Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Secondhand Rants will return on Tuesday, December 02.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
One day, when it’s older, I’ll sit my 9-3 down and explain what, exactly, it should and shouldn’t do during a recession, because clearly it doesn’t understand right now. It ate shit last week, almost as if it were at a Sizzler, and in the final accounting it swallowed a cool $1,500. What came free with the parts and service was a realization that prior 9-3s may have been lovingly built by a legion of industrious Swedish people, gatekeepers of secret Nordic know-how about car manufacturing, but the most I can ask these days from a GM-owned Saab is that they corral all the Swedes based in Detroit and put them to work.
Another plus from this whole experience, assuming tomorrow goes smoothly, is I may have found a trustworthy local mechanic. You know something is special when a loaner jacket is offered initially–and turned down because I’m warmed primarily by “C” batteries–followed by a real loaner car: a big, red Jeep Cherokee plucked straight from the ’80s, 151,436 miles young, seemingly crafted exclusively with 90-degree angles. It was at best a glorious 4WD chariot for John Hughes in his heyday, though more likely it was used to run moonshine under cover of darkness.
“It’s not pretty,” proclaimed Dutch as he walked me through the basics, including how to interpret the fickle engine light, “but it’ll get the job done.”
It was essentially a time machine. No power windows or power seats or power locks, temperature measured in increments of red, cigarette lighter cap missing, stained passenger seat, creaky doors, and a speedometer that maxed out at 85 mph, probably because they wouldn’t discover the other 85 miles for another decade or so. I was handed what I can only assume doubled as GPS back then–a liquid black compass ball keychain.
But the feel of the vehicle was great. There was a straightforward logic behind everything. None of the subtle, sleek, weaksauce automatic crap endemic to today’s aesthetic. Maybe the speedometer only goes so high because you don’t need to drive any faster. Neglect to buckle your seatbelt? A shrill warning noise sounds. Forget to turn off the headlights? The same Pavlovian slap on the ears. I tell you, by the time evening rolled around, I was strapped in and cranking all the right handles before the car even started. Even small things, like the turn signal lever, had a solid, purposeful weight behind it. With the Saab, I can never feel the blinker turn on, and it’s like, “May I please go right?” With the Cherokee? Left, muh’fuckah. A few honest turns later, I pulled into my driveway under a brilliant cloudless night sky, feeling at home. Aligned. And that always means catastrophe is right around the corner.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The Carney Radar, otherwise known as the Bullshit Detector among the unwashed and the low, is the preferred term in this forum because, as you well know, we abhor vulgarity. Whatever you choose to call it, it is a military-grade early warning system, freely available to all, that susses out the shenanigans, bamboozlery, and other such assorted poppycock slyly crafted to trickify your unwitting self. For you, the device may emit a shrill sound, perhaps a paid ringtone, but for me it’s simply a feeling, a grip in the gut that tells me to steer clear.
I have an appointment with my optometrist tomorrow. It’s not the check-up itself that concerns me–after all, what could possibly go wrong with waving metallic implements small and large near my eyes?–so much as the aftermath, when my wallet and prescription are laid bare to the circus of expensive frames and contacts available at the doctor’s office. It’s very much Sophie’s choice: pay through the nose for lenses in-house and get my full vision plan credit, or purchase for less from a major retailer, albeit with a healthy cut to my plan allowance. Sure, I’ve done my research and compared prices, but it’s draining to second-guess constantly the fundamental goodness of people.
Which, now that I think about it, is precisely what I usually do, though the exhaustion comes from having both the grim Hobbesian outlook and the detector on at full blast, a virtual necessity during trying economic climes like these. The terrible thing of it is that, were I the least bit more trusting earlier this week, when my car sat in the shop, I would’ve been needlessly, foolishly out a couple hundred extra bucks. So, the Carney Radar. Tomorrow. Set on max. I’d like nothing more than to walk through the proverbial midway untouched, but should there be a man with gills or something urging me to shoot the ducks to win a prize, I will be prepared.