Hi Ho Silver!

I think it’s a pretty safe bet that I know close to nothing about cars. The extent of my knowledge consists of the color, make, year and where the gas goes. So when things started breaking down on the “Ol’ Silver Bullet” (a 2003 Ford Focus) recently I was fit to be tied. I guess I was spoiled by my Saturn which lived a long and happy twelve years with barely an issue. The latest in a long line of vehicular illnesses is the battery light flashing randomly causing me to drive as if I’m in the movie “Speed” and not allowing the car to idle too long or it’s over.

As far as commutes go I have a relatively short one to work, about ten to fifteen minutes. Then I would usually go somewhere for lunch and then back home at the end of the day. All in all I would be on the road for about forty-five minutes a day (give or take.) Each time I would go out for one of these short drives the battery light would pop on and stare at me like Hal’s red electronic eye in 2001. As soon as that tiny red light came on my whole body would go on point and I would begin to pray to myself (and to the car) that I would get to my destination. The biggest test of my nerves would come last Tuesday the night I had to drive out to campus for class. With traffic that’s a forty-five to fifty minute drive including stop lights. Not something I was looking forward to, so when I called the garage to make an appointment to get an inspection I told them my dilemma. Their advice was simple; put the car in park when stopped at a light, don’t use the high beams and keep my fingers crossed.

Just before I had to leave for campus I stopped to get gas in the car. As always the red demon was staring me down as I shut the car off to pump the gas. Once I filled the tank to about half full I got in the car and started it up. The light didn’t come on right away it usually waited for me to be on the road before it would spring itself on me. As I got on the expressway headed toward school I waited for the red monster to appear. I waited, ten minutes; I waited twenty minutes, no light. As I drove I was constantly checking the dashboard for the light to come on. Somewhere around the thirty minute mark I started to become slightly optimistic and began petting the interior muttering things like, “Come on Silver. Atta boy, you can do it.” As I pulled into the parking lot on campus and shut off the car most of the air left my body in relief. But there was still the drive home to consider. Would the old boy have enough in him to make it back home or even to start up after class?

When class was over I made my way back to the car as if I was walking the last mile on death row. I got in the car took a deep breath and turned the key. The car started right up with no evil red battery light glowing in the dark. I followed same routine going home as I did driving in. I gave the ol’ boy positive reassurance and plenty of pats on the dash.

We made it home safely that night and that Friday the “Silver Bullet” was set to go in for an inspection. When I dropped the car off at the garage I explained to the guy how the light never came on again after I put gas in it on Tuesday. He looked at me as if I had mushrooms growing out of my forehead and said, “Those things aren’t related at all.” Not knowing anything about cars I took his word for it. At the end of the day I came to pick the ol’ boy and asked the guy if they found anything that might be causing the battery light to come on. He said they checked all they could think of from the alternator to the battery, they even tried running it on a low gas tank and banging it with a rubber mallet to see if that made it come on, nothing. But the car did pass inspection and the light has now come back on since (knock wood.) I wonder if I should have mentioned I need to smack the dash to get the radio to come back on sometimes. Nah! What could that have to do with anything?

I Remember....

I remember I was late for work that morning. While driving in (well above the speed limit) I started flipping through the dozen or so radio stations on the dial trying to find something decent to listen to on the way into work. As I was cycling through the frequencies I heard a DJ make an out-of-place remark for a wacky morning show so I turned back the dial to find the station. That one statement was the beginning of a day I would always remember.

“We’re getting confirmed reports now that a airplane has…”

As I pulled into the parking lot of work I found the station again. They were reporting that a plane crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center and what they thought was an accident may not have been.

I remember walking into my office and a massive silence hung in the air replacing the clicks of keyboards in use and interoffice chatter. In the time I walked from my car into the building another plane hit the second tower. There was no longer a question whether or not this was an accident. We were under attack. We just didn’t know why or by whom. My friend Tom had a sister who worked in one of the towers along with a college buddy of ours, Dooley. At the time Tom was teaching English in Prague and may not have heard the news yet. I immediately emailed him with the news of what had happened. By the end of the day he emailed back. It took him seven hours to reach his family. His sister was fine. She happened to be running late for work that morning. Dooley was fine too. He started his vacation that day. My friend Jimmy also worked a few blocks away from the twin towers. I kept calling his cell phone on and off all day to find out if he was all right. But the service was down for most of the day. He called back that evening to tell me he was safe. Manhattan was in lock down and he was walking back to New Jersey.

I remember someone had found a few televisions in a store room and set them up in conference rooms throughout the building. We watched as news came through of two more planes going down. One plane crashed into the Pentagon and the other hit a field in Pennsylvania. I knew a friend of mine was working in the Pentagon so I rushed back to my desk to call her. After four or five tries I finally got a hold of her. The conversation was short, to the point and reassuring.

“They evacuated us. I’m fine. I have to go.”

I remember not much got done that day. For most of the day people were either mesmerized by the flood of news reports coming in or they were desperately trying to get information about family and friends who were at any of the three crash sites. Most of the cell phone service was down either do to the crashes or heavy call traffic. People were wandering the halls like zombies. Shock got the best of them and they still had not processed what had happened. I heard one co-worker crying in her cubicle muttering to herself.

“I don’t understand. I don’t understand why?”

I remember sitting at my desk obsessively refreshing my email inbox looking for some response from Tom that he had got my message and had been in touch with his family. But instead with each click of the mouse I got a new message from a friend somewhere in the world sending their sympathy and support for me and to the country. Each subject line carried the same message.

“We’re with you.”

I remember how fragile life is. How in the grand scheme of things we’re a blink of an eye and for no good reason what so ever we can no longer exist. I may not have known it at the time but that day was a tipping point for me. It may have taken a while to sink in but that horrific event changed the course of my life and taught me how to live my life, my way and now.

Oh you sad, sad man.

Everyone has a Sunday morning routine, something special they do to kick off the last day of their weekend. Some people go to church; others have Sunday morning brunch at a local diner with their family or just sit at home sipping coffee while doing the New York Times crossword. Me? I go grocery shopping. It became a ritual for me quite a while ago (after a shaky break-up) to get up early on Sunday morning and get my groceries for the week. This little tradition of waking up early, tuning in NPR on the car radio and grabbing some pastry on the way to the market gives me a sense of inner peace. That is, until I reach the store.

I can take the runaway carts or playing chicken with the Hummer driving “Real Housewives” for a free parking space close to the store. But what I can NOT handle are the droves of pitiful deer-caught-in-headlights husbands roaming the aisles like they’re part of the road company of “Shaun of the Dead.” Ladies I ask you, why do you repeatedly send these poor clueless men into the store unprepared? These unfortunate ignorant males are wandering around the market looking at lists that are apparently written in Mandarin while parking their cart across the entire aisle blocking the path of the more experienced shoppers, namely me! By nature these guys are NOT equipped for this kind of work. This is a creature who thinks plaids and stripes work well together and you entrust them to pick out a ripe tomato? I find myself weaving in between these unarmed husbands standing as if they lost all power in their legs while they stare hopelessly at a wall of toilet paper not knowing which one to pick. Of course these hapless guys don’t know to move on to the next item on the list so they end up staring for one, two, TEN hours at the multitude of options to choose from (which by the way all look the same to them.) Eventually the men do the only things they know how it do in these situations. They call the wife.

Once these usually intelligent men have reached the ends of their ropes they reluctantly go to their last resort. Like E. T. they phone home. This is a one sided conversation which usually ends with the man saying, “Fine! I’ll find it myself but don’t blame me if it’s not what you want!” This discussion will take place three or four more times before he reaches the parking lot to go home; where he will be asked to return to the store the get the items he should have known to get in the first place! But I have a solution to this ongoing problem which will make save the husband a lot of grief and make the wife extremely happy, a G.P.S. (Gay Personal Shopper.)

Think about it? Ladies, with a G.P.S. you will always get EXACTLY what you asked for from the store (including a couple of items you didn’t even know you needed.) Not to mention a new BFF. Gentlemen more than likely when you go out shopping with the G.P.S. you’ll be asked to sit quietly in the car. While your “Gay Personal Shopper” runs into the market you can sip your Starbucks and listen to your favorite sports show on the radio which is all you wanted to do in the first place. This is a no lose situation for everyone involved! I should really patent these ideas.