Whenever a Saab is manufactured, there is cause for celebration and marvel, the likes of which are normally reserved for documenting the birth of exotic animals. The process may, in fact, lend itself to scholarly scrutiny for decades to come, but here are the highlights: the engine comes from Germany, the transmission system from Japan, the frame itself possibly from Australia, and all the parts congregate in a Swedish factory where, in the heart of Nordic country, a car is born, and at the end of the assembly line sits a fellow who professionally fucks shit up. That’s what the placard says, anyway–Professional Shit Fucker Upper, Esq.
My car ate it again yesterday evening, this time in front of the downtown Ritz, right in the parking circle during a business meeting. I was standing at the bar, mojito clutched in hand, ever thankful the establishment had the good graces to purchase mint leaves, when the valet scurried over and discreetly informed me that something was wrong. One of the staff must’ve jiggled the smart key just so, effectively locking the steering column and rendering the automobile inoperable. As far as venues go, there are far worse places for a Saab to sit lifeless, I suppose, and I can only hope it puttered out really classy-like and died, perhaps, in French.
Moments later I was in the driver’s seat, cursing my ill fortune and turning both key and wheel hither and yon, praying to God that something would disengage. Then I looked up and there, not a foot away from the hood, appeared Hap seemingly out of nowhere, waving and grinning, and I can only conclude she is the albatross of cartastrophe. I thought back to the recent incident and wondered whether this would happen every month.
One of the more immediate concerns is whether to heckle the Ritz for towing and repair costs. Is $160 worth the time? Is a claim ticket enough documentation to pursue this avenue? Certainly my car was temperamental beforehand, but even so it was working fine until I handed my key to the valet who, according to one of the more junior staffers, had “over ten years of valet experience,” which apparently translates into the ability to park expertly in anywhere but the actual garage.
The larger issue, of course, is what to do with the car. During a routine oil change last week, this very question became the topic of discussion. Dutch recommended I sell it, set it on fire and collect the insurance payout, or keep it and indirectly fund a Harvard education for his children. Well, I’m writing off yesterday’s episode to valet incompetence. There’s got to be another 60,000 miles left on this thing. Right? I guess this means I’m taking “Pahk the cah in the Hahvahd Yahd” for a couple thousand dollars, Mr. Trebek.
We have an agreement, you and I, an unspoken blogging arrangement that doesn’t ask for much: you pay a visit to this site, and in return I give you my full attention. I’ve violated this covenant tonight, however, because I’m thinking about an entirely different piece of text right now. It’s a prayer I wrote for a college commencement in ’02. Not my own school, to be clear, where I flew as far beneath the radar as possible, but the university in my hometown.
I won’t burden you with much more context, so in brief I was a junior myself then, eager to tackle the challenge of shoehorning an inherently religious set of words into more ecumenical terms. I wrote a page, it was delivered, received well, and now, seven years later, I need to do it again. Initially I thought I could dust off the original model and borrow liberally from it, if not copy it wholesale.
But when I cracked open the prayer tonight, read it again, I cringed. It’s still mechanically sound, though the positives end there. In truth it’s ornate. Heavy and overwrought. I guess parallel structure must’ve been cool at the time, because there sure is a lot of it. Parts of it also seem vaguely unoriginal, as if I had gone on a wild plagiaristic binge at a local Hallmark. There’s cheese, too–literary cheese, perhaps the smelliest kind of all. Bottom line, it’s a commencement prayer that tries a little too hard to be a commencement prayer.
Circumstances were partly to blame, I think. When I originally wrote it, I was enamored with the idea of graduating, since I had yet to reach the milestone myself. Now here, on the other side of the river, I’d much prefer to paint the ivory tower as a pillar of carnies and horseshit. I’d like to address the graduating class and say–hey!–your professors are probably bored out of their minds right now, and God help you make the most of your investment in this wretched job market. That would be crass and selfish, of course, on a day that really belongs to students and their families.
We were supposed to chat about dogs tonight, but with the commencement fast approaching, we’ll need to postpone our discussion. I plan on writing the prayer this weekend. All I’ve got to do is lock onto a few feel-good ideas, let them percolate, then wrap it all in prose that is earnest and effortless–eloquent in economy, rather than excess. And it better have a hell of a lot less alliteration than what you just saw. Green eggs and fuckin’ ham, this is going to take some elbow grease.
There in the animal shelter, on a chilly Sunday afternoon, I wondered whether any other terrible realizations would come to mind as a light-brown lab canvassed the floor of the visiting room, sniffing every inch for–what, a cake with a file in it? Secret instructions left by another dog on how to escape? Hope? Perhaps she simply craved more treats and thought the three I had given her were but a formality, a kind of perfunctory doggie-human handshake.
But whether I had three treats or thirty-three treats, she wasn’t the right dog for me, a fact the staff worker seemed eager to drive home. Why didn’t she regard me as the alpha dog, he wondered? Well, Cesar, maybe it’s because you work here and you’ve got a goddamn fanny pack full of treats, I suggested, only without the “Cesar” and the “goddamn.” To be clear, though, the staff here was far, far more attentive than the humane society, plus everybody had all their teeth and nobody tried to shoehorn me into a five- or six-pound breed.
There was a discussion about breeds, mind you, but we’ll need to wait until Thursday for those deep insights. For now, let’s return to the terrible realizations, one of which was a disappointing acknowledgment that New Year’s may be too aggressive a deadline. I want a rescue, sure, but I don’t want to be saddled with a rashly chosen rescue for 10-15 years. The really grim part, though, was when the staffer extolled the high turnover of the establishment and how waiting would only result in a larger selection. The churn, the heartbreaking coming and going of canine inmates, the very thing I was trying to plan against, may be exactly what I need.