Wherein I Find Tim Conway in my Muffler

A re-post!  Enjoy, while I wrap my head around other projects...


“Tell me again,” he says. “What’s wrong with your car?”

“Besides the leprosy?”

Jon stares at me. I sigh. “Well, it sounds like a two-seater airplane.”

“One of those kinds with a woman strapped to a wing,” Mary prompts.

“Yes,” I say. “One of those.”

“And the pilot wears one of those leather caps,” she says.

Jon gives us a cockeyed look, shakes his head slightly. “Let’s go ahead and drive it around the back,” he says.

And so we’ve come to another Saturday, another day given over to the care and feeding of the car Maryna charmingly refers to as my “piece of sheet”, as in “Pearl! Ees not right, beautiful woman in piece of sheet car!  You’re not ashamed?”

I laugh at her, of course. It’s a one-payment car that runs and has heat, not to mention the luxury of sporting a look that guarantees it will never be stolen.

Jon moves around to the rear of the car where he is hoping that a bit of carpeting maneuvered under the back end will entice the two of us to crawl under it, the better to see how truly damaged it is.

Not surprisingly, we are less than enthusiastic about an up-close view of the exhaust system.

“Hey, Mare,” he says, “remember when I was telling you about glasspac mufflers?”

This is not Jon.

Mary comes around to the dual exhaust and lets out a yelp. “Holy Hannah!” she cries. “You’ve got a wig stuck in your muffler!”

“That’s the fiberglass in the muffler I was telling you about,” Jon says.

Mary is not to be educated at this point, however, and alternates between crouching to look closer and jumping back. “You’ve killed Mrs. Whiggins’ boss!” she howls.

Jon stares at me.

“Carol Burnett Show,” I say.

He nods, lights a Black and Mild (Original Plastic Tip).

“So can you fix it?”

He frowns at me, purses his lips in a look that says, “Woman, please.”

We turn to where Mary is still hunkered down. Laughing to herself, she looks up. “Pearl! You’ve got a wig in your tailpipe!  And no -- that is not a euphemism for something else.” This strikes her as incredibly funny, and she shakes her head, laughs until tears roll down her face.

I look at Jon. He nods and grins, digs an elbow into my ribs. “I can get 'er done," he says, "But I’m going to need you to distract Mary for a while.”

The House on the Hill; or, Hey. That Was Kind of Scary.

“Tell me a favorite story of yours that you haven’t told yet,” she says. 

I look off to the left, slightly upward, and think.  “I have one,” I say, “I don’t know if it’s my favorite or anything, but I have one.”

I take a drink of my Diet Coke, lick my lips.  “It was 1981,” I say, “and I was 19 years old.”

The House on the Hill

Art’s got a cherry car.

“What year is this?”

He walks to the hood, pats it fondly.  “1967 Camero Convertible.”

“It’s beautiful,” I say.

“Canary Yellow,” he says, “The color, I mean.”

I run my hand along the top of the driver’s seat.  “Is this leather?”

“Mm-hmm.”  There is a slight pause as he hits upon a thought.  “You want to drive it?”

“Me?  Drive this?”  I turn to look outside, past the open garage door.  It is late June, and Minnesota is postcard pretty, all blues and greens. 

There isn’t a cloud in the sky.

“Yeah,” he says.  “Why not?  You got a license.” 

I open the car door, throw my purse onto the front seat.  I turn to him, and he tosses me the keys.

The lakes are beautiful.   We crawl, 15 miles an hour, as is befitting the stature of the car, along with the other beautiful cars on the tree-lined, sunlight-dappled parkway circling Lake Calhoun.  Art leans over, touches my hair.

“Hey!” I laugh.

He straightens up, puts his back to the passenger seat, smiling.  “It’s pretty,” he says.

There is a heavy, rumbling to our right.  We both turn to look. 

“Halleluiah,” Art breathes.

“What is that?”

“That’s a 1967 Pontiac GTO.  360 horsepower.  Hey!”  Art leans toward the car.  “Great car, man!”

“Thanks, man!”

The light changes, and the two cars inch forward together.  There is talk of engines and paint jobs, glass etching and lift kits.  I ignore it all. 

I am awash in the feeling of the sun on my shoulders.

“Hey.”

Art is talking to me.

“Huh.”

“You want to go up to these guys’ place?  I said we would.”

I frown at him.  “Then what’re you asking me for?”

He grins.  “Follow them.”

And I do, follow them to some neighborhood somewhere on some street.  Who knows where it is?  Summer is here and the sky is so blue.

The Pontiac turns right and up a long driveway.  I pull over at the front of the house.  The yard is large, surprisingly large for the city, and slopes upward to a house.  It is a plain house with a large porch at the front.  It is beige, or maybe white. 

I stare at it.

And Art stares at me.  “Are we going up?”

“You go,” I say. 

He gives me a look, then shrugs and opens the door.  I watch as he trudges up the front yard, as he mounts the porch stairs.

A heaviness has settled on my chest.  I watch as they talk, as the men from the GTO point in my direction, watch as Art shrugs.

My father tells the story of driving in a blizzard in the late 50s, hours of dark, lonely road with nothing but the driving snow hitting his windshield, a one-colored spinning kaleidoscope.  After coming close to falling asleep, he spots a man’s open hand coming toward him, flying down the road, larger and larger until the hand is directly in front of the car.  And so he did, my father will tell you, exactly what the hand commanded.  He pulled over, and he slept two hours under the backseat blanket he kept for just such an occasion.

And I am reminded of my father as, before my eyes, a shadow falls over the porch and everything and everyone on it.

The sky is blue. 

The porch is dark. 

Art is on the porch, and he is nodding.

He trots down the sloping front yard.

“Hey!  Pearl!  Come on up.”

I shake my head.

He leans on the passenger’s door.  “They want you to come up.“

“No,” I say.  I shake my head.  “There’s something weird up there.”

“You can’t just sit out here.”

“I can,” I said.  “And I will.”

Art is taken aback.  “What’s going on?”

I shake my head again, serious as death.  “I can’t go up there.  I can’t explain, but I can’t and I won’t and if you try to make me go up there I will dig in my heels and try to pull one of your eyeballs out.”  My mouth goes dry. 

“Whoa!  Whoa!”  Art laughs.  “OK, OK, I get it.”  He looks up toward the porch.  “Yeah, I don’t care.  I’ll just go up there and tell them we’re takin’ off.”

I start the car as he lopes to the house, then turn to dig through my purse for the stick of gum I hope is there.

There is a murmur of voices – wheedling, insistent voices that get louder, louder until --   

“NO.  SHE SAID SHE AIN’T COMIN’ UP!”

I look up.  Art is charging down the hill. 

He climbs into the car.  “Burn rubber, baby. They can get bent.”

I don’t need to be told again, and I don’t look back.  “Bent?” I say, pulling away.  “Why can they get bent?”

He is breathing heavily.  “They didn’t want me there, they wanted you there.  I mean, they didn’t really say anything I can put my finger on, but I don’t think those guys were right in the head.”

I can feel him staring at the side of my face.

“What did they want?” he says.  “Pearl.  Was that weird?”

I shake my head.  “We’ll never know what it was,” I say.   

And I shudder.

The Never-Ending Whirr

Apparently there are video games and movies in cars now. To some of you, I’m sure, this is not news and ranks up there with “frozen TV dinners” and this new-fangled “elastic” that’s all the rage.

You kids.

The ability to play movies in a car? Way to go, Detroit! Never mind about the gas mileage, we’ve got to work harder on giving the people more ways to distract themselves from reality!

Perhaps the thinking here was to keep the little buggers in the back seat occupied – and yes, I refer to the children. I’m aware of the frustration created by incessant cries of “Mom! Kevin’s not touching me!” while Kevin, the little bugger, runs his grubby index finger up and down his sister’s arm, very close but not quite touching her skin…

Not that I have experienced this myself.

So without purposely trying to sound hopelessly out-of-touch, what will happen with the little buggers’ imaginations without the lull of the wheels, the creepiness of the AM radio stations, the potential humor of one’s parents’ music?

Having grown up, it seems, on the road, I can tell you that it is a most excellent place to just “be”.

For example, once the novelty of the I’m-Not-Touching-You Game wears off, there’s staring out the window. Ah. Staring out the window. Whether you’re counting fire hydrants, Volkswagens, cars with one headlight or cows, it is, nevertheless, the quiet stuff of childhood.

What’s that cloud look like? Hey! What’s that guy doing over there? Mom, how come that lady looks like that? Hey! There’s a Dairy Queen over there! Mom, what if that guy has someone in his trunk? Would we ram him off the road and call the cops? Hey, Mom –

Kids quiet down eventually, right?

Which one of you kids can find a car with a New Jersey license plate?

Mom! Kevin’s not touching me again!

OK. So maybe that’s why they put the movies in the car.

Pfft. I still don’t think it’s cool.

Not During Rush Hour, Buddy

The traffic is horrendous.

“What do you suppose is going on,” he says, frowning slightly.  It’s the kind of statement not entirely directed at me, although it’s taken years to recognize this.  While he has been known, of course, to speak to me, Willie also speaks aloud to himself, the cat (who rarely deigns to respond) and the flower boxes (“Who would like a little water?  You?  Would you like a little water?  Of course you would…”)

‘Rhetorical’, I say to myself, and then say nothing.  I’ve been practicing this lately, saying less and listening more.  It’s a foreign concept to this extravert, and I fight the urge to mention my new-found reticence, judging correctly, I think, that this would go against my carefully cultivated introspection.

“Look at this. Mm mm mmm.  I can’t even change lanes.”  Willie, a man who rarely works his way up to an exclamation point, is genuinely concerned with the state of the roadways, as are all right-thinking Minnesotans at this time of year.  Spring, after all, is a many splendored thing, taking away snow and leaving behind pot holes.

“It’s Roseville,” I say.  “There’s something wrong with the roads here.”  I frown, then quickly un-frown.  One of my New Year’s Resolutions, just ahead of “Dash More, Plop Less” and just after “Be More Onomatopoeic”, is “Frowning Gives You Wrinkles – Cut it Out”. 

I pull out my book, the one I keep in my purse.    What would happen, I write, if I said less than half of what I was thinking?

“There’s something about the entrance ramps,” Willie says, almost to himself.  “You just can’t – ugh – get – hmm – over.”

With this last word, he is finally able to move into the lane he wants.  Grinning, he waves to the person behind him via the rearview mirror:  Thanks, buddy.

He looks over at me.  “That was easy,” he says.  “Normally, I get screwed in Roseville.”

And I smile, silently take out my book again.

Willie, I write, smiling maniacally, is coming on to me in traffic...

And A Tiny Kitty Shall Lead Them

Today's post is a continuation, somewhat, of yesterday's.  Or not.  It also stands alone.  I think.  :-)

“Pearl.  Pearl.”

The room dark, the sound of my white noise machine pleasantly static-ing in the background, I have quite recently become aware of a weight on my chest and the sound of my name being whispered.

Am I dying?

I frown in my sleep.  “Yes, Lord?”

There is the sound of light, tinkling laughter, the strong scent of limes in the area just north of my face.  I open one eye.  “Liza Bean?  Why – Where – What time is it?”

She sighs.  More limes.  “Oh, Pearl,” she says, “does anyone really know what time it is?”

Liza Bean Bitey, of the Minneapolis Biteys, her tiny paws placed just so, is sitting atop my chest.   Symmetrically striped, meticulously groomed and possessor of both the World Record in the Domestic Mouse Dangle and a piece of the True Cross, she is no respecter of time.

I open both eyes.  “OK,” I say.  “Don’t tell me.  I don’t care.”

She adjusts herself, now occupying an even smaller amount of space than before.  “I just, uh, wanted to thank you for letting me use your car.”

My eyes widen.  “Oh, no.  What happened?”

Liza Bean’s eyes glint in the available light, the very essence of amused charm.  “What makes you think something happened?”

“Well for one thing,” I say, sitting up and pushing the kitty to the bed, “You used the word “uh” just a moment ago.”

Liza Bean straightens herself defensively.  “Can’t a kitty suffer a minor speech disfluency now and then?”

“Uhhhhh, you?” I say.  “No.”

“Sarcasm,” she says, scandalized, “is no substitute for wit.”

Oh, this is too much.  “You woke me up!  You know I don’t sleep, and now I’m awake at –“  I lean over, grab my cell phone from the night stand.  “3:22 a.m.!  I’ll never get back to sleep.  Ah, Liza, for cryin’ out loud, I’m doomed!”

I stop abruptly.  There is naught but the sound of white noise and a small, striped cat clearing her throat.

I’ve gone too far.

“Sorry.”

Liza Bean reaches back, casually licks her shoulder blade.  “We can forget it this time.”

The white noise machine hums.

“So what did you wake me for?  Surely not to thank me for the car.”

“Actually,” and here the cat glances rather anxiously, I think, toward the front door, “If anyone, say a policeman or some other uniformed authority figure , were to ask you where I was tonight, I can count on you to say we were here, together, all night, catching up on Dexter, yes?”

I sigh heavily, close my eyes.  “What happened.”

The cat chuckles, the sound of champagne being poured over ice.  “Well,” she says, “I’ve taken a stand against baggy-bottomed youngsters and their center-of-the-road-walking ways.”

I can’t help myself.  I open my eyes again, smiling broadly.  “You didn’t.”

Liza Bean raises a paw, licks it thoughtfully.  “I did.”  She places her paw carefully next to its counterpart.  “I tire of them, frankly.  They wouldn’t move, despite my request that they do so immediately, and so I handled it.”

She smiles.  “You know how every now and then you’ll see a pair of shoes strung over a telephone line in a bad neighborhood?”

I nod.

“Glance upwards on your way to the bus tomorrow morning,” she says.  “Three pairs of oversized drawers now festoon the lines.”

And with that, Liza Bean yawns, an elegant show of tiny, pointed teeth, and curls up next to me on the bed.

“We shan’t see them around here again,” she murmurs.

I run a hand down her soft, purring body.  “You should run for President, Liza Bean.”

Eyes closed, she smiles as she visibly drops off to sleep.  “I really should, shouldn’t I?”

Perhaps a Lovely Cowcatcher at the Front of the Vehicle, Then?

We’ve spoken, perhaps, on the many ways in which I try to enrich my city, the fair metropolis of Minneapolis.

There’s my “I’m-picking-up-yer-trash” day in the park across the street from my house.

There’s the fact that, in a continued effort to beautify America I not only wear lipstick when I go out but I also wear real pants and shoes, a fashion convention that seems to have gone the way of the passenger pigeon in some parts of the state.

And there’s my oft-repeated vision for revenue that includes pelting bound vandals with reasonably priced and rotted vegetables, all for the benefit of the community.

I like Minneapolis; and other than the fact that the weather here wants to kill me (and makes just such an attempt every winter, the little lake-dotted bestid), I have no plans to live anywhere else.

City living! Yeah!

And then again, for cryin’ out loud, I live in the city.

Oh, sure. I mean, I hear what you’re saying. “But Pearl! Sidewalks and mature trees! Fabulous places to eat, live bands, theatre, public transport and neighborhoods with neighbors you know!”

And I think, gosh darn it, you! You’re right. What’s my problem, anyway?

The newest issue to rear its head and make me reach for the club I keep in the backseat?

People walking down the middle of the street.

Remember when you were little? Remember people telling you to stay out of the road, to stay on the sidewalk, to watch for cars?

Yeah. These people didn’t have that advantage, apparently. For some reason – and maybe you can help me out here – there are people who believe that the road is meant for peds.

You know, I don’t mind the peds xing*. But what about when they’re not xing? What about when they’re just walking down the middle of the street, even when your lights are on them, even when you have to brake to avoid grinding the little pin-heads into the tarmac? What about when harsh, short words are exchanged and I begin to feel for the mace on my key chain and think about swinging around the block for a second time just to see how far this guy can run when he’s blind?

The rules are clear: Ducks don’t date geese; it gets easier to gain weight as you age; and your soft, unshielded body is no match for my Honda. Get outta the street.

The following is a list of reasons I believe may explain what’s going through these nitwits’ heads as well as reminders to myself that they are humanoid beings with families who love them:

• Heavy medication. They simply don’t know where they are.
• Fear of the sidewalk. They fell on the sidewalk once and never again.
• It’s the first road they’ve ever seen and they just love it.
• Sleepwalking.
• Erectile dysfunction. (I just like saying that.)
• Grandiose sense of entitlement. (It's their street -- you move.)
• The hope that you will hit them so that they can sue you and make a billion dollars and never have to work…

Well, that’s my bit for both the City and Mankind. I pick up garbage, I wear pants, and I try not to crash my car into the mentally challenged.

My work here is done.



*Sorry. Since I was small I’ve enjoyed the thought of “peds” “x”ing.

A Winter’s Tale for a Hot Summer Day

A number of years ago, back when cell phones were only in the movies and I was still invincible, I felt it important that I drive from one tiny town to another during a blizzard.

There was a perfectly legitimate reason for this, as I recall, and it involved a good friend and a good many beers.

Do they have blizzards where you are?  They don’t?  You should try one sometime!  Blizzards are a combination of falling snow, colder-than-necessary temperatures, strong winds, and serpentine drifts that obscure the road.

Consider it a test of your fortitude, your driving skills, your imagination, and your intelligence.

Can you handle the stress of not seeing more than a couple feet in front of you?

Can you keep the car on the road?

Can you see the road? Can you see the exit?

What in the world are you doing out in a blizzard, anyway?

All of your abilities will be tested – some of them (your intelligence, perhaps) just by getting in the car in the first place.

Believe me when I tell you that the majority of the time there’s nowhere you need to go during a blizzard except to the closet for another blanket.

Or perhaps to the fridge.

But like I said: I used to be invincible.

I was invincible right up to two miles outside of town, when my ’74 Ford LTD, a car built to carry you and seven of your best friends comfortably, slid, ever so slowly, off the side of the road, sideways, and down into a ditch.

Hmmm.

Now, when you find yourself with your tail pipe in the snow, you also find yourself seeing the beauty in what you should’ve seen earlier and you turn the car off and sit in the cold, gray silence, considering the possibility that you may be mentally deficient and that those closest to you, for some reason, have been reluctant to say so.  You think about the setting sun and the way the temperature will drop.

You think about your friend, and her beer, waiting just eight miles away.

This is sometimes the part in the story where you go on to read of the writer’s slow and painful demise, how they found her body, the way her last words were recorded in lipstick on the interior of the car.

The ketchup packets that served as her last meal.

Either that or it’s the part where a large red pick-up comes down this same deserted county road and how four muscular, meat-and-potatoes Wisconsin boys in seed-and-feed caps pull over, jump out in jeans and sweatshirt and head towards your car.

“Ma’am?” says the biggest one, holding his arms out.

Yes, yes, please! I unwind my window and hold my arms up for Farm Boy #1 who lifts me, easily, out of the car and out of the ditch, and places me inside the cab of the truck.

My feet never even touch the ground.

He shuts the door, and Farm Boys One through Four step down into the ditch, each of them taking a corner of my car. They lift the LTD as if it is hollow, step carefully up the shallow ditch, and place the car back on the road.

And then they refuse to take my money.

And half an hour later, I am at Paula’s house, where we drink beer, play Scrabble, and go out for breakfast in the morning. 

I just love Wisconsin. If you’re ever going to slide off the road, I suggest you do it there.

Oh, So You Want To STOP Now, Too, Huh?

BLAT BLAT BLAT BLAT BLAT BLAT BLAT.
A Harley just smaller than my first apartment has pulled up in front of the house.

Mary and Jon, having heard my plaintive cries for help, have made a house call.

And they brought Dean with them, a wild-eyed handsome man who rides with a Miniature Pinscher named Baby Girl balanced on his gas tank…

I'm sorry. Where was I?

Oh yes. The call for help.

That’s right. My car, sometimes referred to as The Pedicure (based on its recent Flintstone-like braking system) and sometimes called the “Beeg Piece of Sheet” (according to my quaintly honest friend Maryna), is back to making ghastly metal-on-metal noises.

The back brakes? Oh, that was so last month.

This month? Why, the front brakes, of course!

This is what comes with a 20-year-old one-payment car.

Truth be told, it was a small payment. And it was three years ago.

So what’s my problem, huh? Why don’t I just get another car?

Because I hate payments.

“Ees problem, no? You’re not ashamed?” Maryna said Saturday night. “Beautiful woman in piece of sheet car. Ees not right. Mike, geev to Pearl our keys. We haff beautiful car. You take. You drive.”

I laughed her off. “If I cared about what the car looked like, then it would matter to me and I would get a new car,” I said. “But I don’t care about what it looks like. It just has to get me from Point A to Point B.”

Apparently, however, I forgot to include, in the getting-me-from-here-to-there speech, that the ability to brake properly should figure in to the equation.



And here I thought I might run out of places to spend my money. 

Part I: Car-be-que, or Mmmm. That Smells Delicious.

It is 1996.

The guy next to me is honking, motioning for me to pull over.

What?  No.  Do I look dumb?  No, I am not pulling over.

Hoooooonk!  Honkity-honk-honk-honk!

Tenacious, this one.

I turn down my radio, lean over and unwind the passenger window.  In a Hyundai, it’s all within reach.

“Your engine,” the man next to me yells, “is on fire!”

What did he just say?  My default setting for confusion is to frown and seek clarification.  My forehead wrinkles mightily.  “What?” I yell. 

“Your engine,” he yells, pointing frantically at the forward facing, hood-ish part of the vehicle, “is on fire!  FIRE!”

And that’s when the flames shoot from under the hood.

Oh.  That. 

It’s funny, how quickly people move aside for a car on fire.

I pull over under an overpass, the front of my vehicle now fully engulfed.  I get out, sling my purse around my neck and head to the backseat where I rescue a pair of work shoes and a vacuum cleaner.

I am going back for the bucket and a bottle of bleach when a hand claps itself onto my shoulder. 

“No more!”  I turn around to discover a fireman.  Just beyond him is a fire truck. 

To this point in my lifetime, I’d not had a fire truck sneak up behind me.

I hold the vacuum cleaner out in front of me, as if to prove something. “But I clean houses!” I shout.  I realize I am shouting.  “But I clean houses,” I say sheepishly. 

“You won’t clean anything covered with burns,” he notes.

Good point.

And then I realized:  I am single.  My son is 12.  My only car is on fire.  

I have no way to work Monday.

And I'll never have all those fabulous bumper stickers again. 

I burst into tears.

That night, I call my boss at his home, tell him the story.

“Pearl,” he says, “how much do you trust me?”

“Ridiculously large amounts,” I say.  “I put ridiculously large amounts of trust in you.”

He smiles, a sound that transmits over the wires.  “You need to find a ride,” he smiles.  “For a week.  Get a ride for a week.”

“A week,” I repeat.

“Get a ride for a week,” he says.  “And trust me.”

Come back tomorrow for Part II!

The Never-Ending Whirr

Apparently there are video games and movies in cars now. To some of you, I’m sure, this is not news and ranks up there with “frozen TV dinners” and this new-fangled “elastic” that’s all the rage.

You kids.

The ability to play movies in a car? Way to go, Detroit! Never mind about the gas mileage, we’ve got to work harder on giving the people more ways to distract themselves from reality!

Perhaps the thinking here was to keep the little buggers in the back seat occupied – and yes, I refer to the children. I’m aware of the frustration created by incessant cries of “Mom! Kevin’s not touching me!” while Kevin, the little bugger, runs his grubby index finger up and down his sister’s arm, very close but not quite touching her skin…

Not that I have experienced this myself.

So without purposely trying to sound hopelessly out-of-touch, what will happen with the little buggers’ imaginations without the lull of the wheels, the creepiness of the AM radio stations, the potential humor of one’s parents’ music?

Having grown up, it seems, on the road, I can tell you that it is a most excellent place to just “be”.

For example, once the novelty of the I’m-Not-Touching-You Game wears off, there’s staring out the window. Ah. Staring out the window. Whether you’re counting fire hydrants, Volkswagens, cars with one headlight or cows, it is, nevertheless, the quiet stuff of childhood.

What’s that cloud look like? Hey! What’s that guy doing over there? Mom, how come that lady looks like that? Hey! There’s a Dairy Queen over there! Mom, what if that guy has someone in his trunk? Would we ram him off the road and call the cops? Hey, Mom –

Kids quiet down eventually, right?

Which one of you kids can find a car with a New Jersey license plate?

Mom! Kevin’s not touching me again!

OK. So maybe that’s why they put the movies in the car.

Pfft. I still don’t think it’s cool.

Wherein I Defend How I Define "Fun"

A re-post, while I freckle-up and get just a little blonder before I return to Minnesota...


You know how people say “well, it’s the little things…” and somewhere in the back of your head you find yourself thinking, “Sheesh. That phrase is so old…”?

You know why it’s old?

Because it’s true, dagnabit! It is the little things; and by golly if I have to defend that cliché, I will!

And you know how I feel about clichés, don't you? Why, I avoid them like the plague...

And so I came across one of these "little things" just the other day: my leg-warmers. I’ve been encasing my legs from ankle to mid-thigh in a pair of gray, cable-knit leggings since October now and will no doubt keep them on until all threat of frost has passed, sometime in June.

I keed! I keed! We should be safe from hypothermia by May…

Think of it! Mother Nature wants to kill me. Why, at this very moment, not only am I wearing the foundation garments you would expect on any reasonable female, but also leggings, socks, pants – er, trousers – a camisole, a shirt, a scarf, and a jacket.

And frankly, I feel a little under-dressed, as the jacket’s sleeves are only three-quarters’ length.

The best part about wearing leg warmers, though?

When you finally take them off, wearing only – gasp! – pants, you feel scandalously naked.

Hee! Hee! Hee! No one knows that under my pants my legs are naked!

Oh, and that snickering you hear right now? It’s my readers from across the pond. Apparently the word “pants” to them means “underwear”.

Hee! Hee!

But you know what’s even better than cable-knit leg-warmers?

Are you familiar with driving in the winter, the massive amounts of salty snow and ice that collect within a car’s wheel wells?

Why is the snow salty? Oh, it’s a little service provided by the State of Minnesota. The salt ensures that the ice will melt and that your car will rust properly. No, no, no! No need to thank them. It’s part of what a full-service state will do.

But back to the slush.

When you drive in the snow, loads and loads of it ends up in your wheel wells where it freezes into clumps.

And those clumps, my friends, once you’ve pulled into a parking lot, are an absolute delight to kick from the car. A couple of good kicks and there it goes, hills of filthy ice and snow fall with a satisfying splat.

All across the Great State of Minnesota, parking lots fill with dirty piles of kicked-off car droppings.

So the next time you’re wondering, why in the world do people even bother living in states where the weather tries to kill them with the cold?

Now you know.

Because we love the feeling of kicking large clumps of snow off from under our cars.

And in the summer, we feel like we’re naked.

Sitting on the Couch: 1976

Randy Dupree was my sister’s friend’s oldest brother, and his family lived just on the other side of the creek that ran in our backyard.

Randy was well built and good looking, particularly by trailer-park standards, smooth, with his tight Wranglers and his torso-hugging tee-shirts. He wore black leather boots, hung a black leather biker jacket across his rippling, 18-year-old shoulders. Randy sometimes kept his sunglasses on the top of his head, an unbelievably cool look in the eyes of this seventh-grade glasses-wearer.

Randy was the epitome of the tawdry end of high school sexuality.

Gail-Lynn does her best to keep the damage to a minimum.

“Now what do you need it for now?”

Sitting next to Karen and Cindy, I watch from the couch as Randy wheedles the car keys from his mother.

“The Club. Goin’ up to The Club.” He holds out his right hand, palm up, jiggles it up-and-down, up-and-down in a mute gesture of joking but impatient demand.

They have one car, Gail-Lynn and her three children. Gail-Lynn eyes him shrewdly, and I turn my attention away from Gilligan’s Island and toward the Saturday night ritual of Randy and the car keys.

“I got new wiper blades,” she says. “You’ll put them on before noon on Saturday.”

Randy grins. The hand stops jiggling. “Yes.”

“We’ve got a quarter tank now. It’ll be a half-tank when I wake up in the morning.” I had heard that Randy’s mom had been from somewhere south. Her “morning” sounds like “mawn-ing”.

Randy’s still grinning. “Yes.”

She turns to the chair by the door, fishes her keys out of her purse, drops them in to Randy’s outstretched hand. He’ll do what he says he will, or he won’t get to use it again. He made that mistake once and went without it for four straight Saturdays. That won’t happen again.

Keys in-hand, Randy moves swiftly toward the front door. The night awaits.

“Randy!” Gail-Lynn yells from the kitchen, where she is pouring her own ritual of Saturday night: a Crown and Coke.

His hand on the door knob, he turns back to face his mom.

“No pecker tracks in my backseat. That’s some good upholstery,” she yells. “You gonna have sex in my back seat, you lay a towel down.”

Grinning, Randy exits, stage-right.

Oh, About Four Pounds or So

Seems that my parents and Mary did some bonding whilst Mary worked her sneaky wiles around the surprise party she threw for my birthday.

“When are you picking her up?”

“Who?”

“Mary!” I can hear my mother moving around her kitchen. Putting away the silverware would be my guess. “Aren’t you bringing Mary with you for lunch tomorrow?”

“What? When did this happen?”

“Oh, you know,” my mother says. “At the party. I said you were coming up for lunch and she said she wished she was coming up for lunch and, well, you’ve seen her, haven’t you. All big eyes and – Paul! Close that door! For cryin’ out loud!” She sighs. “Your father enjoys aggravating me.”

And so I pick Mary up for the two hours’ ride north to my parent’s.

She climbs into the passenger seat.

“You look nice,” I say.

She pulls down the sun visor. “I’ll have you know,” she says, smiling at the image she finds in the mirror there, “that I am wearing lipstick just for your mom.”

“Not for me?”

Mary, a woman notoriously good at taking care of everyone but herself, has had chapped lips since we met.

She shakes her head, flips the visor up. “I used to wear it for you, but now I wear it for your mom.”

“Well whoever you’re wearing it for, it looks nice.”

It’s quiet as we let this sink in.

“You’re lucky, you know.”

I know what she’s talking about. Mary lost her mother when she was quite young, her father a number of years ago.

“You can –“

“Can I –“

We stop.

I keep my eyes on the road, hands at 10 and 2. “You can use them, if you like.”

Mary stares out the passenger window. “They know stuff, you know,” she says. “Parents and older people. Like how many cups to a quart.” She looks at me. “Do you think your mom knows that?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll bet she makes the best desserts.”

I don’t say anything.

“Does she know how many feet to a mile?”

“Maybe not, but I’m pretty sure my dad does.”

This seems to satisfy her. “Seems like a Dad question, doesn’t it,” she murmurs.

I smile. “Hey, and if you’re going to ask my dad questions, be sure to ask him about his collection of literature, in particular his henways.”

Mary frowns. “What’s a henway?”

I smile. My father, the king of the clean joke, is going to love this.

“Oh, Mary,” I say. “Just be sure to ask. My dad loves questions like that.”

Wherein I Find Tim Conway in My Muffler

“Tell me again,” he says. “What’s wrong with your car?”

“Besides the leprosy?”

Jon stares at me. I sigh. “Well, it sounds like a two-seater airplane.”

“One of those kinds with a woman strapped to a wing,” Mary prompts.

“Yes,” I say. “One of those.”

“And the pilot wears one of those leather caps,” she says.

Jon gives us a cockeyed look, shakes his head slightly. “Let’s go ahead and drive it around the back,” he says.

And so we’ve come to another Saturday, another day given over to the care and feeding of the car Maryna charmingly refers to as my “piece of sheet”, as in “Pearl! Ees not right, beautiful woman in piece of sheet car! You’re not ashamed?”

I laugh at her, of course. It’s a one-payment car that runs and has heat, not to mention the luxury of sporting a look that guarantees it will never be stolen.

Jon moves around to the rear of the car where he is hoping that a bit of carpeting maneuvered under the back end will entice the two of us to crawl under it, the better to see how truly damaged it is.

Not surprisingly, we are less than enthusiastic about an up-close view of the exhaust system.

“Hey, Mare,” he says, “remember when I was telling you about glasspac mufflers?”

Mary comes around to the dual exhaust and lets out a yelp. “Holy Hannah!” she cries. “You’ve got a wig stuck in your muffler!”

“That’s the fiberglass in the muffler I was telling you about,” Jon says.

Mary is not to be educated at this point, however, and alternates between crouching to look closer and jumping back. “You’ve killed Mrs. Whiggins’ boss!” she howls.

Jon stares at me.

“Carol Burnett Show,” I say.

He nods, lights a Black and Mild (Original Plastic Tip).

“So can you fix it?”

He frowns at me, purses his lips in a look that says, “Woman, please.”

We turn to where Mary is still hunkered down. Laughing to herself, she looks up. “Pearl! You’ve got a wig in your tailpipe!” She shakes her head, laughs until tears roll down her face.

I look at Jon. He nods and grins, digs an elbow into my ribs. “I’m going to need you to distract Mary for a while,” he says.

You Gotta Be Careful With That Last Guy, You Know

I’d been concentrating for well over an hour, my eyes focused on the road ahead of me. I am afraid to blink for fear of missing something, and they are beginning to burn a bit.

“You’re doing great,” he says.

We are in the middle of what many Minnesotans find themselves in the middle of: road construction.

The ’74 Ford LTD, a car built to hold you and six of your closest friends, hurls itself in a powerful but lumbering fashion between the orange construction cones.

We are going Up North, as all right-thinking Minnesotans do in the summer.

When we had started the sun had been out, but hours later, we are in the coal-black darkness of the outskirts of Duluth.

And this is where the orange construction cones appear.

Confined to one lane, cones on both sides, the sun has gone down and the headlights have come on. Mile after mile stretches before me, the first in a conga line of cars trapped on a one-lane road with a soft shoulder, orange dots and dashes on either side of the massive, lane-wide car. Akin to the optical illusion of driving into an illuminated funnel or being brought in for a landing at an unfamiliar airport, I blink hard, fight to maintain my sanity.

He reassures me from the passenger’s seat. “You’re doing great.”

I swallow. “I really want to pull over.”

He turns around, looks behind us. “There’s a line of about 400 cars behind you.”

I tear my eyes from the miles of dark road ahead of me, look in the rearview mirror.

“OK. Twenty,” he says, smiling.

I want to weep.

The orange cones loom.

We pass a sign informing us that the next 27 miles is under construction.

I grip the wheel.

The car has no stereo, just a radio that has devolved into call-in shows, people talking about aliens and what our government doesn’t want us to know about them.

“You want to listen to this?”

I shake my head, eyes glued to the middle of the road. He turns the radio off. We stare at the road, hypnotized.

“Tell me a story,” I say.

He stares straight ahead.

“Once upon a time, there was a girl who found herself trapped in a video game. She didn’t want to be, but there was nothing she could do about it. Worse yet, it was a driving game, and she had never been fond of those. And to make matters even worse than a game she didn’t want to play, she was down to her last guy. So she kept her eyes on the road, her wits about her, and she made it all the way to the end without dying. The end.”

I shake my head again. Man, I think. When you’re right, you’re right.

Twenty-seven miles later, the road goes back to an expansive two lanes wide.

And that last guy?

I’ve still got that last guy left.

O, How I Tire of the Automobile

BLAT BLAT BLAT BLAT BLAT BLAT BLAT.

A Harley just smaller than my first apartment has pulled up in front of the house.

Mary and Jon, having heard my plaintive cries for help, have made a house call.

And they brought Dean with them, a wild-eyed handsome man who rides with a Miniature Pinscher named Baby Girl balanced on his gas tank…

I'm sorry. Where was I?

Oh yes. The call for help.

That’s right. My car, sometimes referred to as The Pedicure (based on its recent Flintstone-like braking system) and sometimes called the “Beeg Piece of Sheet” (according to my quaintly honest friend Maryna), is back to making ghastly metal-on-metal noises.

The back brakes? Oh, that was so last month.

This month? Why, the front brakes, of course!

This is what comes with a 20-year-old one-payment car.

Truth be told, it was a small payment. And it was three years ago.

So what’s my problem, huh? Why don’t I just get another car?

Because I hate payments.

“Ees problem, no? You’re not ashamed?” Maryna said Saturday night. “Beautiful woman in piece of sheet car. Ees not right. Mike, geev to Pearl our keys. We haff beautiful car. You take. You drive.”

I laughed her off. “If I cared about what the car looked like, then it would matter to me and I would get a new car,” I said. “But I don’t care about what it looks like. It just has to get me from Point A to Point B.”

Apparently, however, I forgot to include, in the getting-me-from-here-to-there speech, that the ability to brake properly should figure in to the equation.

And so here we are again: rotors and pads and line-bleeding and blinker fluid and such.

I really need to learn more about cars.

Pump It Twice. Let It Up. Push It to the Floor.

When the temperatures soar and the humidity is such that distant muscle memory of gills springs unbidden to one’s mind, what does the thinking woman do?

Go to the lake? To a pool perhaps? An air-conditioned theater, maybe?

Would you believe a backyard, sweat dripping from the end of my nose?

I blame my car.

My car! What an unbelievably precarious thing is my car!

The front bumper? Lost in an unfortunate car versus iced-over alley confrontation.

The driver’s side window? Can’t be lowered more than three inches without running off the track.

And if you’ll just turn the music down a touch, you’ll notice that the front end makes an interesting R2D2-meets-wet-Gremlin sound that make women heading into grocery stores turn around and frown in confusion.

What is that sound?

And now? The brakes. The soft, holy-hannah-that-was-close brakes.

For cryin’ out loud, will it never end?

So that’s where I am. I am in Mary’s backyard. With Mary. Watching Jon replace several feet of brake line.

“The neighbors are afraid of us,” Mary says.

“Well look at ya…”

“They’re afraid of us, aren’t they, Jon?”

“Who?” Jon’s voice is muffled by the Honda’s undercarriage.

“The neighbors.” Mary points across the alley. “Over there.”

“That house?” I say, pointing to where the new people have moved in.

Jon wiggles out from under the car, stares upwards thoughtfully, carefully wipes his extra-long screwdriver with a stained blue rag. “Is that it?” he says, dryly. “We’re pointing now?”

“That’s ‘cause we’re crass, aren’t we, honey?” There’s no response from Jon. “Honey? Aren’t we crass?”

Jon is already on his back. “We don’t talk like that,” he says.

He’s back under the car. “Now you’re gonna want to take a look at this,” he says. “Here’s your problem.” From under the car, he holds out a leprous, scabby length of 3/16th piping.

“It’s a weeper,” he says.

I look at Mary. She shrugs. I look at Jon.

“It’s a weeper,” he explains. “There’s no actual hole – this is the length just behind that rusted-out wheel you used to have. You wouldn’t have seen a puddle under the car. It was just weeping out, slowly.”

Mary starts chuckling, low and musical. It’s a sound she makes when she’s got something going upstairs. “You know what this means, don’t you, Pearl?”

I’m grinning already.

“It means don’t fear the weeper,” she grins, blue eyes shining. She turns and shouts toward Jon. “Doesn’t it, honey?”

“I’ve always enjoyed a little Blue Oyster Cult,” I offer.

From under the car, Jon sighs in resignation.

The sky hangs low in grey and blue clouds, the deluge of the night before clings to the ground. It’s hot, it’s humid, and there are Japanese beetles everywhere, looking for all the world like tiny and expensive brooches.

The air compressor has kicked on with a mighty thump. WHIRRRRRRRR.

Jon removes the left front wheel. Mary climbs into the driver’s side, her head hangs back, her face red in the heat.

Jon wipes his face with his tee-shirt.

“Pump it twice. Now let it up. Now push it to the floor.”

Again and again, he repeats this litany, and again and again, Mary does as he says. “Pump it twice. Now let it up. Now push it to the floor”. Eventually the brake fluid runs clear, no air spurts.

That's one fewer thing wrong with the Honda.

She lives to brake another day.

And as Jon likes to say, he killed it.

One Adam Twelve, One Adam Twelve; or I’m Sorry, the Cat Wants What Now?

The cat lies in the shaded cool of the ferns, her eyes dreamily half-lidded. An hysteria of sparrows, commuting from one yard to the next, pass overhead, just feet from curved-claw death.

Liza Bean Bitey (of the Minneapolis Biteys) yawns elaborately, a show of white teeth and curled, pink tongue.

“Silly birds,” she pronounces.

Liza Bean blinks lazily against the dappled sunshine, a study in nonchalance.

Apropos of nothing and seemingly directed into the air: “Will the car be available this evening?”

I set my book down, stare at her until she meets my eye.

She is smiling. Times are tough, and her habit of returning the car with a full tank of gas does not go unnoticed.

And she has noticed this.

“Why?”

Liza Bean Bitey (of the Minneapolis Biteys) rolls on to her side, stretches luxuriously; and, in what all the world would perceive to be a casual manner, licks the inside elbow of an extended front leg.

“Why,” she repeats, the word rolling around in her mouth. “A child’s question,” she pronounces.

I sigh. “What time do you need it,” I deadpan.

She smiles. “Ten-ish?”

“Ten-ish?” It’s my turn to repeat. “That’s a little late, don’t you think, for a Sunday night?”

Liza Bean first widens – then narrows – her eyes. “Such manners,” she murmurs.

“Fine,” I say, retrieving my book, first-hand narratives from the Great Age of sailing. “Don’t wake me when you come back.”

She smiles. “Mmm,” she says, in a tone of voice to which I cannot ascribe an emotion.

Liza Bean stands, stretches, sticking one hind leg out stiffly behind her, then the other. “You know,” she says thoughtfully, “it’s been ages since we had a drink together. You busy after work Monday? Outside of yoga?”

I shake my head in the negative. “What do you have in mind?”

“Welllll,” she says, “I’ve not been to Psycho Suzi’s since they moved it to the river. I hear delightful things.” She pauses. “My treat.”

Now it is my turn to widen, then narrow, my eyes.

Liza Bean holds up a paw. “I’ll hear no more about it,” she says with a small, dismissive wave. “After yoga it is.”

Hmm.

If anyone is looking for me later, I’ll be at the bar.

With a cat.

We Like The Cars, The Cars That Go Boom...

A re-worked re-post, in honor of summer and open windows everywhere...

I awoke the other night, fuzzy visions in my head of a large two-legged reptile, possibly of Japanese extraction, stomping down the middle of Jefferson and heading in my direction.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Awfully rhythmic for a reptile, thought I.

It was as I gained reluctant consciousness that I realized this was not imminent doom but the stereo system of someone who, loudly and proudly, was keen to demonstrate how little he thought of conventional sleep patterns.

I laugh at your sleepy-time mattress-ness!

These jacked-up nincompoops don’t come around often enough to cause me to update my dreams to include moving out of the city – there are, after all, problems wherever you go – but it does cause me to think vengeful thoughts.

I lie in bed fantasizing about how I will single-handedly stop these scoffers of social contracts and the methods that I will employ.

I envision large buckets of cold water flung towards their cars from the slingshot I shall have installed on the roof of my house. Mild, yes; but I like to start slow. If we leap directly to the fantasy where I spring out from behind large-ish bushes, flinging ninja stars, we’ve painted ourselves into a retribution corner.

Alternatively, I see myself jumping into my car, lights off, trailing them to their own homes. Once there, I give them some time to fall asleep, whereupon I scale the side of their building (ropes? suction cups? I haven’t worked this out yet), and then slip their hands into bowls of warm water.

Wake me up, will you? There you go: you peed yourself. I hope you're happy.

I hope you’ve learned your lesson.

There’s also the one where I just give in completely and set up a lawn chair in the middle of the street and hold up score cards, rating the soon-to-be-deaf based on choice of artist, stereo system, and whether or not it rattles the vehicle’s undercarriage.

For now, however, I judge it best to just go back to sleep.

I’m saving my devious mind for bigger things.

Oh, Wait. Turns Out She Has A Point.

In a manner that continues to astound me, even if I am pretty sure I understand how it works, we’ve reached yet another Friday.

And Minneapolis, its cold and benumbed hands clasped in supplication, inches toward the spring we were promised.

Spring! Still months away but taunting in its nearness. When will the snow leave? When will I be able to leave the house without first dressing for possible disaster? And where is ol’ Rightie, the glove whose mate, Stinky, was rescued from the snow-plowed mountain range in front of the house?

And what about Naomi?

There’s just no way of knowing these things – unlike the many things we will now know thanks to my iPod…

What? You’ve not heard of this? My dear, how do you live? For it is written (in my notebook) that the Friday morning’s commute holds the answer. My iPod, set on shuffle and played Friday morning, holds clues to the future…

Shhh. Play along, won’t you?

Stranglehold by Ted Nugent
Plastic Seat Sweat by Southern Culture on the Skids
Cobrastyle by Teddybears
Ford Mustang by Serge Gainsbourg
Keep the Car Running by Arcade Fire
Train in Vain by The Clash

The Motor City Mad Man? Plastic seats, Mustangs, Cobras, running cars, and trains?! What?! What’s that, Magic iPod? There’s a ticket for me, and I should start packing?!

Holy Hannah, this whole divining-the-future-by-my-playlist thing is fantastic!

And that reminds me of my friend Maryna.

Maryna is from Kiev, Ukraine, where apparently they speak a language other than English. It’s crazy, but there you have it. Her English, while heavily accented, is, for the most part, pretty darn good. She’s an intelligent woman, physically beautiful, and a good little drinker.

She also makes a mean chicken soup.

One of the truly charming things about Maryna, however, is that she is learning the majority of her English from her husband.

This could be a problem.

“You see Mike?” she says to me. “He ees broken man.”

I look at Mike, who grins at me. While it is true that he has back problems, he is not what I would term a “broken man”.

I laugh. “Did Mike tell you that?”

“Yes,” she says. Much of what she says has a downward inflection, as if the information she has to share carries great sorrow.

“Come. Come,” she says, patting the seat next to her. “You seet. You are hungry? I feex beet and potato salad. Maybe you like some herring.”

“Maryna, baby, she doesn’t want the beet and potato salad.”

Maryna looks at me expectantly. She very much wants to feed me. “Why not? Ees cold salad. Ees new year salad. Very good.”

I’ve seen this salad. There are layers of beets, onions, fish, mayonnaise, potatoes, maybe olives.

This salad. It does not speak to me.

Mike, standing behind Maryna, grins at me, blue eyes sparkling. He shakes his head. “You do not want the beet and herring salad,” he mouths, silently. “Trust me.”

I trust him.

“Please,” Maryna says. “Keed ees at Grandma’s. We dreenk. We eat.”

“OK,” I say, “Let’s drink and eat.” And Maryna runs upstairs to empty the fridge, returning with trays of food and drink.

“Mike,” she says. “You see Pearl’s car? Ees piece of sheet.”

My mouth drops open, and I turn to Mike. He closes his eyes and shakes his head, smiling. Maryna continues to load food onto my plate, buttering a slice of pumpernickel bread for me, then laying a slab of cheese and some sort of Ukrainian bologna on it.

“Eet’s true,” she says, handing the bread to me. She shakes her head, the sight and sounds of my dreadful little car heavy on her head. “Ees piece of sheet.”

My car. A 1998 Honda Accord. While it runs and has heat – and is fully paid for, mind you – it is a terrible little car in all other respects. The front end is held on with shoelaces, wedged into place with balsa shims. The driver’s side window can only be rolled down one-quarter of the way. The passenger’s side door – a hitchhiker’s nightmare come true – only opens from the outside. The heat is on either full blast or not at all, and – perhaps my favorite aspect of The Little Car That Could – it makes little noises when you steer it, like R2D2 with indigestion...

Yikes.

Maryna’s right. The car is a piece of sheet.




Have a good weekend, everyone. I’ll be here tomorrow if you’re not busy…