split personality

the clothes we wear represent us. when we put things on, if they "feel like" us, we're comfortable. if they don't "feel like" us, we feel awkward. never mind if the actual garments are comfortable or not. what we wear, to a large degree, shows the people around us who we are.

i think that cars are largely the same way. people drive cars that feel like them. we all have preconceived ideas about what kind of person drives a certain kind of car.

we own a mini van, semi-affectionately known as vanny, that's  15 years old. it's a box on wheels with a broken side door handle and lots of dirt. i don't love vanny, but i'm grateful for her transportation even though she shrieks loudly whenever she's running and vibrates quite noticeably when we get above 45 mph.

i don't feel like vanny fits me. i'm slightly embarrassed by her, though i try really hard not to be. she makes me feel poor and vaguely trashy. like i should be handing out generic soda's and happy meals while yelling and back-handing a van full of dirty, snotty, whining children who are wearing too short pants and no seat belts.

sometimes i drive my mother in law's car for small errands close to home. she has a lincoln town car. it drives very nicely and i surely appreciate the chance to be able to go to the library or grocery store when chris is at work, but i feel awkward when i drive it. like i'm a little old lady, surrounded by 8 feet of nose and 6 feet of tail, driving at a sedate pace with the radio off and never letting anyone get in front of me in traffic. i feel like i should drive slowly in the fast lane and perhaps don a rain bonnet to keep my perm tidy in case of rain. when's the last time you saw anyone who couldn't qualify for a senior citizen's discount driving one of these babies?

this week we've been staying at my sister and her fiancee's house while they're traveling so that we can take care of their two big dogs. they left my almost-brother-in-law's lovely mustang here with the key in case i needed to go somewhere. brooke and i took it out to a playdate a couple days ago and it was rather amusing to me to drive it. it's very loud and roars when you give it even a little gas and the bass is cranked up so high, there's no way the cars around us can't hear us booming when we're at a traffic light. generally i don't see a lot of women driving muscle cars, so i'm not quite sure what stereotype i should fit into here. i googled "girls who drive mustangs" and i got a bunch of mini-skirted, bikini clad, darkly tanned young hot bods. none of them were short, chubby moms with a tweenaged daughter peeking out the back window, giggling about her mom driving a sports car.

i feel like i've got a split vehicular personality these days and none of them fit me. i look forward to the day when i can once again drive a car that represents me as me, and not just the wheels i'm able to get my hands on. i think if i could pick any car at all, i'd probably go with something like this.

would you rather...

we were cruising down the road in vanny, ancient road princess of squealing and chugging. chris is deaf in one ear, so being in vanny is almost guaranteed to cause a relay of  "what"-yelling, interpreting, clarifying swarm of irritation for all of us. whining commenced, frustration flared up, brakes were applied enthusiastically as we swerved over the side of the road and threatened to go back home and skip the movie.

i was sitting there, feeling my blood pressure rise, trying to maintain my tentative hold on my composure when i suddenly snarled, "i would rather STICK MY HEAD IN A TOILET than listen to any more of this CRAP!" of course my fellow vanny riders immediately said, "what? what did you say?" because no one can hear each other in our shrieking mystery machine.

that led to a round of "would you rather" which is always sure to lighten the mood.

would you rather.... eat a booger OR drive the wrong way in traffic?
i think i'm going to have to go with the booger on this one. because hospitals and pain are even worse than the shuddering yucks caused by boogers on my tongue.

would you rather... get a tongue kiss on the lips from a dog OR walk around publicly with a big wedgie where the back half of your pants have been eaten by your crack?
i think i'd prefer the dog kiss. i can't stand to feel or see a giant wedgie when i'm out. when someone in front of me has one, i just want to go ask them how they can possibly not feel it & please to dig it out so i can look away from their rump region.

would you rather... step on a big juicy slug with your bare foot OR step in dog poop?
i've actually done both and the slug was much worse. it exploded between my toes and filled my toes with the kind of jam that cannot be washed off for far too long. and i kept having flashbacks of the exploding slug for days afterwards, always causing me to convulse violently. poop can be washed off & leave your foot as good as new once the stench dissipates.

would you rather... go for a swim in a pool filled with worms OR have dinner at the food court of the mall topless?
this one is a bit troublesome for me. i would not AT ALL like to swim with worms, but i don't know if i could stand the staring of dining sans shirt at the mall. maybe if i wore a sign taped on my back skin explaining my predicament about the worms...

would you rather... eat a live hissing cockroach OR get arrested?
can i pick what the arrest would be for? because i think i'd prefer a few hours in jail for jaywalking to consuming a hissing roach. or more likely it would be for the indecent exposure at the mall. maybe i should just suck it up & chow down on that giant beetle. *shivers* ugh.

would you rather... step in a nest of fire ants OR go on a date with an unwashed hobo?
i would have to pick the hobo this time because i could choose an outdoor eating place for our date to improve the smell situation & i'll bet that hobo would have some interesting stories to tell.

what about you guys? got any good "would you rathers"?

vanny, vanny, vanny

sometimes i feel like the little annoyances of life stack & pile up all around me until i'm so tired of my own crap that i could just run away. and that's usually when i stop talking to most of the people who i like because i don't want them to be as bored of me as i am of myself. i don't want to be a whiner, but i have nothing of value that's not complainy to say, so i just shut the heck up & keep me to myself. that's where i've been lately. in that irritating, nothing-really-seems-bad-enough-for-a-legitimate-complaint-because-there-are-so-many-people-in-the-world-with-bigger-real-problems, place.

however,  i can tell you guys that one of my biggest irritations has finally been resolved. see, in tennessee, in order to get your license plates current & legal, your car has to pass inspection every year. that's fine, but if you drive an ancient car, like our vanny, it's hard to get it to pass inspection. april is the month when we have to deal with this every year, which thankfully falls around the time of tax returns. so a couple weeks ago, we dropped vanny off at the shop to get her back up to speed, waited 8 hours, while wandering aimlessly through parking lots and various retail shops in the rain (since we have no other running vehicle & didn't have a ride to anywhere else because we are low class & have very few local friends), then went back & gave them all our money. it was nearly $1300 to get everything done that needed to be done so vanny could pass her upcoming test. for us, that is a vast amount of money to spend on any one thing, but it had to be done & at least we had it to spend.

so we took her in for her inspection a couple days later & she failed her test. they couldn't tell us why, only that she wouldn't communicate with their machines, so they couldn't pass her. back to the mechanic. they say she tests out fine for them. back to an inspection station, but a different one this time in hopes that maybe she'll talk to their machines. nope. she failed her freakin test on 4 machines. we cried a little on the inside, not knowing what to do & hoping we wouldn't be forced to drive on expired tags for the rest of vanny's not-so-natural life whilst dodging any cops who drive behind us by zipping through neighborhoods or hiding inside car-washes (we did this for a year and a half once before getting busted).

we prayed & prayed & then chris took vanny to a third inspection station. first machine, fail. over to the second machine & finally, FINALLY, she decided to speak to that machine. she told it she was fine & dandy and didn't need any further servicing.

we can only conclude that vanny is a diva bee-otch and didn't want to communicate with the first 5 machines, but decided that she liked the last one enough to whisper out her secret - that though she may look old and crotchety, she really has no needs that must be attended to. i think she just wanted the attention.

the van potty x2

here's my re-offering of the day. for any of you who've read it, i hope you'll come back for the next post. i'll try to make it fresh & exciting. because this one is definitely not fresh.

we still carry a potty in our van. actually, we took the backseat out of the van so that we could fit some big stuff in there at christmas time & it's never gone back in, so it functions as a mobile storage unit. but brooke likes to think of that space as her own personal room, including toileting facilities. there have been many, many times when it has saved us, like when we're at a park where the bathrooms are locked or non-existent. or when we go to the grocery store in july, get everything loaded into the van to go home & then suddenly she has a desperate need to pee that didn't arrive until just that second. or when we're in a traffic jam on the highway, she needs to go & we can't get off an exit. this potty has saved us from many, many moments of peepee panic. (i wish i could use it since i'm often just as guilty as brooke about needing to go when there are no facilities available, due to my own self diagnosed SBS. i haven't tried it yet, but one day i may be desperate enough. i'll let you know if it happens & how it turns out.)

one time, i was loading some stuff into the van at toys-r-us & while i was doing so, brooke crept around to her potty & made use of the facilities. i think she secretly holds it sometimes just because she likes using the van pot more than public bathrooms. maybe it feels scandalous or exotic to pee in the car. i don't know.

anyway, she calls out, "mom, i used my potty!"

me, "okay, fine. let me come around to the back so i can dump it in the back of the parking lot. you didn't throw the tissue into the pee again did you?"

brooke, "weeeelllll.... noo.... i didn't put the tissue in."

me, "so what's the problem? what did you do?"

brooke, "uummm... i.... pooped."

i closed the door & mentally had a mini tantrum. we were just inside a store where there was a flushing toilet. and plenty of toilet paper. but did she use it? NO! she'd rather take a dump in the hot van in august & then put the soiled tissues into the little van trash can.

ok, too late to be mad. at least she didn't crap herself. now, what to do with it... normally with a pee pot i'd find a grassy spot at the edge of the parking lot or at least the far back of a parking lot where people generally don't go & pour it there. this was a different situation. i couldn't very well toss the log into the toys-r-us parking lot and i didn't relish the idea of carrying it up to the building to where there were trash cans & disposing of it in view of other customers.okay, so i can't get rid of it here. what other options do i have? we're not heading home yet where i could dispose of it properly & since it's august, i don't want to cart it around with us where it will get extra ripe while marinating in the car during our next few errands.

maybe i could smear mud over my license plate & put on dark glasses and a hat and sling it out the window while driving to our next stop. but with my luck, i'd throw it into the open window of a car next to us & then be hunted by an angry, poop smeared ex-con. or it would just slide down the outside of my van & i wouldn't know & i'd go through the drive-through at taco bell & the person working would be like, "ma'am, i think there's.... a turd stuck to your door." or i'd chicken out at the last second & hesitate in mid-throw causing it to mostly stay inside the van, sliding down the inside of the driver's door and getting caught in the little pocket, but splattering me in the process. or it would splash while sitting on the passenger seat before i found the perfect moment & then i'd have to clean the seat. or before i had the chance to pitch it, someone in a taller vehicle than mine would drive up alongside of me & look over & spot the hot pink poop filled pot & then look at me in horror & realize that they know me & actually they're one of my customers & then i lose my job. or i'd be holding the pot in my hand, waiting for the perfect moment to roll down & toss & i'd get rear ended & it would all go up in my face & i'd have some explaining to do when an officer showed up on the scene. "yes officer, that is feces on my forehead.... yes, it is pee soaking my shirt. no, i haven't been drinking. i was just planning to throw a bucket of shit out the window of my moving vehicle when there was a gap in traffic. no, it's not my own shit. no, i don't do pranks like that... it was in the back of my van... no, i already told you, i haven't been drinking!"

eventually i found what seemed like an acceptable solution to me & i pulled into the back of the target parking lot to one of those places where there's a bit of grass & a tree between parking spots and i crouched low, walking stealthily & poured out the mess into the wood chip area at the base of the tree. i know, it's gross & horrible, but i thought at least there was a possibility that whoever found it would think that it must have been a dog who left that deposit. i mean, who would have ever guessed the truth?