When Life Gives You A Lemon... Part I

The bad 'Car'ma continues.   Bum bum bummmmmmmm!  The new van apparently does not like freezing temperatures and has a thermostat that sticks when it gets below 10 degrees.  Of course, I now live in Minnesota, it's the winter and my car threatens to overheat on a semi-regular basis.  The thermostat sticks the engine heats up, the temperature spikes, a warning light comes on and I have to pull over, fiddle with some knobs, and wait for the thermostat to un-stick.  Meanwhile, the heat isn't working correctly as a side effect of the issue. 

Will this car be different?  Apparently not.

Yay, what fun!  The other night it took me almost 3 times as long to get home because I had to keep pulling over to the side of the rode and killing the engine.  It was 0 degrees.  Yesterday I warmed the car up, and I use the term loosely because it never warmed up, and after 45 minutes the vents were still blowing cold air, the temperature gauge was too high and I was going to be late for work.  I thought I'd be more comfortable sitting in my driveway than on the side of the road.  Turns out I was wrong and freezing your ass off sucks no matter where your car is parked.  Eventually I was chauffeured to work by my loving family whom cut short their trip to the library to drive me to work.  Luckily, Evie Sue was very understanding and not upset about it in the least.  Oh, but she wasn't.

My 4 year old is a noisy, noisy child.  Whether she is talking too loud with headphones on, screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs just because she wants a cookie, or inanely babbling and shrieking in the backseat of the van as I try to keep an eye on the temperature gauge, fearing a breakdown, she always seems to be existing at an elevated volume with no desire for silence whatsoever.    Sometimes I reach my limits and I want to shout over her nonsensical chatter and tell her to shut her ever-loving mouth!  I want to jam pencils into my ears so I do not ever have to hear her singing songs from Frozen!  I try my best not to say anything too scarring in my moments of weakness. 

I'd like to go on record right now as saying, '"I'm sorry," to my father.  (There are probably countless things I could be apologizing for but in this instance I would like to apologize for being loud and obnoxious as a child and then not understanding why my father did not think I was wonderfully creative and/or fabulous every waking moment).  When I was a child my father would often say to me, "Rest your mouth, son!"  We could be watching television together, on a road trip, or even at the dinner table and at some point my father would pass his threshold for all things relating to me, my sense of humor and senseless babbling... "Rest your mouth, son!"  I would close my mouth, set my jaw in a defiant sneer and swear to never utter another knock knock joke, Pee Wee Herman impression, or ever give him the honor of hearing my voice ever again... Ever!  This resolution in actuality, probably, never lasted longer than a few minutes and then I was off again, flapping my gums.

Now, as an adult, father of 2 girls, and in-arguably still a loud and obnoxious tool I too have discovered a threshold for loudness and youth.  I get it finally and therefore would like to apologize to my father for ever vilifying you in the past when you would calmly request that I rest my mouth when you actually wanted to, simultaneously, slap me upside the head, shake me...hard, scream at me to shut the hell up, and stuff a sweaty sock in my gob.  I am sorry.

In another bit of unrelated news I have recently discovered A History of the World In 100 Objects.  It is a podcast that chronicles the history of the world using 100 objects found in the British Museum which you would've known if you just clicked on the link I pasted in this post.  Each episode is about 15 or 16 minutes long.  It's worth a listen if you have some time to kill while you're waiting for your piece of shit car to warm up in subzero weather.