Eiffel Tower

(Editor's note: This piece needs it. Have soccer tonight. Too lazy, also. I'll get to it tomorrow along with the grass.)

I would be remiss if I'd didn't, first and foremost, apologize for the lack of post lately. I was waiting for someone to comment. No, not really. Then I'd never post again. Really, work has been stupid crazy combine with the holiday weekend and had not the time, will or wherewithal to get any writing done. So, because actions speak larger than words, I offer up three stories. An "A" frame of writing. I'll let you decide which is the taker.

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A dignified dad is good for many things. Not the least of which is advice, support both financial and emotional, a friend, a confidant and someone to look up to. However, there are some things that Dad's in our day and age just can't be trusted with. One of these is our cars.

My old man's got a friend who runs a automotive repair shop and my family has, for the past several years, taken all cars and trucks off warranty there for tune-ups to overhauls. My dad works close to the shop so when the old girl needs repair, I'll trade trucks with him and he'll do a drop off on his way to work. The problem's occur when he tries to operate the after market stereo I put in five years ago. Now, I'll admit, the fact that the head unit doesn't have a power button can be confusing to the technologically feeble, but at it's core it work just like any other stereo in a car, with a few more features than your standard base model. I don't have any problems adjusting to his stock stereo.

Inevitably, as you might have guessed, in his vain search for the power button, tired of listening to my devil music, he simultaneously managed to push every button at the same time, causing every setting I've ever inputted to be mangled beyond recognition. Granted, I was lucky the poor thing even turned on when I got it back but it took me no less than a full week to figure out and fix all the things that happened to it. I can't stand when the sound isn't just right, and for awhile it was anything but right. I thought I was going to throw myself out of the driver's side door a couple times. Thankfully, I got everything straightened out and back to glorious stereo-phonic sound.

Dad, next time, take the volume nob and turn in all the way to the left till the volume says "0" for the sake of my sanity.

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As a commuter, I dealt with my fair share of oddities on the highway. In fact, maybe more than my fair share. Or does everyone else see the same fucked up things? Either way, there's one phenomenon that always scares the shit out of me.

You're driving along in rush hour traffic. Things aren't too congested but there are plenty of cars around and you're moving at a moderate pace. You're most like heading home with no real place to be. Then, out of no where, the highway clears and you find yourself almost all alone on the once busy streets. As the clear roads continue, I always start to get paranoid and think that maybe the second coming has happened and I just got left behind. I'm not super religious but I can't help but imagine Christ, descending on a cloud while the heavens part and trumpet play on high, scooping up all the righteous people and leaving me behind.

Fuck, I just got left behind. Oh shit, I've gone and said "fuck" now there's no way he'll come back for me. Goddamn it, now I said "fuck" and "shit". Damn this mouth, goddamn it!

Ok, so maybe I deserve my fate, but I head the people in hell are real assholes. Bummer.

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I'm driving home yesterday and pull behind an old Caprice at a stop light. This car is beat to shit seven way to Sunday. The paint, if you want to call the brown shit splattered on the car that, is wearing off in big spots, making the car look like a retarded leopard. I'm waiting for the dual two inch exhaust pipes to spew black soot when the light turns green, but is glides off effortlessly, not a hint or wisp of pollutant filled smoke. I follow and after a couple hundred feet I start to smell this truly awful stench.

The first thing everyone thinks of when they smell something seemingly mechanical in nature is, what the hell is wrong with my car. Just like them, I thought the same thing and as I continued the smell exponentially increased in strength and ability to make me when to hurl. I let my truck drift back to put some space between it and the leopard. Sure enough, the smell subsided, confirming my initial suspicion. It was the car just ahead of me.

The closest approximation I can think of to the actual smell has to be burnt chocolate and I mean really burnt chocolate. Like microwaved to a crisp Hershey bar nasty smelling. Part of the reason I associated the smell with burnt chocolate may have been the color of the car. Dual sensory overload always gets the brain working overtime. Still, I think it's a reasonable approximation.

Much as smells tend to trigger, memories began cropping up between thoughts of suppressing my gage reflex. The most prominent of which would have to be a drunken night of frivolity and a failed attempt at making late night shmores. I can't tell you where I was, not because I don't want to but because I can't remember. It's inconsequential anyway. The point is, the flaw in our perfect place was putting the chocolate bar in the microwave until for twenty minutes and or it lit on fire. That was the night I first learned chocolate was flammable - a little known fact that could save your life if you get lost in the woods with a candy bar. Needless to say, we filled the house with smoke and longed for the smell of death as a release from the constant cocoa assault. The most important thing I learned that night was not to use anything electronic while off your ass wasted. It all lights on fire.