O,OH, OOHH

I was about to wow the inhabitants of the parts department at the local Acura dealership.

“Yes,” I said, standing proud and tall at the counter. “I need a fuel pump ‘O’ ring for a 2004 Acura.” I spoke confidently, the words rolling off my lips with the ease of an indigenous car person, speaking my native tongue.  I knew the reputation of dealership repair shops for taking advantage of car-challenged people in order to extract expensive repairs and I was determined to show that they couldn't mess around with me because I knew my stuff!

The guy standing next to me in the mechanic’s suit looked my way.  He must have been impressed that someone of the female persuasion could speak automotivese so fluently. The guy in the parts office pecked away at his computer but looked perplexed.

“I’m not finding a fuel pump O ring for a 2004 Acura,” he said.

“But I  called earlier and spoke to someone who told me that you had it in stock,” I said.

“Really?” He tried again. “Did you catch the name of the person you spoke to?”

“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t, but he said that you had it in stock.”

I started to feel exasperated, like maybe they were trying to pull some kind of bait and switch. Before long, three men were huddled in the office discussing my case. “Did you speak to someone earlier about a fuel pump O ring?” the man at the computer asked his co-workers.  “I talked to somebody,” one man confessed warily, as if this acknowledgment might lead to an accusation, “but I thought it was an O ring for a power steering pump.”

At that moment, I realized my error.  I had confused a fuel pump  –  the most commonly known pump in my  automotive lexicon – with the pump that was actually of concern to me, which was a power steering pump, resulting in an epic failure of my goal to impress the Acura parts department, despite my exhaustive web research.

“OOOhhhh, yeah,” I said, “THAT’s what it was! It was an O ring for a power steering pump!”

The three men smiled at each other knowingly, seemingly satisfied that they had solved the puzzle and collectively amused by the ditzy blonde who had momentarily caused them to question their expertise by confidently requesting a completely nonexistent automotive part.

 Chastened, I walked away with the power steering O ring, which appeared to be a flimsy rubber ring, about three-eighths of an inch in diameter and no thicker than a string.  It cost $1.53.

I had done my web research and my goal was to get the part from the dealership and then take it someplace where they wouldn't charge an outrageous sum to install it.

On a side note, in the fllm Office Space, which I've probably watched 20 times, one of the minor characters recounts that, if his date with an officemate that night goes well, he’s pretty sure he’ll be wearing his “O” face.  “You know what I mean,” he says mischievously. Then, with comical braggadocio, he scrunches his face up in a simulation of sexual release. “O, oh, oohh!”

I have to confess that I thought about that uncouth but funny scene at least 50 times during the “O” ring episode and now I’m thinking about it again because, there I was, traipsing around various auto repair shops, talking to complete strangers about O- ring-this and O-ring-that, and “o, o, oohh!”

Anyway, returning to the saga, I took the “O” ring to my local gas station, which was under new ownership and explained my case.  “I’m 90 percent sure that my problem is that I need a new O ring,” I explained.  “I looked up my symptoms on the Internet and some other people have had the exact same symptoms.  When I first start the car, there’s a whining noise, especially when turning.  The colder the day, the worse it is. Then, about five minutes after the car warms up, the noise stops and it seems fine.  Other people have described the same symptoms on the Internet and they say that the problem is a worn power steering ‘O’ ring.  Here’s an ‘O’ ring that I bought from the dealership. How much will you charge to install it?”

The guy shook his head. “It could be many things,” he said in a Japanese accent that added credibility to his presumed knowledge of Japanese cars.  He looked at me kindly but with a sort of pity.   I was the deluded neophyte, extracting a rash diagnosis from the Internet.  He was the wise, world-weary, gray-haired car sensei.  “Oh no, (grasshopper),” he said, “Do you want me to show you?”  I responded that I did and he opened the hood.  Brown power steering fluid  spilled over what I later discovered is the power steering reservoir.  The mechanic shook his head.  It was a perplexing diagnosis that would require hoisting the car up on the rack and peeling off the Acura’s protective, plastic epidermis to peer into its exoskeleton.  Power steering fluid obviously had leaked numerous places, but the car sensei didn’t settle for easy answers. He wanted to perceive the philosophical underpinnings of it all and enlighten his pupil that there could be many ways and many paths. He traced the cause back to the power steering reservoir.  “Very unusual,” he said, shaking his head. “I think there is a crack in the power steering reservoir.  You need a new one.”

I needed a paradigm shift away from my old O ring thinking into a new mindset, which would seek the path of reservoir healing. I went to the auto parts store in search of a power steering reservoir but they didn't have one, and when the man at the counter heard my explanation, he was suspicious, as if I had fallen under the spell of some manipulative Rasputin-type character.  “I never heard of anything like that,” he said.  “If I was you, I’d take your car across the street to the Acura dealership and get a second opinion.”

At the time, however, I felt stuck.  I had left parts of the car’s plastic epidermis back at the gas station, so I had to go back.  I felt like the die was cast, so I bought a new power steering reservoir at the dealership and had the car sensei install the replacement part at what seemed like the reasonable price of $40, which included draining and replacing the power steering fluid, plus the $40 or so I had spent on the part. “It might still make noise for a few days until the air gets completely out of the pump,” he said, “so if that happens, don’t worry.”  But happen it did.  I tried the path of peaceful contemplation and tried shifting my mind into a state of automotive harmony, but the noise was far worse than it had been previously. I tried to not panic, but each day, instead of getting better,  the noise got progressively worse until it was almost a screech and instead of taking five minutes to go away, it would persist for about half an hour or more.

 The car sensei had lost credibility with me.  It was time to turn my back on the mystical, Eastern approach to car repair and return to good, old-fashioned Western-style capitalism, no matter how expensive.   I brought the car to the dealership and received a devastating diagnosis.  “You need a new power steering pump and rack,” the dealership said. Even with using a used power steering rack, the total cost will be $1,800.

I was dumbfounded.

“Did you check the O ring?” I asked. “Really, my symptoms were exactly like those described on the Internet.”

 “It’s too late for anything like that,” the young dealership mechanic said confidently.  “You have power steering fluid leaking all over the place, even in the boots, so that means you’ll have to replace the whole thing'

"But I haven't budgeted for that expensive of a repair so I don't have the money right now."

"You could drive it for as long as you can and keep checking and refilling the power steering fluid.  But don’t let it go dry or you’ll ruin the whole system.”

“So you’re sure it’s not the O ring?”

“That year’s Acura model had a recall for the power steering hose, and it looks like the previous owner brought it in for the recall,” he said.  “When performing that replacement, we always replace the O ring, so it can’t be that.”

“But I've got the previous owner’s records and he didn’t bring it here, he brought it somewhere else.  And it doesn't say anything in the records about replacing the O ring during the power steering hose recall.”

“But we always do it with the recall.”

“So why doesn’t it say it was done?  Look, I don’t have $1,800 right now to spend on the car and the irony is that I recently bought this car because my old one had developed power steering problems and I didn’t think it was worth sinking money into that large of a repair, so we bought a used Acura with a good reputation for reliability.  And now it has power steering problems.   You’re going to charge me $120 anyway just for looking at the car, so if I pay you $120 will you at least replace the O ring just to appease me?  The part only costs $1.50 retail.”

He agreed.

Later, when I came to pick up the car, I brought in my husband for added clout. In his nice, polite but firm way my husband questioned the diagnosis, but the mechanic stuck to his story. “I replaced the O ring, but I took it for a test drive and now it’s making noise all the time,” he said, “I couldn’t get it to stop.”  (The subtext?  Nice try, ditzy blonde, but sorry, you were wrong.)

“So how did the O ring look when you took it out?” I asked.

For the first time, I detected a flash of uncertainty on his face. “It looked like it might be corroded, but it was hard to tell because it was covered with power steering fluid.”

The mechanic complied with our request for an explanation of the severity of the problem, complete with narration and the visual aid of a diagram of the car’s power steering system.  He seemed knowledgeable and sincere, which is why I’m not naming the dealership because I want to give him the benefit of the doubt.   When I got into the car I could barely detect any noise, even when turning.  By the next day, it was driving beautifully.  I waited for the weather to get really cold and for the problem to reappear but the car still sounds and drives with smooth, relatively quiet pleasure – all because of a tiny ‘O’ ring that had cost me quite a bit of time and most likely a useless $80 power steering reservoir repair, but really only cost $1.50, versus a $1,800 total repair, which would have inserted a used power steering rack that probably wouldn't even be as good as my original power steering rack.

Maybe it was graciousness, or maybe it was because they knew they were busted, but the dealership ended up not charging me anything additional.  Hopefully, now I've schooled a young mechanic in O rings (as salacious as it sounds) and, despite giving the parts department a good laugh, I’'e gained some credibility.

It turns out that, even though the ditzy blonde had her terminology wrong, she was right all along. O, oh, oohh, whaddaya’ know?

The Puerto Rican Magical Mystery Vacation

Vince briefly at the wheel under the tutelage of Captain Bill, aboard a 38-foot sailboat from Sail Caribe.

Prior to leaving on a vacation to Puerto Rico, I experienced a mix of excitement and trepidation, as I expect most 50-ish women nervously view any vacation that involves donning a bathing suit in merciless sunlight.  But even beyond that, it was the first time Vince and I had gone on vacation with another couple, and our friends Bill and Shari wanted to spend days at sea on a sailboat exploring undeveloped islands. My idea of a vacation usually involves mostly indoor activities. I like stylish restaurants, clean bathrooms, sun protection, maybe a 104-degree hot tub, and easy access to medical facilities in the event of an emergency.  Exploring undeveloped islands on a sail boat didn’t meet my usual vacation criteria.  In fact, to me, it seemed a little crazy. But we developed an escape plan that involved taking a ferry back to the main island in the event of seasickness or any other regrets so I decided to give it a try.  So, off to PR and sailing!

Even waiting to board the plane was an exercise in humility and a reminder of my limitations. I fly economy class and never opt for upgrades. AirTran isn’t as bad as other airlines, but on many airlines, especially United, there’s an optional upgrade fee for everything, with a boarding process that makes India’s historically entrenched caste system look like amateurish playground cliques. United has boarding categories like Premier, Premier Plus, Presidential Premier Plus, Gold Presidential Premier Plus, Gold Presidential Premier Elite We’ll-Kiss-Your- Fanny-as-You-Board-the-Plane Ultra Plus  …  then women with children, those in wheel chairs and those with special needs …  Paper, Plastic and – my usual category –  scum of the earth who bought your seats on CheapAir.com (no kidding), whom we will shove into random, open seats to stuff the plane, just like those hapless souls in the cargo bay of the Titanic.  What?  There’s an emergency? I’m sorry, but you forgot to pay for the optional emergency oxygen mask upgrade, so prepare to die suckas!

I made the Walk of Shame to the back of the plane, took my seat and realized that my watch had stopped working.  Out of habit, I kept looking at my wrist, but the watch’s face just blinked back at me, flashing apparently random times that mocked me, as if to say,  “What time is it?  What does it matter, bimbo?  Leave me alone, it’s time for vacation!”

I often felt discombobulated until I decided to just let it go and rely only on the sun, moon, and stars as my time guides.  In the end, it was the best vacation evah!

Here are some highlights:

It turns out that, unless you’re the captain or co-captain (who sometimes have to do actual work) the main activity on a sail boat is relaxing, feeling the wind on your face, and gliding over the ocean blue.  Pretty blissful.  Then, you moor off-shore for the night and relax some more, maybe grill some steaks or dive off the boat for an evening ocean dip, enjoy the sunset, view a dazzling nighttime display of stars, and then go to sleep in the berth, letting the waves rock you to sleep. That is, unless you decide to dress up to go out for dinner on the  island of Culebra, climb into a dinghy (a kind of rubber raft) after dark and travel significant distances into unfamiliar territory where you suddenly realize that your dinghy has run smack into a coral reef.

 Shari, perched on the front of the raft served as look out, pointing her miners-style head lamp at the ocean. “Up now,” she’d holler authoritatively, and Bill would yank up the motor so that the dinghy could glide, propelled by momentum, over the coral reef.  They were a great team and, somehow, we managed to get near the shore without the dinghy doing damage or getting ripped or entangled in the reefs' sharp edges.

At one point, a flying fish jumped out of the ocean just in front of our faces and almost landed in the dinghy, which, if the fish had succeeded, probably would have freaked me out to the point where my wildly flailing arms and legs would either capsize the dinghy or I’d just fall out.

This was definitely not something I would do ordinarily.  In fact, it was something that I could only imagine a Navy SEAL doing –  “Your mission is to go by dinghy under cover of darkness and surreptitiously penetrate Culebra’s perimeter. The future of your country depends upon it!”

Our mission was more like some mahi-mahi and a refreshing drink.  We succeeded in making it to the perimeter but there was no dinghy dock in sight.

We shouted out to a security guard near the shore. “Can you direct us to the dinghy dock?”  He claimed that it was right around a nearby pier, but we rounded  the corner only to find a locked fence and swarms of long slithery tarpon fish with eyes that glowed demonically, reflecting back the light of our miner’s lamp. We proceeded down dark canals until we came to a foul-smelling residential area and then past that to a bright, festively lit restaurant deck with tables.

“Can you tell us where to find the dinghy dock?” we asked the waiter at Mamacita’s.  “You’re looking at it,” he replied cheerily.  There were some poles where we could attach a rope, but no ladder.  A couple eating on the deck watched in freaked-out amazement as they saw four people rise up out of the ocean and clamber onto the deck, two of them flopping onto the floor in dresses, and one of them with a miner’s light on her head and carrying a large, white plastic bag of garbage from the sailboat.  “Can you take our garbage?” we asked, somewhat sheepishly.  A look flashed on the waiter’s face like he wanted to throw us and our garbage back in the water, but he quickly suppressed the urge and ended up taking our garbage.

Suddenly, Vince disappeared.  He eventually re-emerged as we got our seats and, as it turned out, he had been busy scoping out possible sleeping accommodations for the night because there was no way he wanted to get back in the dingy, ostensibly because “the women” wouldn’t want to.   Ah-hem.  “I’m up for it,” I chirped.

I mean, we had already survived flying fish and traversing reefs that could rip our dinghy into shreds.  What else could there be?

Of course, if we ended up capsizing or sinking in a dark ocean at night, Vince would be vindicated (and it turns out that we came pretty close to that) but we finally made it back safely, at least until a storm the following night.  And then two earthquakes the next night, but that’s another story.

Overall, it was a thrilling vacation that involved snorkeling, sailing, exploring secluded beaches, kayaking in narrow, Mangrove-lined canals at night and plunging into the mysterious waters of a remote bioluminescent bay.

On the plane ride back I glanced at my worthless watch again.  Surprisingly, the time seemed accurate.  I had to check a few times before I was sure, but it had started working again as if on cue.  PR had been a timeless interlude, a magical mystery vacation, where I broke free of my usual time consciousness and play-it-safe mentality and, instead, morphed into Jeanne Warrior Princess, daredevil, adventuress extraordinaire, and fearless dinghy dock garbage deliverer.  Thanks Shari and Bill and everyone else who was a part of it.  You know who you are.

A Puerto Rican sunset as seen from the boat.

Gilling aboard the boat.

A beach on one of the islands.

A cute photo of our fearless leaders, Bill and Shari, on land in Ponce.

No one needs to teach us how to relax.  We are pros.

  

A Thanksgiving Message to the Occupiers: Stop Whining and Start Working

Originally posted 11.13.11

A personal story about airplanes, Thanksgiving, root beer, the Occupiers and the historic settlement of Jamestown (they’re connected, you’ll see)

 As one of five children born from the union of a homemaker and a Chicago cop – and an honest cop at that – you know that when I was growing up my family didn’t have much money. We never went on vacations or ate out at restaurants except for rare occasions when one of us might tag along with someone else’s family. Our clothes were usually hand-me-downs once or twice over, and obviously we didn’t have things like computers and cell phones because they weren’t invented yet. As entertainment, my parents used to load us up in our late-model-rescued-from-the junk-yard- station wagon – sans seat belts because they weren’t invented yet, either – and we’d drive to O’Hare Airport to watch the airplanes take off.

 On lush days, we would stop at A & W Root Beer to get root beer floats on our way to the airport, but on lean days we were root beer-less. Looking back, I regret the days when I would beg for root beer floats and thoughtlessly complain when I didn’t get them, oblivious to the fact that it was because my father couldn’t afford it and not because he wanted us to go without. To this day, I love root beer floats and especially the way the outside of the ice cream crusts up with an icy layer of root beer crystals that dissolve in your mouth and how the ice cream itself slowly melts into a rich cream that tickles your mouth with just the right amount of carbonation, creamy but with a kick.

We rarely ventured outside of our neighborhood except for weekend car trips to see my grandmother in Waukegan, so these airport excursions stand out in my memory as colorful breaks from daily routine. We didn’t actually go into the airport, but my father would park the car just beyond a runway so that our car would be near the planes’ path as they began their ascent. The roar of the jet engines would make our car rumble and vibrate and there was always the impression, just before the plane ascended with a mighty roar, that it could crash or run right into us, which made the entire adventure seem dangerous and exciting. I only remember being in the direct path of the runway once and, after that, we would just be near it, probably because my mother wanted us to have the thrill but without the risk, however remote, that the planes actually could actually crash or run into us.

Once, my father took an unusual route to the airport that went beneath the highway. I don’t recall that I had ever even visited a rural area, so just being on a bumpy dirt road was a new experience for me. I was accustomed to pot holes, but this road was so bumpy that our junkyard car’s so-called shock absorbers were outed as imposters. In my memory, it was twilight and everything was brown and muddy but that could just be because the highway above was like a concrete ceiling, blocking the sun.

Above, there were cars and McDonald’s and everything I had ever experienced as supposed civilization, But beneath was a dark world, set apart, where my usual sights and sounds seemed remote.

Our car bumped along until it came to a ramshackle house. Though on a foundation, the house was a heap of boards barely supporting a roof, four walls and a porch, but it seemed to have been there for a long time. A woman sat in a rocking chair on the porch, seething with a suspicion that softened info confusion when she saw a car full of kids.

What I remember most vividly about her, because we laughed about it, was that she sat on the porch holding a fly swatter that had a hole in it. Flies can be pesky buggers that are tough to nail down even with an intact fly swatter, but commandeering a fly swatter with a hole in it seemed like the ultimate exercise in futility.

Maybe she was a squatter, but it seemed clear to me that the house came before the highway. Evidently, that recalcitrant old woman had refused to sell her house or land to the governmental powers that be. They probably offered her more money than the house was worth at the time to no avail and tried to seize it by eminent domain but she refused to budge. Rather than bull doze her down, they just bought up the land around her and built the highway above her, secluding her in a dark, sun deprived netherworld where cars and planes whooshed and rumbled above.

At least that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.

 Jamestown

 Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America, established in 1607, was a failure at first. Unlike the religiously motivated and hard-working Pilgrims, who came in 1620, the settlers at Jamestown considered themselves “gentlemen.” They were unaccustomed to hard labor and had been lured to this new land by the prospect of gold and easy riches. Their expectations of easy riches went unrealized and their communal structure provided little incentive for hard work.

As John Smith (in old spelling), lamented, “As at this time were most of our chiefest men either sicke or discontented, the rest being in such dispaire, as they would rather starve and rot with idleness, then be persuaded to do any thing for their owne reliefe without constraint.”

 To top it off, historians believe that a severe drought made life especially harsh and people started getting sick. During the winter of 1610, termed the “starving time,” only 60 out of 500 or more survived.

The communal approached failed, so John Smith issued the mandate that “he who will not work will not eat” -- a phrase which, today, the Jamestown gift shop sells on t-shirts, without acknowledging that Smith borrowed the concept from the Bible, which clearly says in II Thessalonians 3:10 that “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”

Things started to turn around once the men received plots of land they could plant and cultivate for profit. Historically, the desire to carve out a place that you or your family can call your own -- in other words “ownership” -- has proven to be a powerful human motivator that is often closely connected to prosperity, especially when combined with other virtues such as a work ethic, thrift and honesty.

 Unlike the Jamestown settlers, the Pilgrims, who landed in Plymouth in 1620, sought religious freedom. They were prepared to work and sacrifice and managed to eek out a celebratory meal even in the midst of great hardship that they shared with the native inhabitants—a feast that we famously honor every Thanksgiving and remember this week.

 The Occupiers

 More than 400 years after the Jamestown settlers, we have new encampments of modern settlers who set up in public parks. In some ways, I agree with their grievances, but I don’t agree with their approach or their diffuse, whiny rebelliousness. Like the early Jamestown settlers, they have a loose communal structure and an unwillingness to work. Unlike the Jamestown settlers, they have iphones and electronic gadgets to play with and, even though they’re not working, free food keeps coming. Supposedly they’re being fed through spontaneous donations (which I doubt), but this just perpetuates their idleness and sense of entitlement.

 The occupiers that  I've seen are able-bodied, so if want to eat, they should have to work.

Admittedly, the uncertainly created by an overly interventionist government that specializes in shielding people from the consequences of their actions is making it difficult for businesses to grow and hire. Plus, the government – hand-in-hand with a system of crony capitalism (vs. the free market) – has shielded the greedy and corrupt from experiencing the consequences of their actions and that’s wrong. But here’s my unsolicited advice: work anyway. Produce something on your own. Be creative. Contribute.

 Adopt the successful, resourceful mentality of Plymouth, which we celebrate this Thanksgiving and which made this country great, rather than the lazy, entitlement mentality of early Jamestown, which failed.

Ultimately, I’m afraid that we’ve failed to learn our country’s earliest lessons from Jamestown and that the Occupiers are creating a situation where they will be viewed like that recalcitrant, stubborn old woman under the expressway, defying the powers that be and refusing to budge. They may succeed in making their point that life isn’t fair, but I learned that when I was about 4 years old. In the end, they’re just waving a worthless fly swatter with a hole in it.

They need to stop whining and start working. Otherwise, the truly hardworking and industrious will just have to go over or around them and start working to rescue this country from the mess that it’s in.

11.28.13 Addendum

I'm going to leave my original blog intact, but I need to supplement and correct some information.  I wrote correctly about Jamestown because I had visited there, but my information about the original Pilgrims was incomplete. It turns out that when the Pilgrims first arrived they, too, practiced a form of collectivism as dictated by their sponsors back in London where everything went into a common pool and each person got a share of the pool.  The result? As one of their leaders, William Bradford, observed:

“The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years … that by taking away property, and bringing community into common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if they were wiser than God,” Bradford wrote. “For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense … that was thought injustice.”

It wasn't until Bradford assigned each family a plot of land where they could work and reap the benefits of their labor therein that they began to flourish.“This had very good success,” wrote Bradford, “for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.”

So some of our nation's earliest lessons were about the failures of collectivism, the need to provide incentives for achievement, the folly of equally rewarding the hardworking and the slothful, and the benefit of following the Biblical instruction that "he who will not work will not eat" because, if someone is able to work, the desire to eat is definitely an incentive. It seems that we learned those lessons for the most part for a while and, in the process, enjoyed the benefits of the most prosperous nation on earth. Now, we've abandoned those lessons, replacing true prosperity with a sham economy built on debt, digital wealth unrelated to real production, a dependency class that receives something for nothing and yet is filled with angry resentment, and a frustrated, disappearing middle class that has no incentive for achievement because the government takes away what little they can earn to divide the spoils among either the dependency class or the well-connected, parasitical class that sucks off the taxpayer's teat in Washington DC.

I wish I could believe that we will learn those original lessons again, but I fear that we are too far gone.

Flashback to the Pink Flamingo

Old Cars and Boob Jobs

Sometimes, in the Metro parking lot, someone will leave a “ticket to heaven” gospel tract on my car windshield.  Though well intentioned, I find the “ticket to heaven” so irksome that if I wasn’t a Christian already, the “ticket to heaven” would probably accomplish the opposite of its intended effect, causing me to dig my heels into the filthy mire of stubborn unbelief, and giving me a ticket straight to hell. The customary “ticket to heaven” is probably why it took me a while to notice that someone had left an actual, personal note on my car windshield.

Actually, Vince noticed the note and brought it to my attention the next day.  It read:

I was sitting in my car and saw the person who hit your car.  It was a woman in a red Acura with the license plate number of xxxxxx.  After she hit your car, she moved her car into another space.  Call me if you need a witness. 

What!?!?  There’s damage to my car and I didn’t even notice!?!?

That’s not so surprising, actually. Let’s see — there are the indentations on the rear bumper from when I misjudged and scraped a parking lot pole, but there wasn’t sufficient damage to warrant spending my $500 deductible.  And if you squint your eyes, the newly added indentations with telltale red paint residue left by the red Acura kind of blends into the additional bumper damage that’s related to another note that someone left on my car windshield months earlier.

On that day I was shopping at Staples without my cell phone and Vince and I, pursuing our varied shopping interests, got separated.  When I couldn’t find him, I went out to the car to see if I could find him waiting for me.  He wasn’t there, but I found a note left on my windshield.  “Oh,” I thought tenderly, feeling warm fuzzies arise in the core of my belly.  “My sweet husband must have left a note telling me where to find him and, no doubt, he added something loving, like he usually does.”  I fetched the note with a half-smile on my face, expecting directions to an affectionate reunion with my thoughtful spouse and, at the very least, a “Te quiero” sign-off.  I would have to remember to kiss him, squeeze his arm, and bask in the warm glow of knowing that I have a husband who yearns for my company and cares enough to write loving notes in anticipation of our reunion. Instead, the unsigned note said:

 “Don’t you know how to park!?”

It was like a stab to the heart.  Why would someone go to the trouble to leave a mean and accusatory note on my windshield just to spread the venom of their hyper-critical nastiness?  I examined my parking job.  It wasn’t perfect, positioned a little more to one side than the other, but it wasn’t bad and the parking spot had ample room. I was upset and mystified until I noticed the damage on my rear bumper.  Suddenly, I understood.  No doubt, someone had hit my car and, in a false display for witnesses, left a note to make it appear as if they were leaving contact information.  But it was just a ruse coupled with a rude and mean-spirited attempt to blame the victim.

So now, here was this new note from a Good Samaritan letting me know that someone had added damage to the already damaged bumper of my 2001 Mercury Sable station wagon with almost 200,000 miles on the odometer, or as I like call it, the “silver bullet.”  A part of me wanted to just forget about it, especially since I will probably drive the car into the ground until it’s good for nothing but parts anyway. But the fact that the hit and run driver relocated to avoid accountability made me unwilling to let it go. 

 On the other hand, even though I’d like to drive a nice-looking car, at what point do I have to relinquish a desire to have an old car look new and unblemished?

 In my experience, a car’s lifespan is about 10 years or 200,000 miles, before something so major or systemic goes wrong that you  have to essentially euthanize the car. After that, it can become dangerous to drive it, like the time my son was driving our old Pontiac Bonneville, hit a bump, and the entire rusted out steering system disengaged and dropped out of the bottom of the car (thank God, he was fine, but the car was not. And I really miss that car.)  The silver bullet is pushing the outer edges of the longevity stats. Spending time and money on cosmetics for my car would be like spending lots of money on a boob job for an 85-year-old.  In keeping with this analogy, my car also hogs gas, so it would be like buying a boob job for an 85-year-old who is also spending all my money by eating me out of house and home.  Is it really worth the trouble and expense?

It reminded me of something Vince said recently. “Before we die, we should have a really nice car, just for once in our lives,” he announced.  “We deserve it.”

I knew he was kidding, mocking the deluded sense of entitlement that often spurs human beings to spend money on bad investments.  After all, even if I had 30 grand or more sitting around to buy a new car, there would be much smarter ways to invest my money than in 3,000 pounds of plastic and metal that can do nothing but lose value.  

Don’t get me wrong — I don’t begrudge people driving nice cars and if I had money to spare I would probably consider it my moral obligation to drive an expensive car in order to reward manufacturing excellence. Besides, there’s a part of me that’s fed up with driving beater cars and yearns for the snazzy sleekness of new wheels. When you’re young you can justify having to drive a crummy car as a temporary inconvenience but, at our ages, we both know that it probably doesn’t get any better than this.  If we don’t have nice cars by now it’s doubtful we ever will.  Still, since I don’t have money to spare, I’m sort of a prisoner of my own practicality, but that’s better than being a prisoner to debt. Eventually, I will have to buy a new car, but it will be a practical, used car, not something sleek and new.

My 20-something neighbor used to own a black Honda Accord that he treated lovingly, washing and polishing it every weekend.  I would love to buy a car like that. But suddenly, the Honda disappeared, replaced by a new-looking Mercedes, which the neighbor described as “sportier.” Yep, I’m guessing about $30-40,000 sportier than the Honda.  Now, every weekend, the neighbor lovingly washes his Mercedes and, in a neighborhood with a dearth of parking, he deliberately takes up two parking spaces in order to avoid having an adjoining car scrape or scratch his temporarily perfect specimen.  I’m guessing that “sportier” is a euphemism for “sexier” or at least more of a chick magnet, if you want to attract a woman who seeks those kinds of accoutrements— at least until she finds out that he still lives with his parents.  As far as I can tell, he’s still waiting for the Mercedes to work its magic.

Oh well, at least I’ve advanced beyond the car I drove in the '90s with the plastic dinosaurs and other assorted toys glued into the car’s front grill because I couldn’t afford to fix it. And at least I’m not driven by anxiety to have my clunker take up two parking spaces.  Like Janis Joplin sang, “When you’ve got nothin’, you’ve got nothin’ to lose.”  The silver bullet has served me well and, like me, she has a few miles on her.  We might want to look as spiffy as we can as long as we can, and we’re not quite ready for the scrap heap yet.  But at some point, the silver bullet’s dings are like my crow’s feet  -- evidence of endurance.  We may want to look as good as possible as long as possible, but we’ve given up on looking anything close to pristine. The silver bullet and I are two of a kind -- past our prime but hanging in there – and you’ll just have to accept us both dents and all.

No boob jobs yet for either me or the silver bullet  -- but then again, I'm not ruling anything out.

Traffic Court

“Don’t show cleavage,” advised Vince, when I asked what I should wear to traffic court. Not that I would deliberately show cleavage, but things sometimes do slip and slide a bit, and he urged caution.

“How about this?” I asked holding up a seersucker-inspired striped pantsuit. He shook his head. “Too playful, you want to look like you take your case seriously.”

“How about this?” I repeated, holding up a bright dress in my favorite turquoise color, but my courtroom fashion consultant looked unenthused.

“Too colorful?” I asked, and he nodded, adding, “But a dress is good. You want to look serious but cute and vulnerable.”

We were strategizing with all the conniving of the Casey Anthony defense team, all for a traffic ticket.

“I’ve got it,” I announced holding up a black and white dress that I could wear with a black shrug sweater and my white necklace.

“Remember, no cleavage,” Vince repeated.

I looked at my black and white, no-cleavage ensemble that was serious but girly and cute at the same time. Perfect.

But at that moment, the day’s brief rendezvous with perfection came to a screeching halt.

I could remember grabbing my Metro card on the way out the door, but once I got to the car I couldn’t find it. By then, I was running a little late and I was afraid I wouldn’t make it on time, so after a frantic and futile scan for the card, I just left without it. Once at the Metro station, I made the error of diverting from my usual pattern and went in Garage One instead of Garage Two. The garage was full on the lower levels, but I could see empty spaces ahead. The empty spaces were a mirage. Yes, there were spaces, but they weren’t legal ones until 10 a.m. My stress level started to escalate as I drove around frantically searching for a parking space. Finally, I found one and then there was more futile searching for my Metro card, so after rushing to the station, I purchased a fare pass, bolted up the escalator, and I finally made it to Rockville. By then I was feeling more sweaty than cute.

I knew the courthouse wasn’t far from the Rockville Metro station, so when I arrived in Rockville, I asked a Metro manager to point me in the right direction. “Just go up the stairs and over the bridge,” she said, as if I would run smack into it. I walked over the bridge and the courthouse wasn’t obvious, but I followed signs with arrows pointing to “Courts” until I saw an imposing stone building with “Judicial Center” carved into the stone façade.

While I was going through security, they stopped me. “You can’t bring this in,” they said, holding up the Red Cross pocket knife attached to Vince’s keys. That darned knife gets us into so much trouble and the identical knife has been confiscated many times at airports, but we just replace it. It’s only a $10 dollar knife but, by now, replacing it has probably cost more than $100. I was at least relieved when they allowed me fill out a tag and essentially “check” the keys and attached pocket knife. At least I didn’t have to throw it away again.

Once inside, I asked to be pointed in the direction of traffic court. I was running late but could still be on time, or so I thought until they informed me that I was in the wrong building. “You have to go down the street and around the corner (which meant that the “court” arrows didn’t direct me to the correct court).”

I retrieved my checked keys and hurried off in search of the traffic court building. By now, I was afraid I would be late and I was huffing and puffing and sweating some more into my cute but serious black and white dress.

Fighting back panic, I finally made it to what I was pretty sure was the right courthouse. “Here, you’ll have to check these,” I said, holding up the keys with the pocket knife. The security guy shook his head. “We can’t hold those. You’ll have to go back and put them in your car.”

“But I don’t have a car,” I said. “I took the Metro. The other courthouse was going to check it; can’t you check it for me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Different rules.”

By then, I was very perturbed and becoming unraveled. I wanted to throw the keys at the guy, but instead, I had no choice but to unhook the pocket knife and throw it in the trash, where it landed with a decisive thud, propelled by the pent up force of my frustration.

When I got to traffic court, there were only about ten people in the courthouse. “All rise,” said the bailiff as the judge, a woman, emerged. I knew then that my attempt to seem cute and vulnerable was to no avail and I was especially glad that I wasn’t showing cleavage because I’m pretty sure that would have backfired.

One man’s name was called and the judge told him his charge was dismissed because the police officer wasn’t in court. The man seemed flustered, clutching notes in his hand and you could tell he was just itching to present his case.

“If I were you I wouldn’t say anything and I’d just take my papers and get out of here,” advised the judge. “It’s like it never even happened.” Finally, the reality of his pardon struck him and he exited smiling, the object of my envy. The judge moved quickly through her cases until the only people remaining were an elderly gentleman with his daughter and me.

“If you’re still here, that means that, according to our records, you are pleading guilty or guilty with explanation,” she said. “If that is not the case, you’ll need to let me know right now. In the case of a guilty plea, I can’t let you go if the officer isn’t here, because the officer wasn’t asked to appear.”

So only the other guy and I had confessed, but that meant we were idiots. If we hadn’t confessed, maybe we could have gotten off, like the guy with the notes. The elderly man was called up first and his approach was simple and direct to the point of being sweet. “I was on my way to visit my sick wife, which I do every day, and it just happened,” he said, of the speeding charge. “I’m sorry.”

The judge launched into an explanation of what she was about to do, which was to offer him probation before judgment, meaning he would have no points on his license and no permanent blot on his record, provided he received no tickets for three years. I was also hoping for probation before judgment, otherwise known as p-b-j, in order to avoid having a charge on my record that would affect my insurance rates. However, the judge offered even more explanation.

“Supposedly, with probation before judgment, the insurance companies don’t have access to a record of the charge,” she said, “but I don’t believe that for a minute. I think they see everything.”

Maybe she was just trying to be helpful, but it was like she was just rubbing in the fact that the best we could hope for after entering a guilty plea was probation before judgment and that was a sham. If we were going to plead guilty, maybe it would have been better to just pay the ticket and avoid the morning’s stress.

I was the last person in the courtroom, so I brilliantly deduced I was next.

“Do you intend to plead guilty with explanation?” asked the judge.

“Well, yes, that was my plan, but after what you just said about probation before judgment, I’m not so sure,” I replied.

It was a bad start. My plan had been to speak with contrite gentleness, but the stress, frustration and now confusion of the entire morning seeped out. Rather than sounding entirely contrite, my voice had just a bit of an edge and I was in danger of coming off as difficult.

“That’s neither here nor there,” she said, and I realized there was no turning back.

“Yes,” I said, decisively. “I’m guilty with explanation.”

“Then, let’s hear your explanation.”

“I was making a right hand turn at a stop sign, and I stopped momentarily, but I didn’t come to a complete one, two, three stop before making my turn. When the police officer stopped me, he said, ‘You’re going to have to make more of a stop than that,’ and he’s right. My stops were getting sloppy and it was good to be reminded of that. Since then, I’ve been more cautious and deliberate about my stops. Since I’m usually a very cautious driver, I was hoping for whatever mercy you can show me.”

At least by the end of my little speech I had the demeanor I had been going for and I think the judge was sympathetic.

As expected, I got p-b-j and a $120 fine.

On the way out of the courthouse, I stopped at the front and peered into the trash can. I could only see a Starbucks paper cup in a plastic trash bag, so I fished around and retrieved the pocket knife, feeling somewhat self-satisfied, despite the fact that most observers would assume I was a mentally ill, trash scavenging hoarder.

On the way home, I passed a car on the side of the road that had evidently struck and killed a dog. The dog, obviously someone’s beloved pet, lay on its side in front of the car. The dog had trimmed, curly style hair that made it appear lamblike. The people in the car must have cared or they wouldn’t have stopped. My heart ached, both for the family that lost their pet, and for the car’s driver, who must feel terribly guilty over what was no doubt an accident.

Some guilty people get off scot free. Others, like me, get some measure of mercy. And some, like that poor little, lamblike dog are just victims in a fallen world where innocents, whether dogs or children, are often slain, and where justice seems capricious.

Some people say that God doesn’t see us, but I don’t believe that for a minute. I think He sees everything. And for now, after all, we’re really just on probation before judgment.

Transcendent Moments ... or My Life as a One-Hit Wonder

We filed into the shell of a gym at a community college for a ballet class.  The faint smell of decades of perspiration seemed to seep from the wood floors, and the shellacked blond brick walls echoed back the sound of each movement --  the squeak of a shoe, a sigh, the thump and crash of purses and other possessions being dumped on the floor. 

The class was a diversion for us, a kind of elegant impulse, a unique way to get some exercise – “Hey, let’s sign up for a ballet class” -- but suddenly, no one seemed to want to be there, especially the teacher. We were all amateurs, totally unfamiliar with ballet’s terminology, let alone the disciplined movements. The teacher tried to describe the precise, stylized movements to us, but we stared back at her with bovine blankness, at first eager to learn, but then surrendering to a cloud of confusion.

After a few warm-up exercises and a brief explanation, she asked us to perform a pique, which is sort of a series of turns in a straight line.  But each clumsy attempt seemed to end the same way.  The person would start out with a look of intense concentration that would dissipate into a discouraged, deflated jumble.  Instead of rotating, we’d end up in an uncontrolled twirl, our torsos spinning off in errant directions like spinning tops that would slowly lose momentum, followed by floppy arms and legs.  As our feeble attempts faltered and floundered, our teacher’s frustration became more apparent, and the weight of her disappointment robbed the experience of any pleasure.  

Suddenly, I decided to give it a try.  For a moment, no one else was in the room.  I entered a dimension where I drew from something deep and, as a result, preternatural ability emerged.   I could feel myself turning and turning, my face whipping around rhythmically, my body propelled through space as if carried on a breeze.  When I finally stopped spinning, the teacher and other class members all stared at me in astonishment. Finally, the teacher spoke.  “That’s what I mean. Do that again.”

But I couldn’t. Suddenly, I was self conscious and I couldn’t repeat what I had just done.  It had been a magical, elevated moment, where I had become a part of the air, fluid and transcendent, but now I had returned to the the ground. Now, I was just another untrained, awkward kid in a community college ballet class with a grumpy teacher who scowled at me in disgust and disappointment.

I had experienced something that gave me a glimpse of a world where passion and ability merge in an expression of effortless transcendence. But that moment had passed and I didn’t want to be reminded that I had fallen back to earth. I never went to ballet class again.

Another time, as an even older adult, I was trying to learn to ski.  In my lifetime, it was only my second visit to the slopes, and I couldn’t get beyond the bunny hill.  Just when I thought I was making some progress, I’d go for one more run down the bunny “slope” and end up on my rear end or topsy turvy.  Finally, I figured that I couldn’t improve if I didn’t push myself, so I decided to give the intermediate hill a try. 

As I headed down the hill, no one was more surprised than me when I didn’t fall.  The packed, icy snow propelled me forward faster than I anticipated but my knees eased and rotated with a natural responsiveness to the terrain.  The speed was exhilarating. The wind seemed to caress me with giant, unseen hands into just the right angle and rhythm and I felt like skiing was what I was born to do. I felt my Scandinavian ancestors come alive in each fiber of my being, and it was like every molecule in my body buzzed.  Take that, mere mortality! I had connected with a thrill shared by skilled skiers throughout the ages.

“Wow! Did you see that?!” I hollered, as I came to a perfect stop, scraping the landscape with a spray of snow worthy of an Olympic skier.  “That felt amazing!”

I couldn’t wait to try it again.  But this time, as I headed down the hill, I was hit by a wave of fatigue. I careened off the side of the mountain with no strength left in my legs.  After I tumbled into some kind of perverse pretzel shape, I was buried in snow and couldn’t even make myself get back up.  It was like temporary paralysis and I started to cry.  I can’t even remember exactly how I made it back down, but I do remember the exhaustion and fear.  I haven’t gone skiing since.  I intend to go skiing again eventually, but for now, it just seems like another transcendent moment that I may never recapture.

Finally, in another recent incident, while practicing to play the non-speaking role of the biblical Martha in my church’s Easter drama, I was put on the “hot seat,” meaning that I would be queried by a church volunteer named Stephanie in an acting exercise designed to help me get into character.  

She asked me about myself and I told her in detail who I was, or who Martha was, because at the moment, we were one in the same.  I talked about my family and how I had grown up knowing Jesus and that he was no ordinary man, but that it had taken me a while to recognize him as the Messiah.  I told her about my brother, Lazarus, and how Jesus had raised him from the dead.  “Were you there when they crucified Jesus?” she asked.  “Yes,” I said, trying to choke back tears that, nevertheless, flowed freely.  

It wasn’t an exhilarating moment like the others because of the somber subject matter, but it was energizing nevertheless.  I had transcended my own identity and entered a character and place beyond my own. When I was finished, and everyone else had finished their exercises as well, Stephanie gave me a hug.  “Thank you for that,” she said.  “You really blessed me.”

This coming weekend, I’ll take on the character of Martha for seven performances.  During practice, I’ve often transcended my experience as I’ve relived the wonderful story of the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus.  Still, I don’t know if I can recreate it with the same intensity seven times and, of necessity, I approach this weekend with an awareness of my total dependence on God’s power.

So far, my life has been filled with “one hit wonders,” but I’m thankful that God continues to supply the wonder, even when my own limitations provide the “one hit” part.

The free, reserved tickets are gone, but you can still  watch online at church-redeemer.org.  Here's a preview. You’ll get a limited sense of the drama online, but still hear the story. And I’m praying that -- not through my feeble power but through the power of God’s Spirit -- you’ll have your own transcendent experience as you encounter Jesus.