Bodily Effluvia, Bizarre Dreams, and Silence

February 4, 2014Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I hate snot. Green snot, clear snot, yellow snot, brown snot, bloody snot. Snot out the nose. Snot out the mouth. Snot down the back of my throat. I’ve had it forever with snot.

Yet for the past four days, excessive snot, in all its disgusting, messy, and inconvenient forms, has been my sad reality.

Sunday I was tempted to grab a big piece of cardboard and a Sharpie and just write on it : CAN’T TALK / GO AWAY. When I’m feeling crappy I want to be left alone. Let me snot and sneeze and choke and spray snot chunks in relative peace. If I need something That Bad, I’ll go get it. Leave me alone to my vast stash of Nyquil and related patent remedies, so I can drift off to restless and strange dreams of swallowing aluminum cans, climbing mountains, and hanging out with the dude from Survivorman. That is not a good show to fall asleep to. Especially considering the dude eats bugs. That is not normal.

I know, lean protein, but ewwwwwwwwww!

I know that someone like me who is highly prone to a surplus of bodily effluvia of the mucoid kind should probably sell everything and move to the desert. The only problems with that are: 1.) Even if I sold everything I own, it wouldn’t get me much further than about Illinois, which is even worse than Ohio- worse climate, worse economically, etc. and so on. 2.) The desert, while dry, is HOT. I don’t do heat worth a tinker’s damn, especially since the Menopause Fairy has come to stay. I still get the wayward hot flash, even in below-freezing Central Ohio winter.

I’m stuck here, although I don’t refer to Central Ohio as the Armpit of North America any more. Not since I’ve been to Detroit. I’m not Catholic and I don’t believe in Purgatory, but if there were such a thing as Beezelbub’s Waiting Room, it would be located somewhere on 8 Mile Road. The greater Columbus area is paradise when compared to Detroit, or even Cleveland.

Clark Griswold wants to know: “Hey, kids, you see all this urban blight?”

Hint: It’s what happens when the gimme crowd takes over.

Not being able to talk has its advantages- once people get it that your voice has taken a hiatus they tend to leave you alone- but it has disadvantages as well.

It wasn’t very fun trying to communicate in the Sprint store on Saturday. My phone (admittedly it had gone long beyond its intended lifespan) bricked (bricked (v.) – to stop functioning, i.e. to effectively become a “brick.”) so I was more or less compelled to go to the Sprint store to get another phone so that communication with my son and other family members would still be possible. Even if I can’t talk, I can still text. If I have a working phone!!!

Even though the poor girl in the Sprint store probably had a hell of a time understanding me, she understood me well enough to retrieve my SD card from the old phone and transfer as much of my data as possible between the card and what I’d saved on Google. My old phone was old, but it was still an Android phone. It had some of the new amenities. Even so, now I know to save ALL my contacts to Google and not just here and there.

Thankfully (and with a much lighter wallet) I left with a working phone that I can text on and play my MP3s with. Well, a bit more than that. OK, so I let the tech geek in me have a bit of fun and I got the Note 3 that Steve-o was raving on and on about. I can draw pictures on it, and the camera’s better than my actual camera. I like it a lot, so far.

At least I can text…and then some.

I’ve been so choked up with snot that I’ve been without a voice pretty much since Saturday morning until this morning, and what little bit I have, is a little bit. I was able to drag my carcass in to work today which is a plus. I don’t like to call off on Mondays, but there’s no sense in coming in if I can’t talk to anyone and I’m blowing snot chunks all over them to boot. There’s also no sense in spreading whatever freaking germs are lurking in all that superfluous snot, although this time of year is a veritable germ smorgasbord no matter where you go or what you do. At least I wasn’t on the SS Montezuma’s Revenge like all those poor suckers who paid out the wazoo for cruises. I got good and infected right here at home, for free!

Which is worse? Shits or snots?

Even though I generally don’t get to pick, I think I can live with the shits better than the snots. Although neither are to be envied.

Suicide: I Sort of Understand- But- The Dirt Nap Awaits Us All

November 25, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

“And I usually drink my dinner!”

I really enjoyed Burgess Meredith’s performances in the “Grumpy Old Men” movies. I especially enjoyed the death reference from the movie “Grumpier Old Men”:

Grandpa:   What the… what the hell is this?
John:   That’s lite beer.
Grandpa:   Gee, I weigh ninety goddamn pounds, and you bring me this sloppin’ foam?
John:   Ariel’s got me on a diet because the doc said my cholesterol’s a little too high.
Grandpa:   Well let me tell you something now, Johnny. Last Thursday, I turned 95 years old. And I never exercised a day in my life. Every morning, I wake up, and I smoke a cigarette. And then I eat five strips of bacon. And for lunch, I eat a bacon sandwich. And for a midday snack?
John:   Bacon.
Grandpa:   Bacon! A whole damn plate! And I usually drink my dinner. Now according to all of them flat-belly experts, I should’ve took a dirt nap like thirty years ago. But each year comes and goes, and I’m still here. Ha! And they keep dyin’. You know? Sometimes I wonder if God forgot about me. Just goes to show you, huh?

Suicide isn’t a joke, even though I sort of understand the mentality behind wanting to just plain blot out. There have been times in my life when I’ve thought about it, and then the old Catholic teaching that suicide is a mortal sin sticks in my head. In old school Catholic thought, killing yourself is more or less similar to drawing the “go to jail” card in Monopoly, but with a twist:

I don’t know why, but this was always my visual for “Mortal Sin.”

The older I get, the more I realize that what seems like the end of the world really isn’t the end of the world. It might hurt like hell. It might be physical pain, or even chronic pain that never really goes away. It might be that nameless void in which there are no words or even tears, but only a sharp and consuming bolt of terror and sadness and longing that knocks your breath away. Even that is not the end of the world.

The older I get, the more tenaciously I cling to life- if only because experience has taught me that there is life (and good life to be had) even beyond the unspeakable, nameless void of grief, beyond the burning pain of rejection, beyond the uncertainty of worldly trappings, and even in the endurance of chronic physical pain.

Hell? Or is it just Detroit?

I know it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, especially when you’re a fifteen year old kid and all you’ve ever known is deprivation and loss and a sad sense of being unworthy of sucking up valuable oxygen. I’ve been there.

I don’t know exactly what kind of despair was behind the recent teen suicides here in central Ohio. I know I wouldn’t want to be a high school kid today, but things sucked back in my world too. We faced an uncertain future. There were people like me with thick glasses and bad clothes and geeky habits who were just about as popular as stepping in dog shit on a hot day, but we survived. Some of us went on to thrive, although in my case I wouldn’t claim any kind of stellar, charmed life- but it’s life. I’ll take what I can get and give what I can give and at the end of the day, that’s all.

I don’t have the answers. I’m not God, which is a good thing, because if I controlled the world it would be pretty much unrecognizable. There would be a lot of buff dudes in Spandex, and no such thing as rap music. That much I could guarantee, but then again I am not the one in control.

There is a certain amount of peace in accepting that there are some questions that will never be answered and some concepts that I was never designed to understand. I don’t have much comfort or solace for those who survive after a loved one commits suicide except to say that there is life beyond the breathless void, and that some day there will be good life beyond that void. I will also say that God is big enough to take whatever anger and frustration and pain that you are willing to surrender to Him.

Our time is short. That doesn’t necessarily disturb me too much. I’ve been close to death, and I’m not afraid to die. I don’t like the prospect of suffering and pain and I understand that there are times when death would be a relief and a comfort. As far as I can tell, as of right now, I’m not there yet.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls…

At Least It Wasn’t Detroit, and the Art of the Impromptu Road Trip

March 11, 2013Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

I enjoy the rare and tasty privilege of an impromptu road trip, but I’ve not gotten to take one on my own terms for a long time. This was not a trip I took on my own terms. I can’t think of anyone who says to him or herself, “Gee, I’d like to go up to Lansing, MI for shits and grins.” It’s not abysmal as Detroit or Cleveland, but it’s not what I would call a tourist destination either. There’s enough ghettos in Columbus without having to drive 270 miles one way to visit another one. Even so, I can look a little bit on the bright side. There is one memorable thing about the mid-Michigan area I like well enough that I’d love to see it come to central Ohio.

Normally I enjoy trying mom & pop local places when I travel, as I’m pretty open minded about food, but Steve-o can be very hard to please and quite difficult about food. Even so, he grew a pair on the way back and took my suggestion to try a local sub chain called Big John’s. The steak, cheese and mushroom (#4) sub is to die for. If you go, be sure to try the red sauce. Even Steve-o enjoyed his sandwich- and it’s rare to get a good food review from a guy who is very fussy about food and will seldom eat at any restaurant other than Taco Bell.

Now THIS is a sandwich!

As I said earlier, awesome steak subs aside, I would still have to have a compelling reason to go anywhere in Michigan. Michigan is NOT a vacation destination, IMO, except for the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, and even then one should remember you have to go through Detroit to get to Dearborn, and you should also remember that anywhere in that area apart from being directly on the museum grounds is highly, highly unsafe. You couldn’t pay me enough money to be anywhere near Detroit at night, even though an Ohio CCW is also valid in Michigan. I only have five rounds.

I don’t see it happening anytime soon, but should I ever have to end up in Lansing again for any reason, I will be sure to remember Big John’s. I will try to forget that Dad and Steve-o and Spencer ended up staying in yet another roach motel, and that half of the city looks like a war zone. Perhaps I didn’t see the right part of the city. I know there are neighborhoods right here in Columbus that look almost as bad. If all I saw in Columbus was the near east side I’d think it was a hole too.

Plenty of law enforcement are always down in this hizzy!

Saturday night I get a very late call (10:30 PM, and yes, that’s late for me to be getting phone calls) and wouldn’t have bothered to answer it except for it was Steve-o and he knows better than to wake me up at night unless either a.) someone’s on the way to the ER, b.) someone’s dead, or c.) he has a catastrophic need that if unaddressed will lead to a. or b.

Now I know why I was so wigged out about Dad taking either one of their aged and increasingly unreliable vans to NC last summer, and I’d managed to talk him into letting me drive them down there.

The oil pressure sending unit failed on the van. GM vehicles are rather notorious for this- especially the 3.4 V6, and any vehicle with 200K (especially an aging GM van) on it is pretty much on borrowed time to begin with. That van is at the point where I would be surprised if it didn’t have a catastrophic failure on any road trip of more than 20 miles or so.

When an OPS fails, it’s almost always the high pressure unit, which on a 3.4 is only accessible with the vehicle on a rack, and then only after the starter’s been removed. Pretty. The sensor itself comes apart, and then suddenly the vehicle’s spewing oil all over the engine compartment- at 60 PSI. Worse yet, there’s no way to know when one of these is going to fail. Age can be a factor, but even so, I’ve seen these rude dudes fail on vehicles with less than 100 miles on them.

Two very bad things can happen if one continues to drive a vehicle with a failed OPS. One of course, is that Al Gore and the greenies aren’t going to be happy with you, because you’re blowing motor oil all over God’s creation, including your engine compartment, windshield, mirrors, back glass and all over the ten cars behind you. The other is that if the oil pressure drops too low (and it inevitably will, since you’re blowing oil out the side of the engine) the lifters will fail to be lubricated and the valves will start seizing up which can lead to the cylinder head warping and/or head gasket failure. That’s bad, but if the oil completely runs out, the crankshaft will no longer be lubricated, which will cause the crank to overheat and seize, potentially blowing a connecting rod through the engine block, which means there is no fixing that- save for replacing the entire engine assembly.

Cliff’s notes version for the non-motorhead: If you smell oil or see it spattering on your windshield, shut it off. NOW. Call AAA. You are very likely screwed. Especially if you didn’t shut it off right away.

Fortunately the boys knew exactly what was happening. They knew that if they ran it out of oil they were done. Even more fortunately, it happened about a mile from the hotel where they were staying.

The only thing about the hotel was it wasn’t terribly sanitary. Poor Spencer had brought his swim trunks, but the pool wasn’t clean enough for him. Spencer is not prissy, so I am assuming this pool was pretty gross.

An indoor pool is a beautiful thing- if it’s clean.

They had a place to stay the night, but the shower was filthy, the bed sheets looked as if they might have been changed sometime when Jimmy Carter was president, and someone had used the roof outside the window as a party patio. The window screen was broken and there were several empty liquor bottles standing on the roof when they got there.

Even better, for Dad, they found a Firestone across from the hotel who managed to work them in to get the sensor changed out so he could get to the swap meet they were going to, and so they could get back home. I took Steve-o back home early so I would be sure he would be back in time to go to work. The van managed to make it back with Dad and Spencer, although they’ve got some serious powerwashing to do.

Maybe the next time I go on a road trip I’ll get to go somewhere fun, but for going somewhere not particularly fun, it wasn’t a bad trip. It got me out of the house and to somewhere different, and that’s saying something.

Don’t Wanna, Can’t Make Me, and Sweet Dreams are Made of These

February 6, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

So, for a brief sanity break, leave those who were raised by wolves to figure things out for themselves from time to time.

The zoo calls that “enrichment” time for the animals. Let the bears dig their dinner out of a bucket instead of just putting it in front of them. It makes their lives more fun. Or at least, it makes it more fun for the humans to watch.

I strive to have high standards for myself, but I don’t really expect much from rest of the world. I know that might sound arrogant, but should I expect anything from anyone, even if I spell it out clearly, odds are that they will disappoint. The old axiom, “if you want it done right, do it yourself,” certainly does apply in my life, although I should re-word it a bit for the 21st century.

“If I want it done at all, I better do it.”

If I keep my standards low, then when someone actually does perform adequately or appropriately, I am pleasantly surprised. It’s sort of a twisted way of looking at the glass as being half full.

Of course there are some things I could give a rat’s ass less whether they’re done or not, because they just don’t make an appearance on my priority list.

I’m not a sports fan. I struggle to commit to regular workouts for my health’s sake. I’m still trying to learn to enjoy exercise. I appreciate being able to go to the Y and use the machines and the pool there, but the only person I compete against as far as fitness or athletic (in)ability is myself.

I will make time to work out, but I still don’t care to watch sports. Especially next month when they will be clogging up TruTV with that March Madness basketball mess. I know some people want to watch basketball, but why on the same channel that “World’s Dumbest” is on? Why not cut a few of the late night pecker pump infomercials and have basketball on then?

I can’t say I am a huge fan of constantly dusting things either. I don’t dust as often as I should, but dusting is one of those exercises in futility that I positively loathe. Jerry is a constant smoker, which creates even more dust than what would be in a normal house. That nasty nicotine encrusted film covers everything in the house. If I get to it, I get to it, but it’s not one of my really compelling priorities. I can dust the whole frigging house from top to bottom and the filmy sludge will return in less than a day. To me that seems like an insane waste of time, which reminds me of poor Sisyphus. We the unwilling, doing the impossible for the ungrateful. Sometimes I think I have more in common with Sisyphus than I’d like to acknowledge.

I know I torqued Jerry off last night by not fixing him dinner, however, he has spent the last few days being particularly obnoxious. Last night I did make a special trip to get him chocolate milk. That favor was greeted with a tirade about how he had to get up and lock the door. I was gone for five minutes, in broad daylight, and the door leading into the kitchen was locked. The outside door was unlocked because it’s a little easier to only have to dig for one key- once you’re already in the foyer- when it’s cold and your hands are full. But since His Nibs doesn’t do anything that might involve carrying in groceries or anything like that, he wouldn’t know.

It’s my own fault for being too nice.

Here’s a lovely little slice of paradise. Or it would be, if there were a pool and a pool boy.

The bad thing about me and utopian scenes is that I’m always the one who cues in on the one nasty thing in the picture. For me the idyllic scene above becomes:

This would be the kind of dream I have. Everything is perfect for a minute, and then there’s flaming porto johns, Richard Simmons, and flatulence-provoking taco references.

Now here would be my definition of a nightmare:

It would be my luck that when I die I’ll end up in Detroit.

Some Enchanted Rednecks, A Few of My Favorite Things, and Improved is My Mood

October 3, 2012Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

I’m not generally the kind of person that goes around spouting sunshine out of my nether regions. At best I’m pragmatic. At worst I’m downright fatalistic, and that’s when the panic attacks and confusion set in. Anxiety sucks. I’ve taken that trip before, and I do NOT want to go there. The past few days I’d been heading down that dark spiral, and letting things get on my nerves entirely too much, but today things are looking up. I attribute the improvement in my mental/emotional state to the positive power of prayer. Despite my dark mood last night, I dragged myself to my bible study class, and as usual, the conversation and the study material was both timely and spoke to my own dissatisfaction and melancholy. There are times when I need a bit of a nudge to keep from falling into the same boring rut and despair. After all, I have much to be thankful for, and I do have some activities to look forward to.

Saturday night I’m taking Steve-o to the Mansfield Reformatory. This is the old prison where the movie Shawshank Redemption was filmed. On the surface that sounds terrible, and normally the words prison and fun should never go together, but there’s an event called the Dead Walk that’s held around Halloween every year where you get to go through the prison, and legend has it, get the holy bejeebers scared out of you. I love Halloween and all things slasher (I’m the only one Steve-o could get to take him to the Saw movies) so it should be a cool trip.

Zombies are awesome. I’ll have to find a DVD of Shaun of the Dead to enjoy at the campground.

Next week I have actually arranged to take my three sanity days (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) and I’m taking Clara down to the campground for some peace and quiet. Since the campground is pretty deserted during the week- especially in the off season- I want Clara with me. If I want to use the phone there I have to go to the top of the hill, and even then Sprint access is sporadic.

Nobody gets past Clara. Unless she approves.

Clara, on the other hand, is always alert, and I would have have plenty of advance notice should anyone turn up unannounced. So all I need to do is bring some DVDs, some reading material, the MP3 player, clean clothes and toiletries and stop off at the grocery store in town for a few days’ meal fixings and it’s all cool. Hopefully Jerry won’t ruin the blissful silence by coming down there. Then I’ll end up driving five miles one way to fetch his beer, smokes, lottery tickets and so forth, whenever he runs out of any of those. My dream vacation- driving into the nearest town at all hours to fetch for Jerry. I’d rather be at work. It sounds mean, but a vacation with him is just work for me. He gets plenty of rest at home. I’m always doing his leg work for him. He doesn’t need a vacation. The idea here is for me to get away and not be pestered. However, I have a bad feeling he’s going to end up going down there. If he stays home he might actually have to fix a meal, or heaven forbid, cart his own happy ass to the drive thru that’s just down the road (well within walking distance) to replenish his beer, smokes and lottery ticket needs.

Jerry, it’s not like we live in the ‘hood. The drive-thru is not in Detroit on 8 Mile Road for heaven’s sake.

I’ve been on 8 Mile Road in Detroit. Jerry had bought some wheels on E-Bay from someone up there on local pick up. The dude lived in a very horrible neighborhood, which we didn’t realize until we got up there. I had both doors locked on the truck, and even at a stop light I kept it in first with the clutch in, ready to take off quick should the truck be jumped- and this was in broad daylight. Suffice to say it appears to be a war zone, and so far is the only place I’ve ever been in my life that is worse than both Cleveland and East St. Louis. I never lost anything in Detroit and have no desire to go back there. I did enjoy the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, but even getting there requires one to drive in places one should never attempt to drive- unless you have an armored car.

I’m pretty sure Steve-o wasn’t trolling about in the CVS looking for cosmetics.

I’d warned Steve-o about the diversity he might experience in the area around Children’s Hospital when the baby had to go there a few months ago. We used to live near that area but now the hospital has bought up a good deal of the real estate, and what’s left has either been “gentrified” (aka: made too expensive for rednecks to live there) or ironically, taken over by crack-heads. Steve-o wanted to walk over to the CVS to get smokes and pop with sugar in it (which they don’t sell in the hospital) so I cautioned him to watch his back because he’s used to rural locales and rural rednecks. Steve-o no sooner arrives at the CVS when a rather effeminate man taps him on the shoulder and whispers, “Honey, I’ve got just what you need.” Steve-o is not a small guy, and he’s also not shy. Steve-o looked the little dude in the eye, shaked his fist, and replied, “I’ve got just what you need right here.” Fortunately there was no altercation. I don’t care about other’s lifestyle choices, but the mommy-claws still kind of come out on that one, which is weird, because Steve-o is perfectly capable of fending off unwanted attention. It’s still creepy – at least to me.

Other people’s lifestyle choices don’t bother me as long as they’re not shoved in my face. I could care less- until or unless the bull dykes hit on me. So far that hasn’t happened, and I am glad for it. Then I might have a problem, should a simple “I’m straight,” fail to deflect unwanted advances. I probably won’t ever have to worry about it. I don’t get hit on by men either.

I am no paragon of good parenting skills, but at least I never did this.

Steve-o did get himself duct-taped to a core support once, when he was about nine, but that’s his just dessert for mouthing off to the guys at the body shop. Nine year old boys do tend to exaggerate their ass-kicking skills a bit much. I only wish I’d gotten a pic of him hanging off the core support of that F-150. Call me a mean mommy, but I made him beg and plead and cry “Uncle” so the guys would cut him down. I hope that didn’t warp him any more than he warped the guy who he decorated with a Sharpie. I guess it’s not good to be the first guy to pass out at a party, at least if it’s a party Steve-o is attending. His buddy woke up with the word “PENIS” emblazoned on his forehead in black Sharpie, backward, so he could read it clearly when he looked in the mirror.

If this is how some people treat their friends…

Stygian Heat (Hope and Pray the Power Stays On) and Odds and Ends

July 7, 2012Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

Might as well eliminate the middleman. Or at least find a reason for Americans to have bidets. This porcelain fixture looks similar, but actually isn’t a toilet.

Power outages in the summer are both more frequent and more devastating than winter outages, at least in my world. In winter, one can move the contents of the fridge and freezer out in the garage. Problem solved. In summer, if the power’s out for more than an hour or two you’re screwed- all the food you had in the fridge and freezer is no longer safe to eat, and you have a nasty ass mess to clean up. In winter, one can always light a fire in the fireplace (yes, I actually know how to do this correctly, without using gasoline or other accelerants) and gain both heat and light. In winter one can always put on more clothes, and even grab a nice warm dog. In summer, you’re screwed again. No A/C, no fans, and who in the hell wants to light a fire to get some light when it’s already 120° in the house? One can only remove so many clothing items, and it is possible to be stark raving naked and still in the throes of heat stroke.

It can and occasionally does get extremely hot here in beautiful Central Ohio. The humidity is the worst part of it. Today it’s difficult to even draw a breath outside. I’ve got the dogs on a strict outside time table of five minutes when it’s hotter than 85°. The last thing I need is for one of the girls to get heat stroke, because dogs can die of it even more quickly than humans. Dogs have no sweat glands, and panting isn’t a terribly efficient cooling method. Add to the mix that my girls are large (therefore at higher risk for heat stroke due to body mass) and two of them have thick coats. They have access to cool water at all times and are in the A/C almost constantly when the temperature is over 85°. It’s not easy for them either, because they would rather be outside in the daytime. Their excursions into the great outdoors right now are limited to potty breaks and an hour or so in the yard in the relative cool of the morning. They don’t like it.

I hope and pray our power stays on. Usually when we have had power outages they have been corrected rather quickly. Being on the same grid as the airport has its advantages in some ways. We did have about a day and a half of no power back in 2004 when there was a really bad ice storm on Christmas Eve and the transformer outside the house burned up, but at least we were able to use the fireplace and keep the perishables out in the garage, so it wasn’t terribly tragic. It is tragic right now for people whose power has been out for the past week. I don’t want to imagine how miserable they are. The Red Cross set up a cooling shelter at my church so some people can at least come to get cooled down in the heat of the day.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so paranoid, but I’ve gotten to go to the ER twice in my life for heat stroke. I don’t wish for a third. The first was when I was 7 years old and attempting to play softball in 100° weather while also sporting flaming blistering sunburn (second degree burns) on my face, neck and arms. I don’t remember much about the ER visit other than after getting the obligatory IV bag of fluids in the hospital. When I got home the “cure” for the wicked burns was that I was forced to take Aveeno baths three times a day, and then get slathered with zinc oxide in an attempt to dry up the oozing blisters from the sunburn for about two weeks. This rather unpleasant treatment did prevent scarring. Sunscreen was not commonly known or used back in the summer of 1976.

There are people in this world who Do Not Tan. I am one of them. I do freckle, blister and splotch though.

The second time I had heat stroke it was a lot worse, but I’d been out in the heat longer too. The nurse found it necessary to actually cut into the veins in my wrist in order to start an IV line as I was badly dehydrated. I’d come back from working a temporary job- outside all day in the hot sun holding up signs of all things- (the things a college kid will do for $8.50/hr, but in 1987 that was a small fortune) and then ended up stranded on a freeway bridge in my old ’77 Rabbit that had no A/C to begin with, then it stalled out with vaporlock. Vaporlock was extremely common in VW’s with the old CIS injection systems, especially on the very early ones (’77 was the first year for that system) that had most inadequate fuel pressure accumulators. I knew what it was, but the car wasn’t going to move under its own power until the fuel lines cooled down enough to allow the fuel to return to a liquid state. It was 98° and 100% humidity, so all you do is sweat and drip and the water just pours out of your body to no avail. There is no evaporation and no cooling going on, just your blood boiling and the fluids escaping one’s body, so you stew and stink in a hot sticky paste of your own sweat. By the time the cops got to me and convinced me to get out of the car, I had the most intense, blinding headache one can dare to imagine, and I was too weak to stand. One thing interesting about heat stroke. Right before you black out you get this sense that you’re going to die- and you’re cool with it- because then the headache will go away.

No one thinks about his/her fuel pump. Until it stops working.

By the time Dad’s buddy had retrieved my car, the vaporlock in the fuel line had resolved itself. The car fired up and ran perfectly after its 40 mile tow, which infuriated Dad even more- after driving 40 miles to retrieve me from the hospital (of course I was out of town) and then having to pay his buddy $75 to tow the car. Dad was pissed to the point that the top of his head was a hot tomato red. (Dad has been pretty much bald except for a slight fringe on the sides and back of his head since he was about 30.) I don’t know if he was more pissed at me for going out of town on such a hot day even though I had gone to do some temporary work to try to earn some extra money (I got a check for a whole $80- see how that backfired) or because he knew about the problem with the fuel accumulators on those cars and he hadn’t bothered to replace mine. Why VW never got the idea to put the fuel pumps in the fuel tank like every other vehicle manufacturer is beyond me- it keeps the fuel cooler than an inline pump and avoids the hot fuel condition that leads to vaporlock in the first place- but VW has always been a bit weird.

Sometimes I wonder why I live in Ohio, but then I remember I can’t afford to leave. Even so, the grass is always blacker somewhere else. I can take some small comfort in my geographical location today. At least I don’t live in Detroit.

Independence Day, Historical Education and Various Curiosities

July 5, 2012Tonya Lanthron 4 Comments

I think this poster to be a fitting theme for Independence Day. I don’t particularly want to be a subject of King Obama I any more. Neither should anyone else with a brain. Wake the eff up people!!!!

Oh, and WTF has this post not been saving for some bizarre reason? This is attempt #3 and it’s really pissing me off.

Yesterday, because it was too hot for me to spend more than a few seconds outside, I spent most of the day watching the History Channel’s series on the American Revolution, and I learned many interesting facts that either I had forgotten or that were hastily glazed over back when I studied American History in 7th grade. I have a new sense of admiration for George Washington and his perserverance after watching that series.

Ronald Reagan took office when I was in 7th grade, (January 20, 1981) which was probably the most memorable event of 7th grade for me, so suffice to say a lot of time has passed since then. I doubt if I had paid as much attention as I should have to history when I was 12 (I was probably paying more attention to Steve Perry than anything else at that time) but I probably remember more than most.

Now I really have to wonder about something. Why is it the three biggest holes that I have had the bad luck to visit- Cleveland, Chicago and Detroit- have the most corrupt, nut job politicians ever? Dennis Kucinich, until very recently, represented the Congressional district that includes Cleveland and the surrounding area. Granted, Cleveland is not the biggest hole on the planet – Chicago is worse, and Detroit is the worst by far- but why do they keep reelecting nut jobs that help ensure that their hole stays a hole?

The only explanation I have, at least in Ohio, is the fact that public employees are pretty much owned by their unions- the unions drove out almost all of the heavy industry years ago, and with the exception of the UAW and a few others in private industry, the bulk of forced unionism in Ohio involves public employees. So the unions have this huge base of campaign funding for their nut job candidates from their forced membership. Sadder yet, is that the large majority of public employees in Ohio buy all the garbage their union PACs try so hard to sell. Right to Work would solve some of the problem of high taxation and government waste and graft in Ohio, but with the captive audience and deep pockets the public employees’ unions have here, I hate to say there will be snowball fights in hell before that happens. I am sure that most public employees in Ohio would be delighted to know that they have funded (and are funding) the Obama campaign, and they paid for our friend, Dennis Kucinich’s long tenure in Congress as well.

Ok, Dennis, we know if we wear our foil hats the Visitors can’t read our brain waves. But Karl Marx still can. He seems to be communicating with you just fine.

I had to deal with bottle rockets in the Cougar Pool again. Now I think there’s a slow leak in the retaining ring that has caused most of the water to spill out too. Beauty. Ohio’s fireworks laws are really weird. You can buy almost any firework known to man in Ohio- and the rednecks in the Drunk and Domestics do- as long as you sign a form that says you’ll be setting them off out of state. Right…. These rednecks are going to go 100 miles in any direction to go across the border to set off their Roman candles, bottle rockets, etc. That’s not happening.

I like fireworks as much as the next redneck, but not in town, and not when it disturbs my dogs so deeply. I spent most of last night with a 65#, 101.6° bunkie, which was rather hot considering that it’s 95° outside at 10PM and the air conditioner is struggling to keep up.

Even poor Clara, the proud Malinois, is reduced to cowering up in Mommy’s bed when all that loud noise kicks in. Sheena, however, does not give a damn. She got all the pork rinds Jerry was giving out last night.

I wish Obama would stay out of Ohio. It might cool down a bit when he leaves.

I’ve heard enough, thanks. Go home.

ELYSIANHUNTER, ALWAYS INCITEFUL:

Because comedy is the flipside of tragedy

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