Lessons Learned

Back in Southeastern Pennsylvania

*** Thanks for putting up with the short, not-especially-creative, exceptionally-shittily-spelled blog posts done from my Blackberry Whatever whilst we vacationed in sweltering bliss in Lexington, Virginia. I'm back now, in the sweltering familiarity of our 2nd floor office/craftatorium, and I hope you will find the quality back up-to-snuff. Speaking of back up-to-snuff, I seem to have gained another follower! What the fuck?! I ought to go away more often. Welcome under my apron, Kari. That's hot. ***

They say you never stop learning. Of course, they also say that you can't take it with you, and that is so not true. You totally can, especially if your trousers have cargo pockets and your rear seats fold flat.

Idiots.

Anyway, getting back to learning-- they say you never stop, even when you finish school. And that's a good thing, because I was last in a classroom in 2008, and that was grad school, and I don't think that anybody particularly learns anything in grad school. You're just there to get another essentially meaning-free degree so that you're not earning $11.00/hr so you can afford to pay back all those bum-hole-busting student loans.

(Woot?)

They're probably right about this learning shit, and I say that because I was just on vacation for a few days (as you know, because I go on and on and on about it like I was bouncing around on the goddamned lunar surface, for Christ's sake) and I sure learned a hell of a lot. Don't believe me?

Well, while in Lexington, Virginia, I learned that...

* The further South you drive, public radio starts to sound more like Christian radio.

* They still manufacture and sell C.B. radios.

* The best innkeeper in Lexington, Virginia is British. And he rarely wears shoes or socks.

* Ham, bacon, and sausage can, and should, be consumed together at breakfast in one sitting. It's the Pigfecta!

* There is a certain type of frog that makes a "BOING!" noise as it lazes around.

* We were worried that we wouldn't be able to understand any of the locals. As it turns out, none of the locals could understand my wife.

* I am physically and emotionally incapable of safely mounting a hammock.

* Cats (female ones, I'm assuming) piss in a most extraordinary way. We saw one urinating in the parking lot of an antiques mall. It just stood there, arched its back, lifted its tail straight up in the air like a flag pole and let loose an inelegant yellow fountain all over the place. My wife and I watched with our mouths agape.

* Irish Spring soap smells like farts.

* Nothing is open on Memorial Day.

* Michael Palin (whose diaries I'm reading) sometimes waxed philosophic about the state of his feces, which makes me feel strangely better about doing same.

* You're supposed to spend inordinate amounts of time making polite conversation with your innkeeper/bed-and-breakfast residents.

* When returning home on Memorial Day, don't pee at a highway rest-stop unless you're prepared to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with an Indian man and a 12-year-old boy at the urinal. I nearly died.

But I sure learned a lot.

Is Alfa Romeo Still Coming to America in 2012...?

...and 101 other things that no other reasonable person my age gives a fucking tot about.

But, out of the approximately two-hundred-eighty-four headlines contained in Tuesday's e-dition of the New York Times, that was the headline on which I chose to rest my mouse pointer, the story I just had to know more about.

The answers I so hungrily seek.

And, the answer? Because I know how you're all horny to know the truth about Alfa Romeo's intention to come to America...

Not sure.

Thanks, Magic 8-Ball.

By the way, if you broke your Magic 8-Ball when you were eleven because it said, "Outlook not so good" when you asked it if you were going to hit puberty that year, you can go to this website to view and ask questions of a virtual Magic 8-Ball.

Careful, though-- the e-version of the M8-B is just as devastatingly honest as its plastic and water predecessor. For instance, when I asked it if I was going to die tomorrow, it answered, "Maybe." Determined to probe for greater certainty, I inquired if I was going to eat gravel at any point in the next three weeks.

"Outlook not so good."

Damn. Good thing I got my teeth cleaned on Tuesday.

The Virtual Magic 8-Ball is pretty sure, though, that Alfa Romeo is coming to this country in 2012.

"Absolutely!"

I don't remember the regular old Magic 8-Ball ever producing replies with such certainty when I was a child. Maybe it did, I don't know. I was more fond of Lite-Brite anyway. It never gave you any lip or pretended to be Nostrafuckingdamus.

When I read this story, though, in the New York Times about Alfa Romeo and its possible arrival on American shores, I couldn't help but notice something funny about Alfa Romeo's logo.



It's funny because, unless I'm sorely mistaken, the goddamn monster is eating the little red guy.

What?

Even as a long-avowed car nut, someone who has made it his business to memorize and engage himself in the devout study of automotive trivia, I never noticed this before. Even when my sister, in the early nineties, obsessed over, lusted after, and seriously considered purchasing an Alfa Romeo 164, I even accompanied her to the dealership, and I didn't notice.

Apparently, the Alfa Romeo badge depicts a portion of the Visconti family crest. In the 5th century, there was this serpent that, evidently, went around devouring little red people, and this Visconti guy (who obviously was neither little nor red) killed this man-eating motherfucker, and shielded himself from attack with a white shield emblazoned with a red cross.

Now, why you would choose to put that shit on the hood or grille of a car, I'm not quite sure. It's not like you're going to show up to vanquish the goddamned Loch Ness Monster in a 1970 GTV 1750. I mean, there's not even any room to pack a roll of Lifesavers in that car-- let alone a fucking shield.

I've got to say, though: even though I think it's kind of weird that there are people motoring around the world in vehicles depicting a green monster (wearing a crown?!) eating the legs, dick & balls off of some poor red mini bastard, I sure do admire the guts of a company that has the nerve to slap that shit on its cars. I wish my Volvo depicted some crazy Swedish monster ripping the hell out of some dude. Though, I'm not sure there are such things as Swedish monsters-- so I asked the Virtual Magic 8-Ball.

"Absolutely!"

Then Shall the Lame Leap as an Hart

It's official: I'm fucking lame.

I'm lamer than the lamest beggar, the lamest duck, the lamiest fucking lameoid lamehead lamerizer. Just call me Lameish McLamestein. You know, 'cuz I'm Jewish.

I know-- you're not surprised at this development. How could you be? You, who has suffered through 666 of the lamest blog posts ever penned by someone not wearing an ankle-mounted electronic monitoring device. By now, you know on which side your lame is buttered. You, who know me as someone obsessed with unattractive vehicles from the 1970s, operetta from the 1880s, and typewriters from the 1950s.

What, me lame?

Yes, I've always been so-- certainly. There was never a time in my life when I wasn't lame: we know this. I was never even nerd chic. Skinny pants and skinny ties and thick, chunky Peter Sellers glasses, platform shoes and artistic facial scruff just weren't my thing. Maybe if I could play more than five chords on the banjo and be comfortable wearing plaid... But, alas, no. I don't gel my hair in that sticky-uppy way-- or any way, really. I have health insurance and I cross my legs like a girl when I sit. I pay my mortgage early. I have a mortgage. And a used Volvo. And a wife. And two dogs.

I wear a woman's wedding band, for Christ's sake. That's how lame I am. My fingers aren't even thick or cool enough to necessitate one of those cool man-rings. A guy I work with has a wedding band made out of tungsten. I could wear this man's ring on my big toe.

But I am owning my lameness. I wear it on my sleeve, and pretty much everywhere else. I know there are other lamess bastardcakes out there who are self-conscious about their lameness, who feign more exciting lives either online or when conversing with others whom they perceive to be less lame. They confabulate, stretch the truth, exaggerate, even maybe outright lie about who they are so that the world entire might never know how lame they really are.

On New Year's Eve, Mrs. Apron and I cuddled each other on the couch and watched episodes of "16 and Pregnant". On Demand. On our asses. And, you know what? Best New Year's ever, man.

Put that in your hart's ass and smoke it, you big, bad world, you.

Basically, I'm Pretty Much a Criminal

Finley, our old dog, has been chewing at his front leg-- probably to attain some amount of attention, even the negative kind, as we've been focusing on trying to beat our young dog, Molly, into submission.

Yesterday evening, I sprayed his leg with dog medication that expired two years ago.

If you could ask the nice men to put a jacket over the handcuffs so the neighbors don't have to see, I'd really appreciate it.

I don't know when I basically became pretty much a criminal, but it happened. Somehow, somewhere along the way, you lose things, just a little bit at first.

I still pay all my bills on time. Early, even. But maybe one day, I'll forget to pay the water bill. Maybe it will be in May, as I get all heady with kiss-my-ass excitement over my 31st birthday. It could be in August, as heat exhaustion melts my brain into something resembling three-year-old apple cider and coagulated buttercream.

Apparently, according to the local ski shop, I've been skiing on skis whose bindings are no longer "indemnifiable." So, I'm a criminal on the slopes, too. And I thought there I was only guilty of perpetrating crimes against the laws of fashion. Pull me over, Tim Gunn, P.D.

Sometimes, I wear the same pair of trousers for three or so days in a row. I just can't be bothered to take out my wallet, my Burt's Bees, my keys, my cellphone holster, my cellphone, and unloop my belt and then do the whole shenanigan over again with a new pair of trousers every day.

I mean, really? Every day? Come on. It's not like I shit myself or rub my ass in tartar sauce. Why should I change trousers every day? I'm a very clean person.

Except for the fact that I don't change my trousers every day.

Oh, and sometimes I go a little too long between showers. Like, long enough to forget which way the faucet turns to get hot and which way it turns to get cold. But... we don't really need to talk about that anymore.

When I'm alone in my car, I sometimes shout the "N-word" at drivers who do unbelievably annoying things in front of me-- like drive the speed limit, for instance. These drivers, especially in my neighborhood, are invariably not black. Still, it's wrong, and I know that, and it's just another reason why, basically, I'm pretty much a criminal.

Feel free to click "Un-follow this blog" now, or whenever it's convenient for you.

When people talk to me, sometimes I visualize terrible things happening to them. I have fantasies about doing some pretty off-the-wall shit, but I never do it. Like, at work, we're doing Secret Santas-- only for those who want to participate. I thought it would be hilarious to select a female coworker, and then buy her underwear (in her exact bra and panty size) and scented lotion and shit, just for shits and giggles. Because, let's face it-- my sense of humor is very fucked up and, basically, pretty much criminal.

I'd like to tell my sister that, while I love her, I don't like her. And that's kind of a criminal thing to do to a family member. In fact, short of placing a hot iron on a family member's face, I can't really think of a more awful thing you could do to a family member, to let them know that your obligation and connection to them is strictly obligatory, and that, if given the choice, you would rather be in a room with an ox suffering from nuclear diarrhea than with your own sibling-- but it's true.

And I wish it weren't. And I suppose that's something that makes me slightly less than criminal. But I really should call the vet soon.