Idiot Light
Each time I touch a key as I type this, there's a little electric shock of pain. I'm completely ab-sore. It turns out that you can do the same exercise-set for nearly two years, but if you take one month off, when you come back it's just like you're starting all over from scratch. I remember all the rolling and falling, but now my enemy is my own acquired flab-tasticness.

I guess when you take a month off, the wrong thing to do is the anti-Atkins all carb diet. Sugar and bread, sugar and bread, sugar and bread. If I was feeling snackish sometimes I would just put sugar (refined, powdered, brown, whatever) directly on bread and laugh at Atkins people as I crammed it down my throat.

But still, despite being locked in a prison that is my own body, I blog. OCD, I thank thee.

Onward...

I don't tell alot of detailed personal stories. They tend to elicit comments like "Whoa, that sucks! Hang in there!" which are generally heartfelt and fine, but I really feel like I have a responsibility to my readers to not put them in the position where they would have to say something like that. Instead I prefer comments like "This blog totally sucks ass" or "What the hell was up with that sentence? It's four times longer than it needs to be and makes no sense at all" or "Pops you are a demigod, a paragon, unequaled and certainly unsurpassable. I have built a shrine for you complete with an altar upon which I spill the blood of lesser creatures and then burn them in your name." You know, something with some pizzazz.

That said, here, let me tell you a personal story.

My mom is the most self-contained person I know. I don't mean simply that she is admirably without publicly noticeable leaks (althought that also can be said), but she's completely self-motivated and self-justifying on all fronts.

She's a nurse who works for a company that places nurses where they are needed all across the country on 13-week assignments. Obviously she travels alot, criss-crossing the country in her disgusting black Pontiac Aztek.

Yes, they really spell it like that. The ridiculousness of it matches the silliness of the vehicle's overall design.

Anyway, for some reason, my mother, the arrow that only points forward, turns into an amorphous ball of gibbering goo whenever she approaches an automobile dealership. That's not a metaphor either, she actually reverts to her natural gelatinous state.

When she bought that thing, she made me go down there with her to do all the negotiating because this woman who spends her professional time with her hands inside other people's insides (no, not that way) thinks there's "too much pressure" talking to people inside the magic Car Dealership buildings.

She bought it used. It had no gas cap, but she didn't care. She was in love with the hideous hoopty.

She was meant to head back to Illinois (where she is nominally based, though she rarely sees it) this past week, but had some problems. Her regular mechanic couldn't figure it out, so she had to take it to... the dealership.

They fixed her problem for free (very decent), but then they told her "hey, your Service Engine Soon light is on" and that it might be because she has no gas cap and they would check it out.

Luckily she called me. Luckily again I was on the phone with her when they came back with the list of shit they wanted to do to "diagnose" the problem, like $300 in tests.

My mom, usually stone-headed and unflappble, said very meekly to me "What should I do?" to which I replied, very simply, "Run."

She was about to fall for the scammiest scam out there. The Service Engine Soon indicator light. Used to be you could tinker around with an engine and figure out how to fix it yourself. Now so many components are computerized and unique, dealers need their particular machines with their proprietary secret-code book to tell you what's "wrong". Know what? There's always something "wrong" when they check. Funny, that.

My mom went to an autoparts store and bought a $10 gas cap. Light off.

Since I'm not happy leaving you just that to comment on (again, I apologize), I will now give a brief list of other giant scams. Some of these, I will admit, I have fallen for.

-the Service Engine Soon light (obviously)

-"organic" food. Yes, it's just one tomato with no discernable difference in taste. That will be $25 please.

-credit cards. This is the best one. They charge you for the right to spend your own money. I have 10 of them.

-Social Security. It's fine for grandma and grandpa, but I'm 30. I suspect by 2039 when I'm 65 they'll be down to sending an envelope full of ready-to-eat single serve packets, like ketchup, Sweet N Low, etc. for me and my family to live on. The good news is, with the way medical science is advancing, I should only have to live that way until I'm 110 or so.

-The Oprah Winfrey Show. I haven't figured out what the "scam" here is yet, but I know I don't want to be around when Oprah decides she's done giving and it's time to take.

-organized religion.


Lots to think about. Discuss.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.1


Pops

- posted by Pops @ 9:37 AM