Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

It always comes around these parts at this time of year. The snow keeps falling. The snowblower keeps blowing. And the natives get surly while they’re snug in their homes waiting for the sun to shine once again. We call it “cabin fever”.

Earl and I spent the day moving furniture and cleaning around the house. It hasn’t been the most exciting weekend we’ve had together, but at least it’s been productive. I’ve been out of work for 42 days so I thought I should unpack the box of my belongings from my old desk. Hence the photo of the very technical piece of telecommunications equipment pictured above. There is an antiquated piece of equipment called a “reflectometer” which was used to troubleshoot the telephone network. Back in my on call days we had a customer that would call us and tell us that we needed to use one of them on his phone lines. I would just agree with him and clock the overtime. When I mentioned at the office that I didn’t know what this customer was talking about, this was on my desk. It was a gift from a co-worker a couple of years ago. It was used to monitor how pissed I was becoming while providing technical support. It’s now part of my new office in our basement.

Perhaps I should shine it on the lawn and melt some of this snow.

Here in Upstate New York we have a car dealership that sort of exploded in the past ten years and has opened several mammoth dealerships all over the state. He carries every car brand imaginable this side of the AMC Pacer. I’m not going to name his dealership by name as I don’t want to lend a hand in free advertising on his behalf, but his trademark is that “it’s huge”, in the most gutteral, annoying, uneducated belch of words possible. He has pretty much become the Wal*mart of the auto dealer set.

He is as annoying as hell.

First of all, the public is constantly barraged with his image. Everywhere. There’s a huge billboard on Interstate 81 in Syracuse with the word “huge”, his ugly mug and his arms spread wide like some sort of manic bird. He has a clock up there and it’s never right. Since stationary images are never enough, Centro, the regional transportation agency, has sold advertising space to him. So naturally you would think that his picture is on the back and/or sides of the bus. Wrong. The buses are completely wrapped in his image, forcing riders that must ride the bus and care to look out the window to do so by gazing through his hairy nostril or around his hairy armpit. Those in the back look through his teeth.

It’s disgusting.

As I’ve mentioned countless times, I worked in radio for over a decade. I’ve always been a fan of radio. However, I will not listen to a station that runs his ads. I don’t care if they are playing a string of Kylie Minogue, Madonna and The Pet Shop Boys constantly, if you stop the music for one of his commercials, your station is promptly on the SL and it’s staying there until XM or Sirius falls out of orbit. Now he doesn’t buy one ad to run four or five times a day like most sane organizations. No. This guy purchases one or two 60 second slots per break (what we in the industry called stop sets) and then barks out his “huge” numerous times and talks to some announcer shill guy named Tom over the phone. Tom acts like he’s at the car lot and Billy is out finding new deals for his buyers. Cluephone boys, we know that Tom is in some cushy studio in Florida and Billy is actually at one of his many dealerships barking over a speakerphone, because we’ve also heard Tom on spots in New Orleans, Orlando and Atlanta and they weren’t with you Billy. How does that make you feel, knowing that Tom is chatting it up with other car dealers too? He’s a manwhore.

I have now come to the point where I will terrorize a driver with a car with the little license plate frame that tells the name of this dealership. It is beyond my comprehension why any self-respecting person would make the largest or second-largest purchase of their life with this idiot.

When Earl and I travel, I take a certain comfort in knowing that Auto Idiot #1 will be left behind and it’s safe to listen to the radio. But no, now he’s in Niagara Falls, he’s in Albany and god knows where else. I think the only way to escape him is to go to the other side of the Mississippi.

I wish someone would just tell this guy to shut up, pack up your money and get the hell away from us. We don’t find you cute. We don’t find you articulate. We don’t find you clever and we certainly don’t find you pretty.

Just go away. Please. Oh, the cluephone is ringing again. We know why you keep barking out “huge”. It’s to make up for the more important parts that aren’t so huge.

When Earl got home from work I announced to him that I hadn’t started supper but if he didn’t want to go out I could heat up some leftover goulash-bake type stuff that I made last night. It was long on noodles and short on sauce, but still acceptable.

His response was non-commital. At least no profanity was involved.

So we went out for dinner. We went to a restaurant that we hadn’t been to in about a year, it’s a local place called “Casa Too Mucha”. They serve Tex-Mex food with a dollop of Italian and Lenten Friday Fish Fry on the side to keep the natives here happy. We used to be regulars at the place; we’d walk in and the co-owner/hostess would beam at us, give us a hug and have us cut ahead of everyone else in line (declaring loudly that we had reservations when we really didn’t, she said we were a “standing”) so that we could sit in the (whispered) “special customer section” upstairs. Said special section was “kid free” by her choosing and had nice looking male servers. She knew how to keep her gays happy.

Unfortunately, during one visit we had a particularly bad experience with a lot of variables in one equation: we ran into an unpleasant acquaintenance who is still an ass, we had a server that completely bungled our order and to top it all off, the substitute hostess sat us downstairs amongst the common folk by jamming us in a corner. I don’t know what they do in the Catskills, but no one puts Baby in a corner.

So I had a silent hissy fit and placed the restaurant on the SL for a bit. Tonight I decided to forgive and forget and Earl responded with a “Thank God”. Being Wednesday the restaurant was relatively quiet with no need for the selected section upstairs and the pace was much more relaxed. The food was delicious and the smiles were once again beaming.

When the co-owner/hostess came over to visit us, she earned two huge points from me. First of all, she offered to make me strawberry shortcake for dessert because she remembered that I enjoyed that. Yay! Secondly and most importantly, she commented on my mustache and how it looks awesome and that I should “keep it forever”.

Now that’s the way to this bear’s good side.

Ironically, it’s the second comment I’ve received on my mustache today, the first being at school from a younger, full-bearded student who nodded in my direction as we passed in the hall, “Nice bars, dude.” He sounded genuine about it.

When I mentioned to Earl that I rather appreciated the attention I get about my mustache, regardless of whom it’s from, he said “I’ve been telling you that since the last time you wore a mustache like that, but you don’t listen to me.”

I’m listening, I’m listening!

Vanity 1 Humility 0