God hates me. I'm thirty-eight years old. I'm divorced. My bat-shit crazy dog eats her own poop and eye-balls me while masturbating on her dog bed, and my best friend tells me on a regular basis that the sole purpose of my existence is to serve as a warning to others... and she's right. I know based on vast experience that minutes after I say to myself, "Self, how bad could it be?" my dignity is about to be compromised. I just never know how badly.
So how do I convince you that she's right? How do I convince you that you probably shouldn't read this blog? The only thing that comes immediately to mind is when my car recently needed new tires. Like most of the things that happen in my life, the situation didn't end well... for anyone.
You see, you should know something about me. I don't have a mechanical bone in my body (and I don't mean that in a hot or odd way). I mean it in practical terms. I haven't the foggiest idea of how to change my oil or cut my grass. In fact, prior to meeting my partner, my idea of gardening involved two twenty-year-old guys taking their shirts off and mowing the lawn while my best friend and I had a beer and watched them. No really, it's true. We called it manscaping.
So when my partner said, "You know, you have really nice headlights but pretty shitty tires." I thanked him for noticing both, and then I called around to find the cheapest place in town to get them changed (the tires, not my headlights). Now, do you remember when you were growing up and your mother would say, "You get what you pay for." Well... turns out, she's right. When you buy solely on cost, you are guaranteed to pay for it one way or another. And I did...
On the day I was scheduled to get new tires, I called my best friend, TB, to see if she had time to do lunch. She did, so we agreed to meet at our favorite restaurant at noon. Now, she hates when I'm late... and I'm ALWAYS late. So at 11:45, I hauled to the tire place, handed them my keys, signed for a loaner car, and sprinted out to the parking lot to get it. As fate would have it, there was only one car left, and I could clearly see why.
It was a white, 1980 Lincoln... and it was bigger than my first college apartment, but it was FLY. It had MASSIVE stickers... ALL OVER IT... which read (and I quote), "We do the best job in town." Now, please understand. While I am drawn to the bizarre like a moth to the flame, I was actually slightly horrified. That said, I was also thoroughly out of time. So instead of asking for an alternative vehicle, I got in, turned on the car, figured out how to adjust the seats and mirrors, and pulled out of the parking lot while listening to the godfather of funk, George Clinton's, "Hey man, smell my finger."
Now, if you were behind me in traffic, I'm sincerely sorry. I'm fully aware that I was driving... across town... at ten miles per hour... like a geriatric pimp and that it had to be infuriating for you. However, in my defense, I've always owned Toyotas, Hondas, and Volvos, so driving a Town Car is intimidating (to say the least). I mean seriously, you can see Shaft in this car, but in no parallel universe could I be mistaken for Samuel L. Jackson. I'm short, I'm Irish, and my trench coat isn't leather, it's Burberry... from Neiman Marcus... complete with cashmere gloves. Seriously, the only logical place for a woman like me in a car like that... is in the trunk. So I apologize if you were stuck behind me, but I was honestly doing the best I could... Not that my best friend would agree. She's like my mother. Ten minutes early is still five minutes late.
Regardless, I love TB to bits. She's beautiful and athletic and brilliant. She's also a complete bad-ass who cannot be shaken. In other words, we're total opposites. And it's not often that she loses her composure, so when it happens, I know things are clearly amiss. And obviously, seeing me pull into a trendy bistro parking lot in this car... with my windows down... and the music pumping... qualifies as amiss, because the look on her face is screaming, "We don't want the funk. Only you do." And while she's pissed that I'm fifteen minutes late... again, she has no idea where to start with the litany of things wrong with this picture. So instead, she does the next best thing and says, "Since you do the best job in town, am I going to have to pay money to a very large man for the pleasure of your company? And why do I feel like we've had this conversation before?" Without a doubt, this is why we're best friends.
Talk to you next week.
