A Holiday or Something

Happy Labor Day or whatever.

I feel like the average American knows more about Tu B'Shevat than they do about Labor Day. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to recently have mentioned something about soldiers in reference to this holiday. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the poster in the cafeteria where I work featuring the Labor Day menu has a picture of a soldier on it. As far as I know, it doesn't have anything to do with soldiers. That's Memorial Day.

I think.

Most people who work normal jobs are off today, enjoying a three-day weekend some place nice and sunny and warm. Maybe I'm just jealous because I'm putting in another eight hours at the funny farm, but isn't it kind of counterintuitive to give people the day off from work on a day that is designed to celebrate industriousness and, you know, work?

Shouldn't you be slogging away at your spreadsheets today? Shouldn't you be grinding those... gears a little harder today? Shouldn't you be swilling coffee at a meeting or drilling your secretary behind your firmly closed office door while your executive desk toys spin or twirl or smack their little silver balls against one another while you're slamming your balls against the back of her inner thighs?

Since my wife became pregnant, the idea of Labor Day sort of takes on a new meaning for me. Wouldn't it be fun if we celebrated the whole notion of procreation? Not Mother's Day-- that shit's different-- but a day devoted to going through actual, painful, vag-ripping labor?

The Russians do that shit-- sort of-- or, at least, they used to.


This is, in fact, a vintage Russian "Medal of Motherhood", Second Degree, that was ceremoniously awarded to, well, chicks who squeezed out some puppies. I don't know specifically what you had to do to earn the Second Degree designation for you and your womb-- maybe bust out a set of twins?-- but there it is. Wouldn't this be some kind of crazy country if we did that-- if that was our labor day?

I think it's kind of funny that the Soviet nation, where people ate potatoes and stockings for breakfast and thought that three-speed manual transmissions on the column was advanced automotive technology was awarding women for bringing more mouths into the world it could not afford to feed. You'd think they'd give women medals for not going into labor.

But, you'd be wrong.

As my brain turned to thoughts of some mustachioed man in a fur hat pinning a medal on my wife's coat for bearing twins, I then thought about "Days" devoted to other life events that people go through that might not yet be readily recognized by the calendar or the government:

* Tuberculosis Survival Day

* Motorcar vs Pedestrian Accident Avoidance Day

* Albino Chinchilla Adoption Day

* Correctional Officer Beating Day

* Getting Up from Chair Without Groaning Day

* Scissor Position Intercourse Day

* Gingivitis Awareness Day

* Awkward Silence Awareness Day

* Physical Comedy Day

* Protracted Conversation with Insufferable Neighbor About the Weather Day

* Offenbach Overtures CD Listening Session Day

* Jugular Vein Twitch Day

* Apathetic Sigh Day

* Frequent Urination/Overactive Bladder Day

* Belated Adult Circumcision Day

* Throw Up Because You Saw/Heard/Smelled Someone Else Throw Up Day

* Make Fun of Other Cultures Out of Ignorance &/or Fear Day

* Put Syrup on Absofuckinglutely Everything Day

Happy Labor Day or whatever. Enjoy your barbecue, I guess.

I just don't know anymore.

Clearly, I Can't Handle It

Chances are, you've driven behind one of these at least once in your life and, more likely than not, while doing so, you've wanted to shoot yourself in the face with a large caliber firearm.

It's not the Toyota Camry's fault, though. A Camry, by itself, is an innocuous, inoffensive, typically beige-on-metallic-beige object that, when put in the hands of a Camry driver becomes a trigger for suicide ideation.

But we're not here to talk about the typical Camry driver and his/her insistence on methodically and literally obeying speed limits, their penchant for meandering over the double-yellow, fluttering the brakes or any other annoying motoring habits they have picked up in Camry Driver Education (CDE) class. We're here to talk about the Camry itself. Specifically, the 1991-1996 bodystyle.

Why? Because this blogger is, sometimes, fucked up to the point where said blogger decides to focus his energy and, by proxy, yours, on a car he has never owned nor gives a shit about. Remember, don't blame the blog-- blame the blogger.

Actually, we're not even going to be talking about the 1991-1996 Toyota Camry. We're going to be talking about the 1991-1996 Toyota Camry's exterior door handle.

That's right, you heard me.


This is a 1991-1996 Toyota Camry's exterior door handle. The image is from www.carpartswholesale.com and I'm willing to bet that these people sell lots of these door handles. Why? Because, a few years ago, I started noticing that many of the Toyota Camrys I see of this vintage have door handles that do not match the rest of the exterior paint color of the car.

Green Camrys with burgundy door handles. White Camrys with black door handles. Blue Camrys with silver door handles. Green Camrys with beige door handles.

And it's usually the driver's door that has the door handle of a different color, because, obviously, that's the door that's used the most, and, thus, most frequently experiences a break.

Now, things break. I understand that. I'm a pretty understanding guy, as guys go, but the number of 1991-1996 bodystyle Camrys I've noticed with mismatched door handles as compared to, you know, every other fucking car I've ever seen says to me that the 1991-1996 Toyota Camry suffers broken door handles at a much more significant rate than other vehicles. And, for one of the most popular sedans of its time (competing for the honor only with the Ford Taurus and Honda Accord) I think that fucking blows.

According to www.carpartswholesale.com's website:

"No one likes to be inconvenienced. When it comes to your Toyota Camry, there is a variety of mishaps that could occur to cause you to grumble. One of the simplest, yet most aggravating, is a broken door handle. You probably take your Toyota Camry Door Handle for granted, but when it breaks, it becomes painfully obvious."

Yes. I would imagine, carpartswholesale, that it would be painfully obvious. And it's painfully obvious to me that the door handles were designed shittily. I mean, okay, so the floormats of newer Toyotas get caught and the vehicles suddenly accelerate and the braking systems malfunction-- but that's all complicated stuff. I can accept that. This, though? A fucking mechanism that opens a goddamn door? You can't figure that out? I mean, you are Japanese, aren't you?

I wonder if any Toyota executives have killed themselves because of the 1991-1996 Toyota Camry door handle fiasco. I know this isn't going to sound very charitable and trauma-sensitive of me, but I kind of hope at least one did. If not, there's still time. Maybe the Executive Vice-President of the Quality Control division could commit seppuku by inserting a broken 1991-1996 Toyota Camry exterior door handle into his stomach and moving it all around in that shit.

I would watch that.

Bad, Minton

They say a headline has got to catch your eye, or it's basically a worthless piece of shit. And I've got to say, the "New York Times" had me, hook, line, and shuttlecock with the effective combination of "Badminton" and "Sexist" on Friday morning.

Of course, "Badminton" and "Sexy" would have been much more effective at garnering my immediate and undivided attention, but, hey, what are you going to do? It's not a perfect world. If it were, we'd all have badminton courts in our backyards. Hell, we'd all have backyards.

Anyway, the full title of the article was "Badminton Dress Code for Women Criticized as Sexist". Apparently, the Badminton World Federation (also known as "BWF", which is also the noise a 500 pound man in corduroy trousers makes when he sits on a Herman Miller aeron chair) has deemed that competitors in professional women's badminton "must wear skirts or dresses... [to create a more] attractive presentation".

Here's what struck me about all this.

People still play badminton?

Honestly-- I was stunned. I had no fucking idea. I mean, pants, skirts, nun's habits or lederhosen-- I just can't believe that there are actually people out there still playing that fucking silly sport. I mean, it's just... silly.

The tiny, innocuous-looking racket (excuse me-- racquet?) looks like an appropriate sporting implement if you're an eight-year-old. And you're hitting a... a shuttlecock. There's not much more I can or need to say about that.

I was under the obviously mistaken impression that badminton went out-of-style with things like sock-garters, the gramaphone, music by Franz von Suppé, and cars that rode on wooden wheels and/or bicycle tires. I guess I just never realized that modern man engaged in this sport that I thought had been forever relegated to the days when sepia-hued people all moved around in stop-motion animation like they were on crystal-meth.

Now that I think about it, of course, I remember playing badminton in high school. Well, I can remember trying to play badminton in high school. Before you start assailing me with unfounded accusations of snobbery and you start asking me annoying questions about the size of the crest on my navy-blue blazer, I went to public school, thank you. Admittedly, it was a public school in an appreciably affluent suburb of Philadelphia, but it was a public school nonetheless. And we just happened to play badminton.

And, when we weren't doing that, we did ballroom dancing. I, um, used to waltz with a girl named Estelle to the methodic strains of Seal's "Kiss from a Rose." And Estelle was at least two inches taller than 11th grade Mr. Apron. Thank you very much.

I never understood anything about badminton except for the fact that you weren't supposed to let the shuttlecock hit the ground. In that respect, in my mind anyway, the game was rather like hot potato-- you were just supposed to keep the fucking stupid thing in the air. It was like a yarmulke, in that respect, a holy object that, if it ever hit the floor, you were supposed to get very upset and contrite and kiss it and shit. I never kissed a shuttlecock, which is good, because that sounds nasty.

I've kissed many a yarmulke, though, because those fucking things just never stay on your head. You know what I mean?