Call me old fashioned, but I always look forward to the same things this time of the year: the first snowfall of the season, spending quality time with friends and family, having my car die on the Gene Snyder on Christmas morning, and so on and so on. Sure, they’re the same things everyone looks forward to, but hey, I’m a sucker for the sentimental.
That last item I hadn’t experienced until just last year, but it didn’t really feel like Christmas until that point. My wife, my mother-in-law and I were headed to my parents’ house in a car full of food and gifts, when all of a sudden the car lost power and slowed to a stop.
My survival instincts immediately kicked in and I remembered the most important thing to do in just this type of situation.
“You’ll have to push,” I told my wife.
“You’ll have to remarry,” she responded.
Luckily, Christmas is a time to help your fellow man. Only not if you’re a tow-truck operator and your fellow man is in need of a lift. Nobody was willing to help us. Not the highway department, not the police, no privately-owned companies (none of which were open anyway), not even AAA. You know the wording on your membership card that says, “Call for an emergency tow seven days a week, 365 days a year?” Well, what it meant this day was, “We’ll reimburse you for what you pay somebody else to tow your car seven days a week, 365 days a year.” Only no one else would tow the car because, in case I haven’t mentioned this already, it was Christmas.
A prompt rescue from my parents reminded me that there are in fact rare occasions when it’s nice to live within 15 minutes of family. The car, however, had to sit on the side of the highway - alone and desolate. Until, that is, the next morning when I returned to the scene and it sat there no longer. The only thing remaining was shattered window glass.
Now, there were only so many reasonable explanations for this scene and I couldn’t come up with a single one. The car wasn’t towed, yet how someone could have stolen an automobile that wouldn’t run was escaping me. Regardless of what happened, it contained less glass than it had 24 hours earlier. I wasn’t optimistic about seeing my ride again.
Nevertheless, I made all the same calls I made the day before to see if, in fact, anyone had towed it. Turns out the highway department (one of the first places to reject my pleas for a tow the day before) picked it up late Christmas night. The only problem was that after reuniting with my car at the in-pound lot, I learned they didn’t get to it before some desperate procrastinator used it as a department store for some very last-minute holiday shopping.
“Your stereo’s gone,” the helpful lot worker pointed out.
“It would appear so, yeah,” was all I could get out.
It wasn’t until after I left that I thought of something better, not to mention more childish and unconstructive, to say. After getting my broken-down wheels to the body shop, I tried to imagine how the discount shopper spent his or her hours following the heist of my stereo. Perhaps they went something like this:
“Merry Christmas, mom. I got you this.”
“This is a piece of junk. Where did you get this from, a ’92 Accord? It doesn’t even look like it was factory installed.”
“Of course not. Do you really think I would’ve had time to rip out a factory-installed model before the cops showed up?”
“Well maybe if you didn’t wait ‘til the last minute, the interstate would’ve had a better selection!”
Then again - who knows? Maybe she loved it.
Anyway, after a joyous Christmas day, the start of the New Year involved a major financial decision: either 1) pay for the repairs, including a new window, which the body shop estimated would add up to the next-to-nothing price of $2,000 or 2) buy a new car. Since the poor thing probably wasn’t worth $150 (or significantly less without the stereo), we opted to get a new car. But after becoming one of the statistics that says the Honda Accord is the most broken into and/or stolen car in the United States every year, we decided this time around to buy another Honda Accord. Like I said, I’m a sucker for the sentimental. Happy Holidays!
Please check back for a direct link to the December 2007 issue of Louisville Magazine, in which this column appeared.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Leave Your Fanny at Home
With only a few weeks left in 2007, the year will come to a close before my wife and I can go on vacation. Which is fine. Before this year, we’d been fortunate enough to go on at least one vacation together every year that we’ve been married, but lots of people don’t go on vacation every year (or any year) for a variety of reasons.
Because of our new responsibilities, when we do get away again we’ll probably head to a “family-friendly” destination. Our days of skirting common sense and jetting off to Las Vegas at a time when we’re both unemployed, as we did a few years ago, are probably over. But I got to thinking about that trip and it dawned on me that Vegas just might fit the bill after all.
Despite all the city’s efforts to convince you otherwise, it has become quite the family-friendly getaway lately. Sure, there’s still lots of people running around looking to leave their inhibitions in the cab, but these days they have to share time at the craps table with families who stretch nine wide, including grandma Gertrude and her sequin-covered cane. But it wasn’t the number of kids I counted that led me to this conclusion. It was the number of fanny packs.
This disturbingly popular accessory from the ‘80s has made a disturbingly popular re-emergence. It was everywhere. On the street, at the shows, in the casinos, in the cabs… ev-er-y-where. And it captured the fancy of all walks of life. Young, old, white, black, American, European, Asian and Spanish. Everyone had one. It was like seeing hats at the Kentucky Derby or flannel at Lillith Fair. Even the men wore them. That proved most disturbing.
I saw a guy wearing one despite the fact that his wife/girlfriend carried a purse. Another guy had one even though his wife/girlfriend had a purse and wore one herself. What’s the point of that? I have a hard enough time understanding why a guy would need one if his wife has a purse, but what does he have that won’t fit in his wife’s fanny pack too? At that point it’s just a fashion statement.
There’s nothing a guy carries that won’t fit in his pockets. Keys. Wallet. That’s it. That’s all he needs. Even during extenuating circumstances, like when his pockets have holes in them (not necessarily making the pants unwearable) and he needs at least one hand to hold his beer, his wife/girlfriend will have something that will hold his valuables. And believe me, I’m not trying to be sexist or insensitive by suggesting that women should have to carry around our essentials when we go out. I’m thinking of them and their potential embarrassment. My wife would strap a Ford Festiva to her back to avoid being seen with me walking down the street with a fanny pack.
Anyway, we saw whole families of fannies. One lady actually wore two - one facing the front, one facing the back. As if owning one was a status symbol. The only thing I saw that may have outnumbered them was the slot machines, but it was neck and neck. My point is that these aren’t the people doing shots at the roulette wheel at 4 a.m. The guy in the fanny pack is not walking into Caesars with a woman on each arm and making people wonder if he’s ever ordered a hit on anyone. And the fanny-pack wearers are probably not the target market of the guys on the sidewalk handing out pamphlets that advertise… well, let’s call it “companionship.”
So don’t let all those “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas” commercials fool you. Pack up the kids and head to the gaudiest desert around. Hopefully what gets left in Vegas are all the awful zip-shut pouches that make me long for the days of Zubaz.
This is an updated version of the column that appears in the July 20, 2005 issue of Velocity magazine.
Because of our new responsibilities, when we do get away again we’ll probably head to a “family-friendly” destination. Our days of skirting common sense and jetting off to Las Vegas at a time when we’re both unemployed, as we did a few years ago, are probably over. But I got to thinking about that trip and it dawned on me that Vegas just might fit the bill after all.
Despite all the city’s efforts to convince you otherwise, it has become quite the family-friendly getaway lately. Sure, there’s still lots of people running around looking to leave their inhibitions in the cab, but these days they have to share time at the craps table with families who stretch nine wide, including grandma Gertrude and her sequin-covered cane. But it wasn’t the number of kids I counted that led me to this conclusion. It was the number of fanny packs.
This disturbingly popular accessory from the ‘80s has made a disturbingly popular re-emergence. It was everywhere. On the street, at the shows, in the casinos, in the cabs… ev-er-y-where. And it captured the fancy of all walks of life. Young, old, white, black, American, European, Asian and Spanish. Everyone had one. It was like seeing hats at the Kentucky Derby or flannel at Lillith Fair. Even the men wore them. That proved most disturbing.
I saw a guy wearing one despite the fact that his wife/girlfriend carried a purse. Another guy had one even though his wife/girlfriend had a purse and wore one herself. What’s the point of that? I have a hard enough time understanding why a guy would need one if his wife has a purse, but what does he have that won’t fit in his wife’s fanny pack too? At that point it’s just a fashion statement.
There’s nothing a guy carries that won’t fit in his pockets. Keys. Wallet. That’s it. That’s all he needs. Even during extenuating circumstances, like when his pockets have holes in them (not necessarily making the pants unwearable) and he needs at least one hand to hold his beer, his wife/girlfriend will have something that will hold his valuables. And believe me, I’m not trying to be sexist or insensitive by suggesting that women should have to carry around our essentials when we go out. I’m thinking of them and their potential embarrassment. My wife would strap a Ford Festiva to her back to avoid being seen with me walking down the street with a fanny pack.
Anyway, we saw whole families of fannies. One lady actually wore two - one facing the front, one facing the back. As if owning one was a status symbol. The only thing I saw that may have outnumbered them was the slot machines, but it was neck and neck. My point is that these aren’t the people doing shots at the roulette wheel at 4 a.m. The guy in the fanny pack is not walking into Caesars with a woman on each arm and making people wonder if he’s ever ordered a hit on anyone. And the fanny-pack wearers are probably not the target market of the guys on the sidewalk handing out pamphlets that advertise… well, let’s call it “companionship.”
So don’t let all those “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas” commercials fool you. Pack up the kids and head to the gaudiest desert around. Hopefully what gets left in Vegas are all the awful zip-shut pouches that make me long for the days of Zubaz.
This is an updated version of the column that appears in the July 20, 2005 issue of Velocity magazine.
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