Shaken Not Stirred

Sometimes I look at things like Facebook and this blog as my dairy. I guess it is how I vent or talk things through. I forget that other people are going to read it and later often realize that some things should remain private. This is one of those moments. Sometimes you need to talk things out though and where else can I get everyone I know into the same room? This is a serious note about my Thursday evening. I wouldn’t post this at all but I am learning that we all go through “stuff” and sometimes it helps to hear it from others. It kind of lets us know that we are not alone and no one is immune to the cloudy days in a beautiful life:

I have been waiting for “the call” for five years. No, I didn’t get it yet. I am talking about that call to let me know that mom has passed. I don’t know how many times that I have gotten a call at an odd time and have thought that maybe that was going to be the one. In my mind, I am somewhat prepared for it but let’s face it, it’s not something you can’t really plan out so that it will go well. I got a call Thursday afternoon that shook me. It wasn’t one I had thought about at all and it completely took me off guard.

I was on my way to an event Thursday night and just before I got there my dad called and said that he didn’t want to wait until the last minute and that next week we were going to meet at the funeral home to plan mom’s funeral.  Ouch…I hadn’t thought about that call. It really took the wind out of my sails. I wasn’t devastated or anything like that; I was just…deflated. I felt like the car seat and just sunk a couple of inches. Something inside of me had broken. I could feel it. I guess I had a sort of unrealistic optimism that somehow mom would be here forever or maybe just if I didn’t think about it that maybe it wouldn’t happen…yet. So much for that; here it was and I had to face it and plan for it. I had to accept the unthinkable just like my parents did with their parents.

I went on to the event, not overly sad, just shaken and quiet. I worried that I might get all teary eyed but that wasn’t the case. It was more of just a sinking feeling than anything else. I got there only to find that I was about to be stuck with this guy that I have to work with every now and then, and who, for lack of better words, has never been anything but a mean, bossy jerk to me since the day I met him. I don’t really know why he acts like this. Part of it is just his nature but he just really doesn’t like being around me.

The event was nice and part of it talked about a rare disease that attacks the brain and usually starts in childhood. They had a lighting of the candles ceremony and showed a video with pictures of the children that had passed. The guy (I think from this point I will just call him “Jerk”) turned to me and said, “I hope this makes you cry; I’d like to see that.” He wasn’t being funny; he meant it. I was in no state to carry on a conversation with him and I really didn’t want him to know how close he was to getting to me so I just ignored him (which I am pretty good at) and tried not to pay too much attention to the memorial.

It was sad and everyone was crying as there were several parents there in the room with their children who currently have the disease. I held it together still remembering my conversation that I had just had over the phone with my dad and trying to not hit Jerk at my table. After the event, everyone stood around and talked for a while and I was there pretty late. Jerk came over to me and asked if it had made me sad enough to cry. I told him that it was sad but that I had held it together. Let me stop here to explain that he knows all about my mom and my recent articles on Alzheimer’s, etc. He looked at me and said, “I think it is sad when it is children. This disease reminds me of Alzheimer’s. But you know, when it is old people, I don’t care about them. I mean, if an old person is dying from Alzheimer’s who cares? I know it don’t; they are old and dying, who cares?”

Sitting here now, I can’t believe that I didn’t put him through a wall or burst into tears. I am a lover not a fighter but push too many buttons and eventually you are going to hit the one marked “bite your head off” or the "somebody's about to get hit". I didn’t do either. I didn’t do anything. I felt an emotion that I don’t even have a name for.  I didn’t feel anything. I just went cold and empty. I remember the old story from the Bible where Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt. It was kind of like that. I just froze on the inside and didn’t feel a single thing. A lady walked up at that time and started talking to Jerk and he left for the night. I think that might have been divine intervention. Without her, I might be sitting in jail or the ER right now and that really wouldn’t have helped a thing.

I got home late that night; I think I was silent the entire way home. I’ll bet I sat in the car for an hour before going into the house, just thinking.  I sat up for a while, ate a little something and watched some mindless TV to unwind or maybe to just not think. Before I knew it, it was 6am and I needed to go to bed. I woke up at noon, and rebooted myself by having a light breakfast, a shave and then lunch, all back to back.  It was a day “off” for printing up materials and running errands. I hopped in the car and started my day not believing that I had stayed up so late and had wasted so much of the day.

Have you ever had a dog or a cat that got injured? If so, you know that sometimes they retreat to themselves. They sort of isolate themselves from everyone; I guess it is some kind of survival instinct. That is what I felt like all day.  I just felt injured and so with the isolation and protection of my car,  I carried out the day’s chores. I wasn’t overly sad about the funeral plans or anything but I just couldn’t stop the tears from running down my face all day. There was no sobbing or breaking down, just slow water works that I couldn’t or control. I was a leaky faucet.  I would dry my eyes, run into Kroger, dry my eyes run into the alterations place, etc. I went to the gym and saw no one that I knew and went through the motions of a  Zombie workout. My dad and I met to go visit mom and then to eat, as we do every night and I did it all while feeling my gear shift was stuck in neutral.

As the day ended, I actually felt a bit better. I don’t know what it was. I had written a hundred stories in my head during the day but they had been washed away by the river of tears and I doubt I’ll remember any of them…and that is ok with me. Something inside of me was different though and I knew it. I sat there last night and the only thing I could think of was a scar. I had a big new scar inside. I have many inside and out but the thing about scars is that they tend to be a little tougher than all the rest of the skin. I guess when the body focuses all its attention on healing one thing, that teamwork really pays off in a job well done. Scars are stronger but they are also more sensitive to the sun. Shine the light of day on them and they will turn red and inflame easily. I guess that holds true for both physical and emotional scars.

Thursday was not a good day for me. It was too much. I think though, in retrospect, that it took that one/two punch to make me face the reality of what is coming soon with my mom. It also put me in a new place in my mindset about this Jerk. I used to dread it when I knew I was going to have to be around him and it was all I could do to tolerate his belittling attitude. Now, I don’t care about him. I am not sure it is a good human trait and I didn’t really know that I could ever have it, but I just don’t care about him at all. He isn’t going to get under my skin or tick me off because there is nothing about him that deserves any part of my attention. There is a phrase that I jokingly use a lot “You are dead to me” but now, for the first time, I really understand it. There is no longer anything about him that matters to me. I do feel that I still need to tell him how cruel his comments were and I might. My feeling is though that he already knows it. All of this shook me but it didn’t stir up the volcano of emotions that I thought it would have. I didn’t fall into a sad sobbing depression over having to plan mom’s funeral; I was just stunned and deflated. Hope was gone. Jerk didn’t send me into redneck rage or cause me to burst into tears. He stirred nothing inside of me at all. I guess I was shaken but not stirred….not a reaction I would have ever anticipated.

The Slippery Cloud

("The Cloud"-it's a glamor shot...and no, that is not my house)

I finally, finally, finally bought a new….used car. My plan was to buy a black car as that is my all time favorite color. My second choice, depending on the type car, was red/burgundy, or champagne gold. I had it narrowed down to a champagne gold (inside and ou) Lincoln MKZ and a Black with tan interior Honda Accord. The Honda was newer but the MKZ had fewer miles and was just prettier. So what did I end up with? I white Ford Taurus? What??? I’ve never had a white car in my life. It just feel odd.

The irony to all of this is that three years ago I was in a black Prius and someone ran a red light and totaled my car. It was a huge old van and it slammed right into the side of my car and smashed everything from the front of the wheels to the bumper. I was “T-boned”.A half second later and it would have been right and my door and I wouldn’t be typing right now. I had told myself that night that my next car would be a big, white tank. I had even thought about buying a used ambulance as I was now on “total number two”. The first wreck almost killed me and the second one could have but just shook me up, spun me around and slammed my head into the side of the door. It left me loopy for about a week. I started thinking that I could just buy a used ambulance and cut out the middle man. I guess this car is a bit like an ambulance…just without all the bells and whistles.

So I ended up, after all, with a huge white tank that is really safe. I drove my huge, dirty car home and have been loving it ever since. Today, I took it back to let them do their final clean up and detail work. They charged enough for it so I was going to make sure to take advantage of it. I picked it up and it was spotless. It was the cleanest ambulance/tank that I had ever seen. It was gleaming.

I got in, feeling very special, and noticed the nice clean scent. I will say that I miss the antifreeze scent…it has made me a little bit nervous over the past few days thinking about not having it. I calmed mysel by putting a little antifreeze in my scented oil diffuser at home. I think that will do the trick. I don’t HAVE to have it, I just like it. It’s no big deal, really.

Anyway, I got in the car and noticed immediately that the people who detailed the car had put Amor All in my car (if you don’t know what that is, it is a type of silicone/oil product that lubricates plastic and rubber and also makes everything shiny and slick). Unfortunately, it was in places it wasn’t intended to be. First, I have these big rubber floor mats that can hold mud and water (or green tea with ginsing) and they had lavished these rubber mats with Amor All. I couldn’t keep my feet in the same place while driving. They also put Armor All on the steering wheel. So there I was driving down the road with my feet on the lubricated rubber floor mats and my feet kept suffling back and forth (Fred Flinstone style), and all the while I was giving my steering wheel a nice, long, therapeutic, Swedish massage. How do these things happen? I was just happy that it wasn’t raining. I can’t imagine me trying to walk in my newly lubricated tennis shoes on a wet surface. That would have been a cartoon waiting to happen.

I decided that I needed to hurry up and give my car a name. I always name my cars. This one was tough. It reminded me of the Michelin Man and I thought that I could name the car “Mitch” for short. A smart friend of mine informed me that the Michelin Man actually has a name. It is Bibendum. That’s just too much to explain. Then I thought about naming it after an ambulance and calling it “Lance”. That’s not bad. Really, looking at it, I just think it looks like a big white cloud. I am going to name it “The Cloud”. I am only writing that in pencil though because often, after driving a car for a bit, it takes on a different personality that seems to have its own name. I know how that goes; I have several of them myself (and so do I).

I guess that it is only fitting and normal for me to set out to buy a black car and have a long forgotten synapse fire off and find the perfect car for me that is white. I guess it is also only normal for me to get my car detailed and have the rubber floor mats and steering wheel lubed. Anyway, the car search drama/trauma is over and I can get back to my “normal” life. I feel better now. I feel a little bit safer and a little less "antifreezy".

Car Chess

I can no longer make fun of people that go nuts on Black Friday. Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when people give in to their pre-hoarding nature to search for the deal of the day. I don’t do it; I don’t understand it…until now. Today I found myself in a car shopping frenzy and somewhere in the midst of it, I lost myself. I started driving car after car, and talked to salesman after salesman from one car lot to the next car lot. It was just one car after the other and before long I wasn’t even picky. If it looked halfway decent I would drive it. By the end of the day I felt dirty…and just a little bit cheap. What had happened to me? What had I become? Had I turned into a caroholic? It wasn’t the real me; don’t judge.


I knew I had worked myself into a frenzy as I was sweating like a fat man in a suit on the 4th of July. I was a mess and in a hurry and I had told myself I had to get it done today. Everything was going as it had the day before. One car would look nice but ride terribly, while another would be ugly but drive like a dream. I was losing it and my standards were lowering like a….no, I am not going there.


I had a moment of temporary buyer’s insanity where I took a really bad idea and talked myself into thinking it was a good idea. Let me preface this with an excuse (that will not hold up in court). An old friend of mine called me about her new business and was telling me about it and we were just trying to figure out what would be good ways for her to promote it. This conversation stopped and started at each car lot and in between sales pitches. I thought that I could multitask but it seems that I was wrong.


So, I was test driving a car and took a route through town and hit the interstate, I missed my first exit for my loop back and took the next exit down. Off of that exit is another large car lot that I drove past and remembered seeing a car there that I wanted to look at later. I decided that since I was right there that I might as well check it out. I pulled in and drove around until I found it. I hid my test car off to the side and went over to look at this other car. I liked it from the outside and before I knew it, a sales man with poofy hair (was that redundant) came up to me and talked and went and got the key. Off I drove in this car for a test drive. I made the long loop around town and really liked the way this car drove but wasn’t a huge fan of the interior. I cut back through on a road I don’t usually take and passed another car lot. I just took a quick look over and saw what I thought was a good deal. I pulled over just to check the price. I was wrong on this one but beside it, was a Mustang convertible. Hmmmm, I have been looking for a bigger, safer car with good gas mileage. I already have alligator/cheetah skin and really don’t need all day sun exposure. I looked at the info just for the fun of it and in my skim-read dysfunction had read the 4.6 (?) liter engine to be a four cylinder engine. It was a beautiful color and I started rationalizing that it was time for a fun car and a four cylinder probably got good gas mileage, etc. Once again, a ninja salesman appeared out of nowhere and dangled…dangled the keys in front of me. What’s a man to do? I am only human.


I pulled out of the car lot in this beautiful car and accelerated to get in front of oncoming traffic. I heard the low guttural growl under the hood and something aroused my inner man/beast. Oh my, I didn’t redial the phone for a while. I just listened and got goose bumps from head to toe. I knew immediately that this was not a small engine at all and that this car was definitely not for me. So I continued in the opposite direction of the car lot and headed for the interstate. I remembered our interstate exits as being much farther apart. It was amazing. Eighty was the new sixty and I just wanted to keep on going. As I slowed down onto the off ramp, I mentally lit up a cigarette and slowly drove back to the car lot, listening to the low purr of the tiger under the hood.


When I got back I pulled the car around up to the front of the building and got out. The salesman came up to me and I told him how much I loved the car but that it was not what I really needed. He looked at me, then at the car and said, “That’s not our car. Where is the car you drove off in?” Ooooooh my…I was in three cars deep and had them scattered all over town. How did I do this? Was it the lack of focus from talking on the phone (yes it was hands free)? Was I losing it? Had I gotten lost in the moment; the buyer’s frenzy that has been the ruin of many a good turkey and dressing scented credit cards? I finally understood what can happen on Black Friday and how a parent can buy two of everything for one child and nothing for the other. After my “now I get it” moment I realized the salesman was still waiting for an answer. I couldn’t think of anything! Nothing! I was, without speech. I couldn't tell him that I had no idea where I had left his car. I just blurted out, “Well this is your competition and it was a great ride. I’ll go back and get your car now…but here it is…it’s really nice…so you can see…yes.” He looked at me like I was some kind of caroholic (there’s that word again) and said, “I thought you were looking for a large, four door sedan that got good gas mileage.” I squirmed and answered, “Yes, I am and this one is not right for me but it rides great…so I am going to take it back…and bring you your car.” I couldn't tell him that I had no idea where I had left his car! I swear I can’t believe he didn’t call the cops or have someone follow me. I pulled out trying to remember which car went where. At the stop light I could read the sheet taped to the windshield and like Hansel, I started to retrace my steps. It wasn’t easy to figure out in my head but as long as I just took each car back to whatever was written on the sheets taped to the windshields, I was ok. It was a bit like an episode of the great race but not so fun and a bit too real.


I had never been so happy to see my car in all my life. It looked so warm and welcoming…and familiar. I couldn’t wait to get in my car, lock the doors, crank up the radio and drive away. I loved my car more at that moment than I ever have before. I started to rethink the whole selling situation. Then I remembered that my car leaks. Yeah, hidden in the bowels of this car is a leak and after two long auto repair visits and $3,000 later I was told, “I don’t think it can be fixed.” So for a couple of months, I’ve been schlepping around antifreeze in the trunk of my car like some kind of mobile meth lab and I know my neighbors have their suspicions. I probably always have a little bit on me somewhere and I don’t think that I should try air travel any time soon. Homeland Security would have me flagged and tagged for a cavity search before I could even make it to the airport Starbucks. I’ve been putting this off buying a new car but this leak just keeps getting worse so now I have just got to get it done.


I drove to the gym with the stereo pumping and the a/c on high. I was a mess. I was soaking wet from the trauma of feeling like I had just run some type of test drive Ponzi Scheme. I had gotten caught up in the buyer’s high and had tramped my way across way too many car lots and had even taken a turn on a mechanical bull. I had to cool down and get a grip and cruise back to reality. I also had some serious phone calls to return. That will not happen again. I think that was a lesson that a guy is supposed to learn somewhere around 18 and for some reason I am just now getting it. I’ve always been a late bloomer. Now I am a late bloomer that smells like he works in the back room of a meth lab….I’ve got to get a new car. I’ll start all over again in the morning. I am sticking to my printouts this time and no more test drive chess games.