Herbie. Rides. Again. (!!!!!!!!)

The sequel's rarely better than the original. That said, everybody likes a triumphal return.

"Herbie Rides Again" isn't a very good movie, in spite of some admirable performances by Ken Berry and dame of stage and film, Helen Hayes. The sparkle and charm of the original movie, though, is gone. The A-list celebs are nowhere to be seen: Dean Jones, Michelle Lee, Buddy Hackett, and David Tomlinson all said, "Thanks, but no thanks," to once again co-starring beside a 1963 Volkswagen Beetle. As sequels go, it's about average, but, much unlike the original, it's nothing special. But there's something about the title that indicates that the film, or at least its namesake, aspires to greatness. There is something valorous that we all like about an underdog getting up to fight again, to shake off dirt and failure that threatens to be permanent, but is really momentary to emerge hopefully victorious.

In 2009, Mrs. Apron and I miscarried, and we were heartbroken. We had told people we were pregnant, and we had told them far too early, and then we had to untell. Fortunately, with most people we knew, we only had to untell them with our eyes. One look at us and they knew. My director of "Pirates of Penzance" knew. We were staging "I am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" and, when the piano tinkled, I doddered and fuddled appropriately, but, during the downtime, while choreography was hammered out, or choral notes were finessed with the assistant music director, the director, a close friend of mine, watched me. During a break, she took me out in the hall and held me for what seemed like a very long time.

"I love you," Julie said as she ran her hands along my back and I stifled sobs in the hallway. Years ago, she'd lost her son-- all but 19-- in a car accident while he was on his way back to college after winter break. She knew all about loss. It doesn't go away.

"Sometimes," she said to me, "I get in the shower, run the water at full blast, and I just scream and scream and scream."

I never screamed about our miscarriage, not in the shower or anywhere else. That's not to say that I didn't grieve-- it's just not how I grieve, I suppose. I wanted to scream, and rage, and throw things, but I didn't. What I think I might have done, looking back on it, was displace a fair amount of my grief and I probably morphed a significant portion of it into worry and despondency for my wife. In that respect, one might say I didn't exactly "own" the loss, and one could definitely make that argument. And I wouldn't argue.

I think one of my greatest fears is dying before I get a chance to do the things in life at which I will excel. Fortunately, I've acted in a fair number of plays, musicals, and operettas, and I've been appreciated by audience members. I've written a lot that has been seen, and I've written a lot that has never been seen. I've been an efficient friend and confidant to probably enough people, and I've been a loving son and brother. Not gonna lie: as a husband, I think I'm pretty much the shit. The only thing, really, that I haven't had the chance to do that I think I'd be good at is being a father, and so, when the miscarriage happened to us, I think I focused on the fact that I might not get the chance to, well, do that.

Well, this is my sequel.

We're twelve weeks pregnant. And, yeah-- there's two of them in there.


And that's scary, and that's amazing, and that's actually maybe a little dramatic for my taste, which is an admittedly funny thing for a former theatre major to say, but it's overwhelming, almost like I'm pushing the shock-factor a little too hard.

But it's true. There's two.

1

and

2

Come to me, my little love bugs. Let's dim the lights and start the sequel.

The New Swede in Town

Well, I've really done it now.

I bought a car yesterday.

Not only did I buy a car, I bought a Volvo.

Not only did I buy a Volvo, I bought a Volvo from a salesman named "Zen."

I swear.

The vehicular shenanigans began quite innocently enough with a Friday morning coffee and breakfast meeting with my father at Saxby's ("Sexyboys"). I was bemoaning my current state of automotive troubles and travails.

"Mummy-- I am getting rid of Mommy's car tomorrow at the Volvo place-- you will come with me. They are having a huge one-day sale-- blowout. Just see what they have."

I got very annoyed with him.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked-- rhetorically, of course-- he's convinced there's nothing wrong with him. "I can't afford a fucking Volvo. Maybe one that's twenty years old and that's been hit by a deer."

"Mummy, please," he said. "Humor me."

Well, I've never been one to turn down an opportunity to humor my father. So, yesterday morning, I began searching for the title to the P.T. Cruiser. Now, if I were searching for random shards of fabric emblazoned with cupcake print, or notes referring to a meeting I attended four months ago, or a CD I haven't listened to in seven years, I would have experienced no difficulty whatsoever. Because, however, I was searching for an important legal document, it was essentially a task of insurmountable difficulty. I turned this cuntsucker house upsidethefuckdown. Even my wife, who had fought me tooth and nail on whether or not to get rid of the Cruiser (she was the "Not" side) joined in the search.

"We suck," I said, dejected, looking at the piles and piles of shit in the basement.

"I'm sorry we're such slobs," she said, her eyes glazing over the mountains of fabric in the office/sewing/blogging headquarters.

Finally, a thunderclap or a mini-stroke hit me. A while ago, I had tried to outsmart us by actually placing important documents into the very front of the first file cabinet drawer, you know-- like a normal person might do. I even shocked myself as I pulled out the long ago forgotten about blue folder, containing our marriage certificate, and, yup, the title to the Cruiser. Armed with that document and a blank check, I set out on my little adventure.

"Do you want to be called before a deal is done?" I asked my wife over breakfast.

She thought about that for a minute.

"Yes."

See, on Friday night, my wife and I threw our swords down in the sand and we did what lots of normal couples do when emotions run high: we had a fight. It was a fight about cars, and about rationales, and about equity, and about sentimentality, and about history, and about, well, everything. You know how fights get-- it starts about one thing and then, if you're not careful, it escalates and it gets, well, metastatic.

Finally, after the yelling had subsided, it was agreed that I would go to the Volvo dealership and see what they were willing to give us for the Cruiser, and what they had on the lot that we could afford. Which wasn't much.

Yesterday, Zen showed me a 2002 Volvo S-40, the smallest Volvo of that vintage. Metallic Bamboo Green. 60,800 miles. He told me the "bottom-line sale price."

"That doesn't impress me at all," I said, pulling out my phone and showing him the Kelley Blue Book retail value for a 2002 S-40 with that mileage. When he said they would give me $2,200 for the P.T. Cruiser, I said, "Well, I guess there isn't anything to talk to you about."

45 minutes later, they gave me $3,500 for the Cruiser, and dropped the price of the Volvo by $600. And I signed and gave them a check for the difference. And now I have a tight, reliable, well-made car. A car to drive until the goddamn wheels fall off.

I feel a little strange about owning a "luxury car." I mean, it's an eight-year-old, small luxury car. But it's swathed in sumptuous cow-ass, there's fake wood everywhere-- it has enough airbags to cushion both my balls in the event of an accident-- there are ass-warmers and stability control and, well, I'm not really an ass-warmer kind of guy.

But I guess I am now. Because, as a wise woman once said, "You are what you own."

If you had told me two days ago that I would be a Volvo owner today, I would have told you to go suck a Swedish dick. But life's funny, and what was unbelievable on Thursday is a reality on Saturday. But, though a couple thousand dollars poorer than we were on Thursday, we're pretty much where we were before-- with only one car payment and with a somewhat aged 2nd car. But a damn good one. With a turbo.

Mmmmm.

"That's definitely a married man's car," my mother said, looking at it fondly. She really loves it. I've never had a car that my mother's liked before-- and I've had, um, a lot of cars. I suppose I'm really growing up, now that I have a car my mother approves of. Hell, she even loves my wife-- which is a lot more than I can say for my unfortunate exes.

I don't know if it's a married man's car or not, and I don't really care. I do like it, though. And I think I'm going to name it "Bjorn" with the diagonal slash through the "o."

Thanks, Zen.

Thanks, Mrs. Apron.

Thanks, Dad.

Welcome, Bjorn.