America is a nation obsessed with its cars, especially us males. Ever since my Y chromosome muscled out that wimpy second X one, I was pre-destined to fixate on buying my next car. Since college, I have owned eight cars, and every one of them has taught me a valuable life lesson. (Click on the links below to see exact replicas of each car I owned – down to the color.)
My Volvo (1968 model year) taught me a lesson in humility. A guy I knew in college dared me to a drag race on a stretch of highway. He had a Corvette. It did zero to 60 in 5.2 seconds. My six-year old Volvo did zero to sixty, well… eventually. By the time I reached the finish line, the other dude was in a different zip code – mocking me from afar. A humbling experience. Volvo has always had a reputation for building safe cars. After my humiliation, I could only conclude it must be because few Volvo owners ever have enough time on their hands to attain dangerous speeds above 20 mph.
My Chevy Malibu (1973) taught me about Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. I received a firsthand education on the complexity of automobiles and just how many different components could break down, including the antenna, the door lock, the radio, the non-electric windows, and the clock – and that was just on my test drive. And I also learned that not all car horns sound the same. When my horn died (who knew car horns died?) the repair shop apparently found a replacement horn by stealing it from a pink Schwinn bicycle previously owned by a six-year old girl.
I consider myself an expert handyman. If there is something broken, stuck, loose or making a sound it’s not supposed to be making, I possess an innate ability to quickly identify the problem – and within minutes make that problem significantly worse than it was before I began fiddling with it. There are three things every homeowner should instinctively know:
#1: The location of your main circuit breaker box: In most homes, this is conveniently located in the garage behind a clearly displayed grey metal panel. In our house, it’s conveniently located behind three boxes of stuffed animals, four crates of ancient photo albums, and nine cans of 14-year old dried house paint. Our circuit breaker was last seen in spring, 2003.
#2: The location of your main water shut-off valve: This could save you thousands of dollars if ever your pipes burst. This valve is typically found somewhere inside the house on the first floor, either in your laundry room or front hall closet. In our case, it’s conveniently located nine feet up our fireplace. Apparently I must have pissed off some plumber as our house was being built.
#3: Righty-Tighty, Lefty-Loosy. That little lesson sure could have come in handy had I known about it before my gas grill’s propane tank gas leak and subsequent explosion during the surprise party we threw in the kitchen of our former friend, Agnes Turlington in 1995.
Okay, maybe I make a few things up now and then in this blog. I’m not proud of it. I have decided to turn over a new leaf and come clean about some of my previous false and potentially slanderous comments (with the exception of my previous remarks in which I have publicly questioned the patriotism of actor George Clooney – I stand by those comments).
As a professional humorist, it’s my job to provide illuminating commentary on the important people and events that make the news – like the Florida Boy Scout troop leader who this past week accidentally set his arm on fire – or the recent shocking study that concluded that sex with farm animals can lead to penis cancer. (Both are true stories. I would not lie about things as important as boy scouts and farm animals.)
In my thoughtful commentaries, I often make use of insightful research – unless it takes more than five minutes on Google to obtain this research, in which case I usually just make it up. But, please don’t judge me. I am not the only offender. The fact is that 68% of statistics cited by bloggers are complete fabrications. Okay, it’s possible I just made up that statistic.
When I’m feeling a little too good about myself – a little too self-assured – nothing brings me back down to earth, to my normal state of self-loathing and despair, like five hours of nonstop futility and embarrassment. No, I’m not talking about the time I spent writing last week’s blog article (although I can see why you might have jumped to that conclusion). I’m talking about golf.
Nothing reminds me of how inadequate I am like spending half a day in nature, searching in vain for tee shots gone terribly awry, in pursuit of lost golf balls hidden like buried treasure deep in the woods. Which leads me to this poignant ethical question:
If you lose your tee shot in the woods and in the process of looking for your lost ball find another ball, which your golfing partner does not notice, how many yards closer to the fairway can you move your new ball to improve your lie?
[Background: Last week, I spent 19 hours over five days dealing with the tech support call center from my Internet Service Provider (ISP) – all because I installed their software “security program” from one of their email offers, which mucked up my computer, making it completely inoperable.
Below is the actual enthusiastic letter of appreciation I sent to my ISP. Because I don’t wish to embarrass my ISP by name, I have chosen to alter the company’s actual name to protect its identity.
Everything written below is the 100% truth of my actual nightmare experience. Well, perhaps 90%. – tej]
Can I just say, I AM YOUR BIGGEST FAN! Your commitment to keeping your customers satisfied has never been more on display than over the past five days. In that time I’ve gotten to know many of your tech support team members so well, they almost feel like family to me now. I am writing to tell you how grateful I am for everything that you have done to restore my faith in large bureaucratic, monopolistic utility companies for which their customers are merely numbers on an income statement spreadsheet.
My original plan for last Saturday had been to go on a nice long day hike with my family. Little did I know that at precisely 9:07am that morning KOMKAST was going to radically change my agenda for the next five days. What an educational experience it was. Can I share it with you?
Oops. Seems I accidentally pressed the RETURN key on the Headline a bit too soon. My bad. What I meant to write was:
“Why Baseball is better than having sextuplets.”
Frankly, do I really need to defend this position? I mean, seriously, who would rather parent six screaming babies than to go to the ballpark, watch a game, while scarfing down peanuts, a hot dog and a cold beer? Anybody?
I have loved baseball ever since I was a young child. I even named this humor blog View from the Bleachers in part as a nod to my favorite spectator sport. Baseball has long been called America’s pastime. The first baseball game was played way back in 1846. As any high school student today could tell you, that’s probably like maybe over 70 years ago.
Having grown up in Albany, NY, in the 1960s, listening on the radio in the 1960’s to the then dismal, cellar-dwelling New York Mets, I was hooked at an early age. I wanted to name our eldest daughter DiMaggio in honor of Joltin’ Joe. I tried to convince my wife her friends would call her Maggie, but I was overruled. So we named her Yastrzemski instead.
America is a nation obsessed with its cars, especially us males. Ever since my Y chromosome muscled out that wimpy second X one, I was pre-destined to fixate on buying my next car. Since college, I have owned eight cars, and every one of them has taught me a valuable life lesson. (Click on the links below to see exact replicas of each car I owned – down to the color.)
Oops. Seems I accidentally pressed the RETURN key on the Headline a bit too soon. My bad. What I meant to write was:
