Category: humor

My Civic duty

My car, the Nimble Imp, is a nine-year-old Honda Civic hatchback. On Thursday it wouldn’t start, so we towed it to a garage. On Friday we learned that it had a dead battery ($100) and a leaky clutch master cylinder ($600) — and that according to Edmunds, it’s worth $767, or $67 more than the cost of the repairs I’m facing.

On Saturday I began car shopping.

Fuel efficiency is my main criterion. I’m intrigued by the Toyota Prius — I’ve driven one and liked it — but the car I’m really after is the new Honda Fit. I have some lingering doubts about the Prius’s hybrid drive — just how long do those batteries last, anyway, and what is their true environmental impact? — whereas the Fit’s gas mileage is almost as good, its price is right, and it doesn’t have a distracting video display in the center of the dashboard. Only the name is a little off-putting. (I like its European name better: “Jazz.”) Yes, it’s tiny. No, I don’t have a problem with that. So I ordered the Consumer Reports price report and started calling Honda dealers to find one where I could test-drive a Fit.

Marin Honda didn’t have any. Neither did Honda of El Cerrito. Nor did the San Francisco, Berkeley, or Oakland Honda dealers. I called Walnut Creek Honda — no luck. I called Concord Honda — no. San Leandro, Burlingame, Hayward, Redwood City — no, no, no, no. At Vacaville Honda (42.7 miles distant) they thought they might have one or two on the lot and promised to check and call me back in five minutes. Mmmmmmmmmmno. I began to feel like I was living in the Cheese Shop sketch.

Glickstein: You do have some Hondas, don’t you?
Element: Certainly sir! This is a Honda shop, sir. We’ve got–
Glickstein: No, no, don’t tell me. I’m keen to guess.
Element: Fair enough.
Glickstein: Element?
Element: Yes.
Glickstein: Ah! Well I’ll buy one of those then.
Element: Oh, I thought you were talking to me, sir. Mr. Element, that’s my name.

It took a not-inconsiderable effort of will to psych myself into buying a car this weekend, but psych myself I did, and for a couple of hours on the phone Saturday morning I persisted in spite of the best efforts of Bay Area Honda salespeople uncharacteristically to prevent me giving them my money. But they finally wore me down, with the result that I authorized the $700 repair of my $767 car. I am “Fit” to be tied.

I run rings around you logically

[Moblogging from New York, where my mom is now getting decent care and is doing well.]

Andrea reports this exchange between herself and Jonah (age 4 3/4) yesterday, while waiting for Jonah’s friend Kenzo to arrive with his family for a playdate:

Andrea: If I were you, Jonah, I would clean up all of your markers before Kenzo arrives.
Jonah: No, if you were me you wouldn’t, because I am not doing it.

Legalistic and airtight! I am so proud.

Lightweight

A few nights ago I was in my study while the kids were jumping around in the bedroom, playing “pirates.” The sounds of mock swordfights filled the air… until suddenly they didn’t. All was silent for several moments. My parental Spidey-sense tingled and I got up to see what they were up to. I found Archer lying prone and smirking on the bed, Jonah leaning over him. Jonah looked up and explained to me, “He drank too much rum.”

Nine

It’s been over three months since way number eight, but there’s now a ninth way I’m like blogging-inspiration Ken Jennings: apparently I’m not the only one who has an odd compulsion to read car names backwards while I’m driving around town.

(Bat|Super)man Returns

Thanks to Netflix, I saw Superman Returns a few days ago. (It was pretty good, but I had some problems with it. Maybe in another blog post.) In the story, Superman has been absent from Earth for some years; the “Returns” in the title refers to the fact that he’s back.

This made me think of 1992’s Batman Returns. What “returns” in that movie? Nothing; Batman hasn’t been away since the events in 1989’s Batman. On the contrary, in that title, “Returns” refers to the fact that it’s been three years for the audience since the last Batman movie. Batman “returns” to moviegoers. (Or perhaps, more cynically, Batman provides “returns” on the studio’s investment. Hard to be too cynical about the studio [Warner Brothers] and the franchise that famously required director Joel Schumacher to make Batman & Robin “more toyetic.”)

It’s an annoying case of breaking the fourth wall with the film’s title — a trend begun, ironically, with 1978’s Superman: The Movie, closely followed by Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979. Hey — we know they’re movies. (Or, excuse me, motion pictures, as the case may be.) Tell me what happens in the movie. Fight Club, 12 Angry Men, Run Lola Run, those are movie titles. In a movie called Superman: The Movie, I’d expect to see Superman busting film-industry crooks on a studio backlot in Tinseltown.

The Batman and Star Trek franchises continued offending with Batman Forever (which can be interpreted no other way than as the producers thumping their chests in an “I’m king of the world!” moment) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (“next” after what? after the last time you folks watched a Star Trek TV show, that’s what). I’ve always found it strange that none of the gatekeepers of pop culture ever raised aesthetic objections to badly chosen titles like these (until now, of course, if we can agree to call me “gatekeeper”), whose conflation of the real and imaginary threatens to take the viewer out of the fictional world even before they step in.

I was pleased to see that the [Superhero] Returns title template has been redeemed by having “Returns” refer to events in the story. Maybe now we can work on redeeming …The Next Generation by having the story be about the actual children of characters from a prior story. Ugh, maybe not.

The armory

We did not encourage swords in our house, I swear. (Nor did we enhance their allure by making a big deal out of prohibiting them.) But then Jonah won a plastic katana at the Marin County Fair (really, he did, all on his own, by popping balloons with thrown darts), so then of course Archer had to have one too. One thing led to another and… well, now look.

Yes, every object in that picture is used as a sword (and plenty of others, ad hoc), even the ones that don’t look like swords.

Every time we go to the supermarket (which is near the toy store), it’s:

Jonah: Can we go to the toy store?
Me: What do you want to get?
Jonah: Swords. [Archer nods vigorously in agreement.]
Me: [exasperated] Don’t you have enough swords?!
Jonah: Just one more. Pleeeeeease?

Well, at least the “just one more Thomas the Tank Engine train, pleeeeeease” phase is over. Maybe this one will end too. Meanwhile, guess what Archer’s Christmas wish list was? In its entirety, quote:

One little sword.

What brings you here?

Herewith, a selection of search-engine queries that resulted in hits on this blog, according to my server logs.

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Archer 1, parental authority 0

Archer was home from preschool all last week with a fever. Andrea and I took turns missing work to care for him. Happily, his fever broke on Friday night and he was fine all weekend.

Having lots to catch up on at work, Andrea and I were eager to get the kids off to preschool this morning. But Archer had gotten used to lots of one-on-one parent-child time and was determined to stay home again. He refused to allow me to dress him. I coaxed him gently for a while and promised some fun family activities after school and work, but to no avail. Then I ratcheted up the sternness and started to tell him that certain privileges would be unavailable later if he continued to resist me now. When that didn’t result in improved cooperation, I resorted to, “Do we do this the easy way or the hard way?” The kids know that the hard way is no fun, so this threat almost always works — but not this time.

So, the hard way. I confiscated the items that Archer had been carrying around and pinned him to the changing table while wrestling his pajama top off and then his shirt on over his head. After lots of struggle, and plenty of crying from Archer, I managed to get his clothes on.

My victory was short-lived. Archer still held the trump card — the one sure way to make me remove the clothes I had just forcibly caused him to wear. With an assist from his convulsive crying and a belly full of Malt-O-Meal, he barfed all over them.

A cautionary tale for all who believe their authority is absolute.