Shiny New Things

Every once and awhile, after I disappear into an extended brain fog and cease contributing to the world at large...or small...my e-mail distributer will take matters into its own hands and arbitrarily send out a past retort, just to wake me up.

So that’s why, if you’re a subscriber, you may have received something about Christmas and cars, a while back.

Sorry...but I take no responsibility for my artificial intelligence. I have enough trouble managing my actual intelligence, or lack thereof

However, I guess this AI knew what it was doing, since here I am...unintelligently intact...but still lackadaisical and indifferent to all things retorting.

And since the topic of said past retort was cars...and I just bought a new car, I suppose I have to pay attention...at least a little.

I have to admit, lately, the universe seems to be dangling many shiny new things, in addition to cars, in my direction, so my personal distraction quotient is way over the top.

Not that I ever had a lot of luck with focus in the past.

I think it has something to do with mixing up my contact lenses.

The thought of sitting quietly in front of a computer screen, pecking out one inanity after another for a reason I have yet to figure out has been more often than not pushed aside by my propensity for counting raindrops.

There’s a lot of them...and someone has to do it...maybe.

And why stare at a screen full of repeating binary numbers for hours at a time, when I can stare out the window repeating my jalapeno tuna sandwich for hours at a time?

Yet who am I to ignore a cosmic nudge...so I guess I better tell you about my new car.

I bought a new car.

What...you want more?

Okay...fine.

Yeah...it was time...as much as I tried to ignore the exhaust fumes rising through the newly formed hole in the floor, it was becoming harder and harder to scotch tape the crack in the windshield back together.

Plus the 8 track player kept spitting out satanic verses, over my Jackson Five cartridges, no matter how many times I adjusted the tracking.

So it was definitely time.

As you may recall, from some years back—5 to be exact—I’m not a big fan of car buying.

I don’t like all the bargaining, shin kicking, face slapping and general animosity that takes place across and under the table.

And that’s usually before we even leave the house.

As I said, which I’ll repeat, because I assume you’re like me and not paying that much attention, my last excursion into the car buying quagmire was a mere five years ago.

Really not all that long ago as far as real time is concerned, but a lifetime in car years.

Which I quickly learned since, as I pulled up to my old dealership, I found it abandoned.

Now, under normal circumstances, with most people—normal people—this would have been fine; unless, of course, you once had a life changing experience where your old neighborhood best friend suddenly moved away without telling you, which resulted in spending the majority of  your days for a year and a half knocking tirelessly, yet uselessly, on the front door only to be told over and over again to “Go away...they don’t live here anymore!”

Just sayin....

Luckily, now, through the magic of Google and mobile phones, I was easily able to track down the new dealer’s location, plus my old friend...who has apparently moved...again, suddenly, and changed their phone number...again.

So weird....

Anyway, I wish I had as colorful a story to tell you about this new car buying experience as I did my old car buying experience, but this one was pretty straight forward. Mostly because Z and I are the most boring people in the world and tend to always buy the same make and model, but in a different color, mostly because they keep changing the shades of blue. And of course we’re all in with the latest updates and modern amenities.

There a big fancy video screen on the dash that shows you all kinds of details about your driving experience and what your neighbor’s having for dinner.

It took me a couple of weeks to figure it all out, but now I can pretty much operate most of the thousand and one “must have” functions without unintentionally changing lanes and running as many red lights and stop signs as before.

I’m particularly fond of the backup camera and have, in fact, begun assembling a series of internet video shorts under the title “Backup Theatre”.

However, I have to spend a little more time working on the scripts as so far they’re pretty one dimensional and only entail chasing unsuspecting squirrels eating nuts up my driveway.

Even though the look on their squirrely little faces is priceless, it only moves the story along so far.

Anyway, this time, with this particular dealer, there was no leg wrestling or shoe spitting required. No harsh demands other than my personal request for my “sales consultant” to sing a selection of hits from “Hamilton”.

Very entertaining....

No, this time my “consultant” merely asked me what I thought was a fair deal, which I proffered, along with a baby goat, that he immediately approved, and then had me kicking myself, since I had obviously proffered way more than I needed....especially the baby goat.

But a deal's a deal.

Win some lose some.

Besides, the baby goat was eating me out of house and home...literally.

Now it’s someone else’s problem.

And did I mention this particular new model—the car...not the goat—comes with an onboard mix master, which I suppose will come in handy someday.

One never knows when one is going to be in the mood to mix up a batch of Brownie batter.

But One is funny like that...always was.

So that’s all I have...for now.

Was it worth the wait?

Yeah...nothing rarely is.

I’ll try to get back here, more often... sooner rather than later.

But later can be very convincing.

And did I mention all the shiny new things?

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