Solo Road Trip

I recently got to do a road trip solo, and it was well overdue.

You see, while there are many reasons to have passengers with you on a road trip – such as always having somebody available to push the car if it conks out because you haven’t changed the oil in about twenty-thousand miles – there are also multiple benefits to doing one solo. These include, but are not limited to, the following:

1.)    You can depart at any time, without having to wait for any riders to finish packing because they can’t determine just how many extra pairs of underwear to bring with them.

2.)    When your surefire shortcut adds three hours to your trip, nobody’s the wiser to your failings as a navigator.

3.)    If an eighty-seven year old lady passes you on the freeway, the incident will stay exclusively between you and her.

4.)    You can listen to whatever you want on the radio, even guilty pleasures such as John Denver or static.

5.)    You can stop for as many bathroom breaks as you see fit, which also allows you the freedom to consume as much coffee as you want.

6.)    You won’t feel as guilty if the seat next to you eventually fills up with the discarded wrappers of candy bars, fast food, chips, Little Debbies, and antacids.

7.)    You can sing out loud to the radio.

For the road trip that I just took, item #7 on the list was what I really took advantage of. You see, I live in the Twin Cities, where the average people-per-square-foot-of-land ratio sits roughly at 8. (This square foot is also shared with approximately eight-million mosquitoes, but that’s another story.) With such a dense population, it’s hard for me to find good times to sing in the car, since I always find myself surrounded by ten other vehicles - even when I’m in a carwash - and I tend to get stage fright if I know that others are watching me in my attempt to belt out “Amarillo By Morning.” (People also tend to think I’ve having some sort of attack when I’m trying to hit the high notes on “My Maria.”)

However, when traveling through the wilds of northern Wisconsin and Michigan, which is where my road trip was taking me, a person tends to have plenty of time to bellow out songs as loud as they want for as long as they want, just as long as they don’t mind deer giving them funny looks as they continually lunge out in front of the car.

Anyway, I took full advantage of my opportunity to sing, and I have to say that I was rusty. Songs I’d memorized the lyrics to years before had begun to disappear from my mind, leaving behind only fragments that I had to piece together the best I could via improvisation. (“On a warm summer’s evening, on a train bound for nowhere, I met up with a big bear, we were both on fire and weak…”) My voice, which was never that impressive to begin with, had eroded dramatically, to the point where I sometimes wondered if my engine was ceasing up – or perhaps exploding – as was I trying to sing the low parts to “Elvira.”

Still, despite my newfound failings, it was well worth it to just let it all hang out for a while. However, there was a price to be paid, as I finished the road trip with raw vocal cords, not to mention a rounder stomach, courtesy of a bit too much non-guilt snacking.

This leads me to a word of caution: If your self-control isn’t what you’d like it to be, try to limit your solo road trips to several times per year. If you don’t, you’ll probably end up with both laryngitis and the need to wear a girdle, and the eight-thousand mosquitos surrounding you in Minnesota will laugh at you for both.

The Shopping Alternative

As I’ve mentioned before, I hate to shop for clothes. In terms of desirability, it ranks right up there for me with root canals, spinning around in circles until I fall over, and One Direction.

Because of this, my current wardrobe is roughly as old as I am, which means that it’s in a state of rapidly accelerating decay, which can potentially lead to embarrassing situations. (“But I remember putting on pants this morning! Where’d they go?”)

This has left me with two choices, assuming that going to jail due to indecent exposure charges is something I’d rather avoid: Buying new clothes, or fixing the ones I already own.

Being a stubborn Finlander who likes to avoid both social contact and the expenditure of money, I’ve chosen the second option and recently began to fix – or perhaps the better term would be to “mend” – my rapidly dissolving wardrobe, all from the comfort of my own home.

In order to take up this task, I’ve fallen back on the skills I learned during middle school sewing class, ignoring the fact that my middle school cooking class skills haven’t exactly stuck with me over the years. (“Oh boy, this hamburger is getting out of control! Man your battle stations! I need one of those pokey-prong-thingies, and a knifeamajig!”)

Back in middle school, my main sewing accomplishment was the construction of a stuffed shark from a kit. I was rather happy with my work, proudly naming the shark San Jose. (I still like that name, even though nobody else ever did.) Unfortunately, ever since then, the world hasn’t lent me many opportunities to construct any additional stuffed sharks, which has left me rusty in the sewing department.

Still, I haven’t been intimidated.

Recently, I mended a pair of shorts, where the lining in the pocket had torn. Here’s a brief overview of how it went down:

For the first eight to ten hours, I attempted to thread the needle, which is at roughly the same difficulty level as spearing a mosquito out of the air with a toothpick while blindfolded. Luckily, I was working from the comfort of my own home, so my colorful language did not fall upon the ears of any young children. Eventually, I had to resort to the old man trick of taking off my glasses in order to see better. (You’ll only understand this when it happens to you, and then it’ll be too late.) The result was I was finally able to thread the needle, but at the expense of every last illusion I had of me retaining any vestige of my youth.

Then came the actual sewing. I had no idea what I was doing and just winged it, with my main goal being not to poke myself more than eight or nine times in the process. (I don’t know if I succeeded. I lost count due to weakness from blood loss.) My line of stitching had a cardiogram-type pattern to it, as it happily weaved its way here and there, sometimes not even joining together the two desired pieces of fabric. The end result was a sewing job usually associated with what’s holding together Frankenstein’s Monster’s various limbs.

However, despite the lack of intrinsic beauty, I was successful in my efforts! My shorts are now fixed and ready for action! The true test will be how long they last before either a new tear occurs or my patchwork stitching falls apart. Still, it’s better than buying new shorts. Plus, even if my sewing job doesn’t last long, I still have one more trick up my sleeve: duct tape.

Corporate Shenanigans

Well, I’ve run out of semi-interesting things to write about in this blog, so I’m now forced to discuss something that will either put you to sleep or make you run out of the room, shrieking at the top of your lungs: Work! I will, however, do my best to incorporate Darth Vader into the mix, so perhaps all is not lost. But no promises, and I advise you to have a pillow handy if you choose to read on.

Recently, I was at work, looking at a data file given to us by one of our clients. This file included names and addresses in it. However, this was a test data file, so the names and addresses were all made up. Included on said file were records for Curly, Larry, and Moe, along with one Igor Henchman, who lived on Frok and Steen Drive. Obviously, whoever had put the file together had been bored and decided to amuse himself by coming up with silly names. I got a good chuckle out of it, not only because it was humorous, but also because I’ve done the same thing at various times in my career.

For example, during a past job I spent some time working on my company’s career web site, where applicants apply for jobs online. While doing this, I had to create a lot of job applications in our test environment, which turned out to be extremely fertile ground for using silly names. I believe I started with country music singers, which led to Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash applying to be things such as business analysts or software developers. (“I used to be a singer, but then I realized my true calling was to sit in meetings all day long, scribbling down notes that I’ll never be able to decipher later on.”) I then moved on to fictional characters, and the likes of Indiana Jones and John Rambo were soon applying to be actuaries and accountants. (“After the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull fiasco, I had no choice but to get a job in corporate America.”)

Eventually, Darth Vader even got into the mix. (Address: 123 Death Star Drive, A Galaxy Far, Far Away, 67364) I tell you, there’s no better way to beat a bout of work boredom than by imagining Darth Vader getting a job as a junior mail clerk, where he’d push around a cart of mail and force-choke anybody who did annoying things, such as whistling in the elevator or talking on their phone while in a bathroom stall.

Yes, we office worker types are loads of fun, always looking for some way to amuse ourselves. Sometimes we’ll even go so far as to change the desktop background for somebody who left their cubicle without locking their computer. (“Aarrrggghhh!!!! It's Fabio!!!! Break the screen! Break the screen!") I know it sounds harsh, but when you’re living in a virtual Dilbert universe, you do what you must to stay sane.

Now, if only Daffy Duck would get that job as Vice President of Technology, then things would get more entertaining!

Cool Again

In a stunning turn of events that defy the laws of probability, on par with me being named World’s Best Dressed Man or Most Likely To Survive A Month In A Barren Wilderness Devoid Of Pizza Delivery, I have managed to lay a whupping on Father Time, by which I mean I’ve officially become cool again, even at an age where the highlight of my day is if my knees either snap, crackle, or pop, but not all three, when I get out of bed in the morning.

Cool, huh? And all it took was me being incredibly careless and almost destroying an expensive piece of technology.

It all started a few months ago when I was getting out of my car. Now, this is a maneuver that I’ve successfully executed countless times in row, ever since mastering not getting caught up in the seat belt, but on this particular day, fate had something else in store for me. I honestly don’t know exactly how it happened, but as I was swinging my legs out of the car, I somehow sent my cell phone flying out the door along with them. The result was a horrible grating clunk as the phone crashed down to the garage floor.

Gasping in horror, I picked it up to survey the damage, ready to initiate mouth-to-camera resuscitation, if necessary. Luckily, it was still working. However, the screen had been cracked. The damage began in the bottom left-hand corner, where the brunt of the impact had been absorbed, creating a dense spider-web of fracturing. From there, several cracks crawled up the screen, as if in a race to get to the top, before petering out three-quarters of the way up.

My first instinct was to fix or replace the phone. Luckily, I’m both cheap and lazy, and so I did no such thing. Instead, I took the path of least resistance and learned to live with it. Within days, I was hardly even noticing the damage anymore! It was kind of like when you have a beloved car that’s continually falling apart, but you choose to ignore all of its flaws simply because over the years it’s become almost a part of your family – or you’re just too cheap and lazy to fix it. You instead grow to accept its faults, such as the engine falling out several times a week, as nothing more than lovable quirks, and the situations that these faults keep getting you into, such as having the engine fall out on your way to the hospital so your wife can give birth, as zany adventures that you’ll continually laugh about over the years, assuming she backs away from all of that divorce talk.

This all leads up about a week or two ago, when I discovered that cracked cell phone screens are now all the rage with the young crowd. (Google it if you want proof.) Apparently, a cracked screen gives you a sort of street cred, which is something that I haven’t possessed since – well – ever. This was quite a welcome revelation to me, and as a result, I’m now pretty sure that I’ve become cool! (Disregard the fact that I learned about this latest trend while listening to NPR.)

So far, the only problem I’m having is that people don’t realize that I’ve become cool. This is because nobody ever sees my phone, because– unlike the youth population of today – I don’t spend ninety-five percent of my waking time posting unreadable status updates to the internet with it. Instead, it sits cozily in my pocket until I need it to make my next move in a game of Words With Friends with my mom.

But I have a plan: I think I’m going to get a holster and start wearing my phone on my belt. Then I can show off my cracked screen and thereby gain the street cred that I so richly crave. Hot dog, it’s gonna be great! By golly, I just can’t wait! Gee willikers, I can’t see how this plan could ever fail! But first, I should probably listen to more NPR.