Hello Fellow Travelers!
I was going to write to you about Life's Great Mysteries or Cancer: Curse or Cure? Then the following happened and I tossed all those other ideas out the window and you would too if you'd been there. Picture, if you will, anytown in Northern California at 6:30 at a strip mall on a Friday. Patient Spouse and I are parked in front of a lame (and I mean lame) Chinese Food place that's conveniently located next to my son's dojo.
Next to us are two very young ladies in a brand new Jeep. After applying another coat of lip gloss I hear a sound that everyone who has ever owned a car knows all too well because it's the sound you never want to hear. It's the dreaded "clicking" sound. I know next to nothing about cars and even I know that sound is bad. The driver chick reacted to her key's non-effect on the engine with remarkable restraint and calm. She and her friend took the opportunity to apply more lip gloss. They used this "maybe if we let it rest, it will repair itself" method of non-repair car repair several times to no avail. That battery was toast but their lip gloss looked awesome!
In the meantime, while all this clicking is going on Patient Spouse had repositioned our vehicle, found the jumper cables, picked up our pizza, and our kid. After applying one more coat of gloss (And, their glosses were sparkly and lit up for "in da Club"! Yes, I have one, 3 guesses who gave it to me!) the very young ladies finally ventured out of their very cute and very dead vehicle. When I stopped laughing I had to wonder: Were these girls just really young or incredibly clueless? Was there ever a time I didn't know that key/clicking sound=Dead Car? Naahh, maybe when I was like 7(Yeah, yeah, they had cars back then Harty har har!) All over the world tens of thousands of drivers insert keys into ignitions and know with a sinking sensation that clicking sound means the same, inconvenient truth for each and every driver. That engine ain't turning over for no one no how without "the jaws of life" or at the very least a jump. And the sooner you deal with that the sooner you can get on with your day.
We worship youth in our culture. Youth looks good but it's still young! The freshly glossed young lady who was driving asked Patient Spouse if he thought she could drive the newly jumped vehicle to a restaurant and he had to explain to her that she should go home immediately and have the car looked at, that her new car could very well die when she turned off the engine again. It was obvious she had not considered this possibility. Then we checked out the "new" "Sound of Music" with Stephen Moyer, (Bill, from True Blood) and Carrie Underwood. I've been watching "The Sound of Music" at Christmastime for years. What screams "Christmas" about Nazis in long musicals?
Oh yeah, Mother Superior was an African American. In the Austrian Alps! In pre-war Austria! She sang her wimple off! It was long and weird. Without the great Julie Andrews singing about them suddenly "A Few of her Favourite (British spelling) Things" start to sound a little disgusting! (Buttered Noodles? Schnitzel? Yuck!) Anyway, if it isn't the holiday for you without the SOM, stick with the original Then e-mail me and let me know how the talk with your mother went. You know, the chat you had with her letting her know you're gay. Really gay! (Not that there's anything wrong with that)
PS - As a reasonable adult, I have made a unilateral decision for all of us: If people of a certain age in Wal-Mart commercials use current slang to move merchandise said slang will be instantly stricken from anyone on any medium at any time. The latest casualties? "You own something" (As in: You own that tape dispenser.) Tired. "Mad Skills" (As in: She has some) Exhausted. "The ___aren't going to____ themselves!"(self explanatory, you just fill in the blanks.) Stick a cheap fork in this one because it is burnt! They don't know their irony from their irons at Wal Mart so let these terms die people they're played out. In fact, allow me a smidgen of latitude to broaden the criterion. The last thing I want is to give people another excuse to get creative with their spelling. It's also the same reason I refuse to use "Twitter". Any current slang phraseology used to shill for profit will be unceremoniously stripped of it's cache and usage. Because any 7 year old can tell you, if it's heard in a Wal-Mart Ad it's probably not heard on the playgrounds or in "da club" . It's hard enough to get anyone to spell correctly or even write at all. I would never endorse a medium that encourages users to abbreviate and misspell words. A world where ewe or you is reduced to "u" is a world I don't want to live in! So, like the gladiator boot I believe Twitter is a passing fad. (At least I hope). Patient Spouse sneered,"You think Twitter is a fad?"
I was going to write to you about Life's Great Mysteries or Cancer: Curse or Cure? Then the following happened and I tossed all those other ideas out the window and you would too if you'd been there. Picture, if you will, anytown in Northern California at 6:30 at a strip mall on a Friday. Patient Spouse and I are parked in front of a lame (and I mean lame) Chinese Food place that's conveniently located next to my son's dojo.
Next to us are two very young ladies in a brand new Jeep. After applying another coat of lip gloss I hear a sound that everyone who has ever owned a car knows all too well because it's the sound you never want to hear. It's the dreaded "clicking" sound. I know next to nothing about cars and even I know that sound is bad. The driver chick reacted to her key's non-effect on the engine with remarkable restraint and calm. She and her friend took the opportunity to apply more lip gloss. They used this "maybe if we let it rest, it will repair itself" method of non-repair car repair several times to no avail. That battery was toast but their lip gloss looked awesome!
In the meantime, while all this clicking is going on Patient Spouse had repositioned our vehicle, found the jumper cables, picked up our pizza, and our kid. After applying one more coat of gloss (And, their glosses were sparkly and lit up for "in da Club"! Yes, I have one, 3 guesses who gave it to me!) the very young ladies finally ventured out of their very cute and very dead vehicle. When I stopped laughing I had to wonder: Were these girls just really young or incredibly clueless? Was there ever a time I didn't know that key/clicking sound=Dead Car? Naahh, maybe when I was like 7(Yeah, yeah, they had cars back then Harty har har!) All over the world tens of thousands of drivers insert keys into ignitions and know with a sinking sensation that clicking sound means the same, inconvenient truth for each and every driver. That engine ain't turning over for no one no how without "the jaws of life" or at the very least a jump. And the sooner you deal with that the sooner you can get on with your day.
We worship youth in our culture. Youth looks good but it's still young! The freshly glossed young lady who was driving asked Patient Spouse if he thought she could drive the newly jumped vehicle to a restaurant and he had to explain to her that she should go home immediately and have the car looked at, that her new car could very well die when she turned off the engine again. It was obvious she had not considered this possibility. Then we checked out the "new" "Sound of Music" with Stephen Moyer, (Bill, from True Blood) and Carrie Underwood. I've been watching "The Sound of Music" at Christmastime for years. What screams "Christmas" about Nazis in long musicals?
Oh yeah, Mother Superior was an African American. In the Austrian Alps! In pre-war Austria! She sang her wimple off! It was long and weird. Without the great Julie Andrews singing about them suddenly "A Few of her Favourite (British spelling) Things" start to sound a little disgusting! (Buttered Noodles? Schnitzel? Yuck!) Anyway, if it isn't the holiday for you without the SOM, stick with the original Then e-mail me and let me know how the talk with your mother went. You know, the chat you had with her letting her know you're gay. Really gay! (Not that there's anything wrong with that)
PS - As a reasonable adult, I have made a unilateral decision for all of us: If people of a certain age in Wal-Mart commercials use current slang to move merchandise said slang will be instantly stricken from anyone on any medium at any time. The latest casualties? "You own something" (As in: You own that tape dispenser.) Tired. "Mad Skills" (As in: She has some) Exhausted. "The ___aren't going to____ themselves!"(self explanatory, you just fill in the blanks.) Stick a cheap fork in this one because it is burnt! They don't know their irony from their irons at Wal Mart so let these terms die people they're played out. In fact, allow me a smidgen of latitude to broaden the criterion. The last thing I want is to give people another excuse to get creative with their spelling. It's also the same reason I refuse to use "Twitter". Any current slang phraseology used to shill for profit will be unceremoniously stripped of it's cache and usage. Because any 7 year old can tell you, if it's heard in a Wal-Mart Ad it's probably not heard on the playgrounds or in "da club" . It's hard enough to get anyone to spell correctly or even write at all. I would never endorse a medium that encourages users to abbreviate and misspell words. A world where ewe or you is reduced to "u" is a world I don't want to live in! So, like the gladiator boot I believe Twitter is a passing fad. (At least I hope). Patient Spouse sneered,"You think Twitter is a fad?"
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