New Vehicle Blues

OK, so the title is more than a little misleading. I’m not going to apologize for that. It’s not like you are new to the internet. We all have to do a little click-bating every now and again.

As you may have determined from the title, I did turn in my previously leased vehicle for a new one. As I mentioned last week, I was torn between purchasing that car and going with a new one. I ended up trading my 2022 Equinox for a 2025 Equinox. There is a lot of new stuff I am going to have to figure out. The downside is that some of this figuring out will have to take place during the 4 1/2 hour drive to Pittsburgh tomorrow. Don’t worry, I’ve already read the owner’s manual almost cover to cover (I did skip the part on how to properly put on a seat belt. I think I got that covered last time I got on an airplane.). A lot of the functions that were formerly switches and dials are now accessed via the huge dashboard display.

The thing that is going to take the most getting used to is the fact that for the first time ever, my primary vehicle will not have a shifter in between the driver and passenger seats. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always had automatics. In fact the only way I can drive a stick is with my left hand (due to learning on someone’s MG). The new car, still nameless at this point, has a shifter ON THE STEERING COLUMN!

What the actual what? I’ve had a couple of rental vans/trucks with this configuration, but honestly, it’s not something I’ve seen since we passed out of that most glorious of decades the 1980s. And I thought that The Mrs’ push button transmission was weird. Hopefully I will get used to it before the bugs hatch, otherwise I will be throwing the car in neutral every time I try to use the windshield squirty stuff.

If you are wondering where the blues part comes in, it was because I had everything set up to surprise The Mrs. I had all of the pre-stuff done last Friday and was scheduled to do the hand off today. She was going to come home and I would offer to take her for a ride…

Unfortunately, the unseasonably warm weather didn’t happed until Monday (it was almost 60F yesterday. It was snowing a moment ago). When we got home on Sunday the driveway was a sheet of ice. Long story short, I had to call a tow truck to get my car off of the large rock that marks the end of the turn around area. The passenger side rear panel was toast. Rather than deal with a body shop, I had the old girl towed to the dealer, spoiling the surprise. One the plus side, they were able to get the parts and all of the work done by this morning. My last, and yes I will admit tearful, drive was from the Body Shop parking lot to the Sales parking lot.

Listening To: I just finished Sister of the Lost Nation by Nick Medina. It is a haunting tale, primarily told out of sequence, of girls who go missing on the reservation. It’s well written and kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time.

Currently Reading: Cinderwich by Cherie Priest. Priest belongs in that category of writers whose books I will buy without having to read the back. I am about halfway through this tale of a missing woman and the mystery of someone whose body was found in a tree.

Current Obsession: Learning how to turn on the car radio.

Our big news is the release of Let the Sun Shine In: Poems Torn From the Dead Flesh of The Autopsy of Jane Doe by Anton Cancre. This collection of poetry is based upon the film The Autopsy of Jane Doe. It is available in ebook here, paperback here, as well as Amazon and all of the other usual places.

Tomorrow I load up the new car and head out to Pittsburgh for Horror Realm. I know that Friday is the economic boycott. Despite the fact that we are a small business, I totally understand if Friday’s sales are slow. Still, feel free to come out and say hello, check out the panel on Friday night, and then maybe buy a whole crap ton of books Saturday and Sunday. I’ll be showing off a new shirt The Mrs made me one of those days.

Note: This is going to be a bit of a political rant, so if you only come here for the fluffy stuff you can stop reading now and I’ll see you next week. I do hope that you continue on.

Still here? OK.

My family is full of people who love humor. I hope that some of this gets passed on in my writing. Anyway, when my middle sibling was very little we had to teach them The Law of Diminishing Comedic Returns. More plainly put — the joke is less funny each time you tell it to the same person. They would learn a new joke and then repeat it over and over to the same crowd.

It’s a tough thing to learn, especially when you are in possession of a real knee slapper. You get the big yuks and you want that same response, so you try to get them again with the same material. Unfortunately, jokes don’t work that way. After the first few times you hear one, the humor response fades.

This is relevant because last weekend I was with some red caps (the political kind, not the gnome like creatures which kill you and dip their caps in your blood, although I can see why you might not be able to tell the two apart). I was told that the president’s repeated statements regarding Canada becoming the 51st state was a joke “and anyone who doesn’t get that takes things too seriously.”

Herein lies the problem. When you say something incredibly stupid like that as a joke, you might get a little uncomfortable laughter at first. When you say it over and over and over again, any humor the statement may have had is lost. Instead what you have is someone who is continuously talking about taking over someone else’s sovereign territory (see also Greenland, Panama, and handing Ukraine to the Russians) as a way of normalizing the idea.

At the risk of being called someone without a sense of humor and who takes things too seriously, I don’t think that the walking pile of cholesterol is actually trying to be funny. To me it sounds more like something creepy that someone says in hopes that someone will take them up on the suggestion and then tries to pass off as a joke when it falls flat. For example: “I didn’t really think that we should have a threesome with your fit sister. It was a fucking joke. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Unfortunately, I wasn’t comfortable calling bullshit in the particular situation that I was in, but a big part of me wishes that I had. I feel like by not speaking up, I have completely failed. That is something that I have been dwelling on all week. I mention it here to shed light on the fact that this is still a tactic the people associated with the current administration is using to rob people of their voices.

I will endeavor to be stronger in the future.