers.
I’m just waiting for the next time one of the grandparents falls. “My daddy could have told you it wasn’t fun. You should have asked him.” The problem is, he’s figured out how to perfectly mimic my deadpan-tone, but doesn’t know to wink as he says it. At least he’ll be able to outrun them if they land on their hip.
That’s what my son told my daughter the other night as we went upstairs for bedtime. The statement was prompted by my daughter trying to grab the cane that was steadying me as I limped upstairs. She was grabbing it because it was her horsey that she rode around the house when she and my son played cowboys.
I was limping because I’d spent the day curled into a ball of whimpering snot-filled miserabilty. (Yeah, go ahead and look that word up. I have a critique partner for my fiction that is constantly telling me, “Jack, you can’t just make up words and ignore the rules of grammar!” I tell her it is creative license and sets the mood. She usually has some sarcastic comment about it pulled her out of the story. Being a mature writer, completely open to all constructive criticism, I usually respond, “That’s cause your stupid.”) I’d stayed home with the plan of either sleeping until I felt better or they buried me. (It has been suggested that I might be a little melodramatic when it comes to being sick, mornings, work, growing older or pain. To those suggestions, see my usual response.)
Eventually I woke to my stomach growling. I remembered the age-old phrase, “Feed a cold, starve a fever. (That may be backwards, but I was hungry and it gave me the motivation to crawl out of bed.) Between bed and food was a flight of stairs. I remember most of the steps. I even remember seeing the floor. What I don’t remember is levitating several dozen feet into the air. I know it was at least that high cause I have no problem remembering the landing.
My first thought was, Well… there goes the hip. (At my age, hips, gray hair and soft foods gain importance.) I had visions of my wife arriving home with the kids to find me broken and maimed at the bottom of the steps. Fortunately, nothing was broken and with a few groans I made it to the kitchen and made my lunch, chips and salsa.
So, why did my son tell my daughter that I was bored and decided to fall down the stairs? (You gotta admit, that was a pretty good hook.) Well, that morning I’d promised him that we could build when he got home. For the past year he’s been into the Transformers. Of course we bought him the required toys. (However, I did not have the required doctorate in Advanced Particle Engineering and only thing I could figure out how to transform it into was a truck. Since it came as a truck, it was rather anti-climatic.) My son, being patient and understanding, took matters into his own hands. While I was grumbling and cursing, he came back with his own version. He’d used his Legos to make his own version of a Bumble Bee. (That’s an Autobot. They are the good guys. By now I know all the Autobots and Decepticons and each one’s abilities.) We looked online and went though all the different ones. He’d spend a few minutes studying the picture, then come back with his version. He now has his own shrine. A corner of his room is carefully organized with blocks (that he stole from his sister) and each transformer is placed on its own block.
That was our plan for when he got home from school. We were going to build Transformers. “Daddy, don’t you want to build with me?” (He learned the whole guilt thing from his mother. I’d say his mother’s mother, but we might need her to baby sit again.)
“Of course, buddy, just give me a few minutes to get down to the floor.”
“Daddy fell down the steps and hurt himself today,” my wife added helpfully.
I didn’t want to burden my family with pain and agony from my fall or worry him, so I had barely mentioned it passing to my wife when she got home. (broken hips, no more stairs, delirium and agony.) My son looked at me with grave concern. I nodded. “Yes, I fell down the stairs and hurt my hip and elbow.” I even showed him the beginning bruise on my elbow.
He thought before he asked, “Why did you fall down the stairs?”
“I was bored and thought it would be fun. It wasn’t.” For a six year-old, that was a perfectly sensible explanation and we went back to building and crashing his Transformers.
I’m just waiting for the next time one of the grandparents falls. “My daddy could have told you it wasn’t fun. You should have asked him.” The problem is, he’s figured out how to perfectly mimic my deadpan-tone, but doesn’t know to wink as he says it. At least he’ll be able to outrun them if they land on their hip.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Paintball
“So, daddy, do you think you maybe shouldn’t have gone to play with those kids?” My son asked, in a tone I’m sure his mother had been teaching him the previous five hours. The subject was raised by the state of my pants and my limp as we walked across the parking lot from the ice cream shop.
It had started very innocently four weeks ago. One of the kids (anyone closer to my son’s age than mine I guess is categorized as a kid now. I’m not sure when that happened. When your own son thinks a twenty-one year-old is a kid compared to you, it’s probably best not to think too hard about it. Instead, I added a few more pictures to the photo album I will show his first girlfriend.) invited me to play paintball. He and his friends were going for his twenty-first birthday.
Now, you might be thinking someone of my advanced age would be too old to play paintball. If so, you don’t need to tell me. My wife did, her mother did and so did several friends. I think I even got some spam about being too old, but I don’t read so well without my bifocals now. Another point that was raised is the well-publicized fact that it hurts when those little balls hit you.
When you’ve been hit in the crotch by a thirty-five pound missile yelling, “Daddy!” when she sees you, a paint ball doesn’t seem so intimidating. Add in two consecutive kids with springs in their legs and impeccable timing. You’d think I’d catch on the first time my son bounced straight up into my chin; or my nose, or my mouth, or my eye.
So, even with all the well-intentioned bashing of my failing health do to my age, I thought it’d be fun and asked my wife if I could go out and play with the other kids. With permission in hand, I RSVPed.
Being the senior citizen among this group, and twice the age of the guest of honor, I’ve started to feel my age. Maybe my step has a little less pep now than it did ten years ago. But damn it, I am not old. (It’s true, if you repeat a lie enough times you start to believe it.)
I put my orthopedic shoes on, trimmed my beard so the gray wasn’t as noticeable and got dressed for a fun afternoon of paintball last Sunday. I left the house with my travel mug of coffee. (I know it wasn’t that long ago that I had the conversation with my wife. “Why do your parents and my dad always have to have coffee when they go anywhere. If it’s midnight, we have to wait for them to find their travel mug, (always look in the car first) fill it, then creep out to the car." They never drank it, but they had to have it.)
Before I go any further, I should say there was one person that was supportive of my endeavor. My wife’s brother remarked that I should do well, since paintball requires cunning. I’m sure he didn’t mean that since I was old, it was a good thing I still had some of my senses left and would hopefully use them instead of trying to keep up with the kids.
There’s a paintball place right next to our house. It’s a huge building and there’s a field (notice the word field. Meaning, flat, open space, often with the complete absence of hills of any kind) right next to it. This is what I expected. I didn’t expect the overgrown trail that led into the Western Pennsylvania Jungle.
We were armed and given a bag of paint balls. After I picked up the ones I dropped, (Ok, you try and pour a stream of marbles into a small hole when your fingers are cold) I got loaded up and we were off. The course was, for lack of a better word, vertical. I’m pretty sure I saw mountain goats laughing at us as our team followed the path to our fort.
The objective was simple. Find the other team’s fort, capture their flag and bring it back to our fort. Whoever accomplished this; won. Then I realized what I’d gotten myself into. Someone actually asked, “Who wants to charge the other fort?”
Believe it or not, several people volunteered. I wasn’t one of them. I was looking for a comfortable place to sit, where I could watch and shoot the other team. The ideal place would have a table and a cup of coffee.
Our team won the first game. Our chargers had them pinned down and no one made it to our fort. After waiting for several minutes, I went to check it out. Apparently, a limp and muttered swearing at each rock you stumble over is the perfect camouflage for humans. I made it to a place right above their fort without anyone seeing me. From there, I was able to pick off the last of their defenders.
We played for five hours. I ended up covered in mud. I still have the bruise on my thigh and bubble on my knee from where I was hit. I’m sure I have several other bruises, but hopefully the overall pain will keep them masked until they heal.
On the way home, I lifted my travel mug, full of luke-warm coffee in a toast--I’d kept up with the kids. Next time, I’ll suggest we play on a Saturday, so I have a full day to recover. As I drove home, wincing at each bump, I drank my coffee. I may be old, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to not drink the coffee. Hopefully I’ll remember where my mug is tomorrow…
It had started very innocently four weeks ago. One of the kids (anyone closer to my son’s age than mine I guess is categorized as a kid now. I’m not sure when that happened. When your own son thinks a twenty-one year-old is a kid compared to you, it’s probably best not to think too hard about it. Instead, I added a few more pictures to the photo album I will show his first girlfriend.) invited me to play paintball. He and his friends were going for his twenty-first birthday.
Now, you might be thinking someone of my advanced age would be too old to play paintball. If so, you don’t need to tell me. My wife did, her mother did and so did several friends. I think I even got some spam about being too old, but I don’t read so well without my bifocals now. Another point that was raised is the well-publicized fact that it hurts when those little balls hit you.
When you’ve been hit in the crotch by a thirty-five pound missile yelling, “Daddy!” when she sees you, a paint ball doesn’t seem so intimidating. Add in two consecutive kids with springs in their legs and impeccable timing. You’d think I’d catch on the first time my son bounced straight up into my chin; or my nose, or my mouth, or my eye.
So, even with all the well-intentioned bashing of my failing health do to my age, I thought it’d be fun and asked my wife if I could go out and play with the other kids. With permission in hand, I RSVPed.
Being the senior citizen among this group, and twice the age of the guest of honor, I’ve started to feel my age. Maybe my step has a little less pep now than it did ten years ago. But damn it, I am not old. (It’s true, if you repeat a lie enough times you start to believe it.)
I put my orthopedic shoes on, trimmed my beard so the gray wasn’t as noticeable and got dressed for a fun afternoon of paintball last Sunday. I left the house with my travel mug of coffee. (I know it wasn’t that long ago that I had the conversation with my wife. “Why do your parents and my dad always have to have coffee when they go anywhere. If it’s midnight, we have to wait for them to find their travel mug, (always look in the car first) fill it, then creep out to the car." They never drank it, but they had to have it.)
Before I go any further, I should say there was one person that was supportive of my endeavor. My wife’s brother remarked that I should do well, since paintball requires cunning. I’m sure he didn’t mean that since I was old, it was a good thing I still had some of my senses left and would hopefully use them instead of trying to keep up with the kids.
There’s a paintball place right next to our house. It’s a huge building and there’s a field (notice the word field. Meaning, flat, open space, often with the complete absence of hills of any kind) right next to it. This is what I expected. I didn’t expect the overgrown trail that led into the Western Pennsylvania Jungle.
We were armed and given a bag of paint balls. After I picked up the ones I dropped, (Ok, you try and pour a stream of marbles into a small hole when your fingers are cold) I got loaded up and we were off. The course was, for lack of a better word, vertical. I’m pretty sure I saw mountain goats laughing at us as our team followed the path to our fort.
The objective was simple. Find the other team’s fort, capture their flag and bring it back to our fort. Whoever accomplished this; won. Then I realized what I’d gotten myself into. Someone actually asked, “Who wants to charge the other fort?”
Believe it or not, several people volunteered. I wasn’t one of them. I was looking for a comfortable place to sit, where I could watch and shoot the other team. The ideal place would have a table and a cup of coffee.
Our team won the first game. Our chargers had them pinned down and no one made it to our fort. After waiting for several minutes, I went to check it out. Apparently, a limp and muttered swearing at each rock you stumble over is the perfect camouflage for humans. I made it to a place right above their fort without anyone seeing me. From there, I was able to pick off the last of their defenders.
We played for five hours. I ended up covered in mud. I still have the bruise on my thigh and bubble on my knee from where I was hit. I’m sure I have several other bruises, but hopefully the overall pain will keep them masked until they heal.
On the way home, I lifted my travel mug, full of luke-warm coffee in a toast--I’d kept up with the kids. Next time, I’ll suggest we play on a Saturday, so I have a full day to recover. As I drove home, wincing at each bump, I drank my coffee. I may be old, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to not drink the coffee. Hopefully I’ll remember where my mug is tomorrow…
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