Plans

My plans for today were to sleep in, get some laundry done, run downtown and work for a few hours, come home, watch some complete tripe on TV, finish the laundry and housecleaning, and go to bed. Yes, I realize that tripe is the stomach of an ox that people eat, but isn't that pretty descriptive for most of the crap on TV nowadays? Another one of those fancy words I like to use. I work that one into my everyday conversation, usually in the place of the word crap. Stomach of an ox is crap, but to say something is complete tripe seems so much more accurate than just calling it crap. That, and calling something that is crap chitlins doesn't work, although chitlins are far deeper in the realm of crap than tripe is. If you know what chitlins are, you will get the double meaning of that statement. If you don't know what chitlins are, please stop reading my blog. I will be willing to sacrifice you as a follower.

But my plans for the day were completely waylaid yesterday when I was running to Wal-Mart to get stuff to hang up my daughter's curtains, and the car died on me. Literally, just stopped running. I considered myself lucky to have not been at a stoplight, but was able to coast over to the side of the road. Definitely not the battery, because the radio and electric windows were still working. Probably the alternator, because I've never had it replaced and the car has 112k on it. I love my car, more than I've loved any other car I've ever had. My grandfather bought this car about three months before he died, paid for it outright brand-spanking new, and then when he died I got the car. I really needed a car at that point in time, too, because The Ex had just totalled my truck and I was still trying to pay down what the insurance hadn't covered. A big lesson to me on GAP insurance, that's for sure. So this car has sentimental value, because of my grandfather, but more than that, it's just been a great car. Yeah, I'm the only person I know under 70 who drives a Buick, but that car amazes me. It's held up well to my abuses (which are really minor), my children's abuses (which are somewhat moderate), and the abuses of driving on I-95 daily and driving too fast through Shockoe Bottom (which are really major). With my financial situation being what it is right now, I don't think I could afford another car, and really, I don't want one. I love my Buick. I love the fact that it's got a sleeper engine, or something like that, according to Wikipedia. I love the fact that when I get down on the gas pedal the car shoots forward in some dangerous hemi fashion, and what I love more than that is that I got the car.

When my grandfather died, The Ex had a car which we had just purchased (used) the year before, so his car was about 3 years old, total. But he had a fucking fit about the fact that I should get his car, and he should get my grandfather's car, because, well, he drove more and needed a more reliable car. Of course, his car would have been more reliable if he had taken care of it. Taking care of a car to me does not mean a spit shine every other weekend, it means getting the oil changed every five thousand miles - because I refuse to buy into the oil companies demands of a three thousand mile change, and addressing the knocks and weird sounds when they pop up. He didn't know how to take care of a car, and didn't seem interested in learning. I'm of the opinion that if you spend THOUSANDS of dollars on something, you should at least be decent enough to take care of it. I mean, protect your investment, for God's sake. It's not a hard thing to do. But there was other stuff he couldn't or wouldn't take care of either, so I don't know why his inability to take care of a vehicle was surprising to me.  I think you should take care of your belongings as well as you take care of your genitals. Either you love your shit or you don't. Time will tell, in the end.

But I digress into that muddy cesspool of badmouthing, which is sometimes fun, like it's fun to watch mud wrestling and swim in a swimming hole on a road named Hard Times. However, all three wear thin pretty quickly, and the joy is gone before you've even seen the main mud wrestling event, and instead are just wishing it were jello, and then thinking to hell with wrestling, jello shots would be so much more fun because after enough of them, we can just do our own wrestling. Or wrasslin', which is what it's really called. Naked wrasslin'. So anyway, The Ex had a fit to have the Buick. And I stood my ground, and insisted no, you are not getting that car. First of all, he was my grandfather and the damn will named me as the person to get the car. Not you, the grandson-in-law. And secondly, didn't you just, three weeks ago, completely wreck my year old truck? Need I remind you that you didn't just total my vehicle, you totalled someone else's vehicle as well and let's just be happy they aren't going to sue you? Or sue me, by default of a faulty, error-ridden marriage? He pouted about that car for at least six months. I think that I love the car more for the fact that I didn't cave into the manipulations and bullying more than anything else. The car kind of symbolizes my inner strength. Nope, that sounds too gay. That car... that car... is my big giant middle finger. My big 2003 Fuck You. That's why I love that car and will probably do anything I can to keep it as long as I can.

Plans for today... we'll see. Stuck in the house, watching tripe, waiting to get my Fuck You back. Life is good.