A Snarky Remarky

Vermont’s governor, Jim Douglas, has recently proposed making the state’s motor vehicle inspection a bi-yearly, rather than yearly, requirement. Coming from a state that long since did away with such requirements, I think this is one good step toward eliminating a purely-unnecessary, revenue-generating, quasi-bureaucratic, corrupt racket that is sanctioned by this state. Here’s the story of my first VT state motor vehicle inspection.

In 2003, Matea and I were more than happy to get all of our official Vermont documentation, including driver’s license, registrations, tags, and anything else that meant we were bona fide residents of the state. After acquiring a boastfully thick folder of documentation, we had left only to inspect the two cars. Now, limping Matea’s Taurus named “Turtle” from SC to VT was a story of its own—I drove it from PA to VT with the brake lights stuck in the on position— but Matea had been able, quite amazingly, to make this repair by herself in our driveway. So we were certain that these two competent, well-traveled sedans would gain the good favor of any inspector who took a good look at their unmentionables. So, I picked the first authorized inspector in the book: A. Brown Automotive. Several hours after dropping the car off, Mr. Brown called me back to say that, prior to passing inspection, I would need several hundred dollars more in diagnostics to reveal the reason for my check engine light’s being illuminated. I politely informed him that I had memorized the entire inspection manual before bringing my car to him and that, according to section so-and-so, vehicles manufactured before 1996 are not subject to the engine light diagnostic rule. After a slight pause, this monumental a-hole A. Brown snarkily responded, “well, maybe you should become an inspector, then.” The nerve! I calmly asked him to cease and desist in working on my car and told him that I would be there promptly to pick it up. Now, in this state, even when the car “fails” inspection, you still have to pay for the time the highly-qualified master mechanics spent checking it out. Fair enough. But Mr. Brown’s snotty satisfaction with this fact soon turned to glowering disgust when I slapped down my $10 off phone book coupon to bring the total for my troubles down to a mere $5. Take that, A. Wipe!

My second attempt was with a chain I knew, Meineke Car Care (because I trust their spokesman George Foreman implicitly). I pre-paid my $19 and talked the engine light rule over with the lead mechanic. We were on the same page when I left the shop. Alas, several hours later I received the call of death. The clear plastic on the headlights was a little too cloudy for their liking. $600 for new plastic or we would fail again. Mind you, Matea and I came up here directly after college, with no jobs, living on nothing but love and fresh air. We didn’t have the money to go around to every shop in the state to find an honest inspector, let alone to pay for new glasses or exploratory surgeries for our auto-children!! So we left again with no yellow sticker.

I had become frustrated, exhausted, cheated, decapitated...wait... I realized that I was at the mercy of “state-authorized” inspectors whose true first objective was to make money on questionable repairs. Twenty-four dollars in the hole, I made a few more phone calls and found one last shop that had cheap hourly labor rates. I crossed my fingers that they would not be such money grubbing criminals as the last two proprietors I had visited. To my utter joy, after just 30 minutes in the waiting room, I was informed that my baby had finally received the gold star of acceptance. I had but one hurdle to cross before she could don the brilliant yellow number 8 like the rest of her peers. Her front license plate had been riding in the back seat for weeks, as there was no holder for it on my front bumper. In good ole SC, we didn’t have a front license plate required by the state; although, if you loved Jesus, college football, or bass fishing, there did seem to be some requisite plateage for that. But here in Vermont, they like to have every chance at catching the bad guys (I think there are actually 6 bad guys in this state), so we must attach the reflective green identifiers to both ends of our vehicles. So rather than forking over another $15 for them to attach it for me, I knelt down in the greasy gravel of the Burlington Muffler and Brake parking lot and drove two large screws through my pristinely virgin front bumper. This was surprisingly difficult, given the fact that I had no starter holes and I was using a “chubby” (i.e. 3-inch-long) screw driver. Some of you know how red my face can get when I’m very hot or aggravated, so by the time I got back to my feet, front license crookedly but acceptably installed, the combination of the two had brought my cheeks to a hue much like Tammy Faye’s Sunday morning lipstick. Nevertheless, my zippy ‘94-model 626 and I were finally all official-like and on our way home for some much-needed r&errr...vodka. (Tip: I now patronize Champlain Valley Auto on the corner of Williston Rd. and Industrial Ave., where they give quick and trustworthy fifteen-dollar inspections.)

So, in case this entry isn’t already long and boring enough, and in case you all need my perspective on a few more VT driving nuisances, here are a couple of others that come to mind. Is it a law that Vermont parking lots have only one or very few exits? I have been trapped in these asphalt labyrinths for minutes on end before finally finding my way out. For instance, there’s only one exit from Price Chopper on Shelburne Rd., one way out of Linen’s N Things and the Hannaford-Bed Bath and Beyond complex in Williston. If they’re going to make exiting retail outlets so difficult, they could at least be as courteous as the British and throw in a couple of signs that say “Way Out.” Also, why can’t the state trust me to turn left at an intersection with a light? I often find myself idling, alone at the intersection, in one of two situations. The left-hand turn arrow is red but the straight lanes of traffic on my side are green, with no traffic coming in either direction. Or, the lights in all four directions are red, seemingly forever, while the pedestrian walk light chirps cheerily, presumably for all the lost (and blind) ghost men of our childhood kickball games, since there’s no visible human within a mile radius of the crosswalk. If I can use my judgment in turning left along the rest of a 4-lane road, why not at a green light, too? I don’t need a little arrow to tell me the next fleet of on-coming Subarus is still 600 feet away!!

I hate to gripe (actually, you all know I love griping more than almost anything) but really...oh, and one more thing: who’s ever heard of a “jug handle”?

P.S.
This is a much longer story that I’m sure none of you wants to hear (much like the post above), but I thought I may as well issue a caveat emptor while I was on the subject of cars. I am much enamored with my Belle, a 2005 Malibu Maxx LT. I wouldn’t say I was overly-thrilled to be purchasing a Chevy as my first new car, but Belle is special, and everyone who rides in her comments on her mien and temperament. Anyway, to make a long story short, I had a still-unidentified problem with the transmission and neither Chevrolet nor the dealership that did all of my warranty work would stand by the car. After hours and hours and hours on the phone and in person, I (i.e my mechanically-knowledgeable father) got the dealership to cap my financial obligation at $400 (I should have paid nothing). So, my warning is that Chevrolet will not stand by its product. But in particular, Shearer Chevrolet on Shelburne Road has the worst, most incompetent service writers and mechanics that I have ever encountered (they once left a piece of pizza on my engine block during a simple oil change). I believe they outright lie, and I would not purchase a car there if you can help it. Ok, enough car talk.

Gay Tax We Paid This Year

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One thousand, eight hundred dollars.

Thanks, federal government!

Embarrassing Admission #49

When I was 11, my family built a house and moved from our kid-packed neighborhood out to the middle of the country. Before we began construction, we spent countless, intolerable hours (for a kid) “visiting the property.” I suppose my parents were surveying the 38 acres for a perfect building spot, etc., but my brother and I cared nothing for those details. We explored all the woods and streams there were to see and tried to keep ourselves occupied. We shot fire ant hills with our sling shots. One night—I don’t know where Charlie was—out of boredom, I thought it would be a good idea to play with the mace in my mother’s purse. Pretty soon…yes, you guessed it. It ended the only way it could have, with me accidentally spraying myself in the face. I have to give it to myself, though. I bore it in silence, and my mom didn’t find out until many years later.

I suffered other impunities while waiting around there at “the property,” but those shall be revealed in future entries.

How to Penetrate a Pool of Agar Agar-Firmed Panna Cotta

Dinner was prepared for me last night by a dear friend/family member/acquaintance/stranger (ambiguity protects anonymity). It was delicious: fake meatballs and brown gravy over brown basmati rice with maple sugar and peppered asparagus. For dessert, this lovely person had prepared an Italian specialty of vegan panna cotta covered with a chunky mango and lime zest sauce (exactly like the one above but with a different sauce.) To make it vegan, she used a sea weed-derived white powder called agar agar instead of gelatin (which contains ground horse hooves). Agar agar is common-place in Asian countries, used more often than gelatin, so it’s not a strange thing to use in a dish. The thing is, it sets up quicker and more firmly than gelatin. Now, to her credit, she followed a recipe by a woman who has written a cookbook of nothing but panna cotta iterations, and the recipe did call for agar agar specifically. So, when our initial delight at how easily and beautifully it broke free of the heart-shaped molds—it did not crack or fall apart at all—turned to doubt about its compact density, I placed absolutely no blame on this friend-stranger. The mango-lime sauce (partially her own creation) was delectable and fresh, and the panna cotta itself had a delicious, hint-of-vanilla taste. But the consistency was a different story. It was something close to wax lips or cold lard, or if you could imagine a more opaque, solid Jell-O. The cutting edge of the spoon hesitated and quivered slightly upon first entry, then tinged the plate sharply when the heart was finally run through. It broke up in the mouth like wax lips that would not re-coalesce. We did have a good chuckle over it, but actually everyone at the table ate most if not all of the dish—it was good!

So this is really an entry about being gracious. I truly appreciated the meal, was genuinely grateful for the effort. But once we could tell she wasn’t going to break into hysterics over the partially-botched dessert, we began to gently rib her about it. I indicated that it may be more fun to swim in than to eat, though the dense consistency could make it difficult, initially, to penetrate and maneuver in. But mostly I nodded and commented on how nicely her addition of lime zest complimented the mango. I am not one to turn my nose up at a generous gesture, to look a gift horse in the mouth, to be a “choosing beggar.” In fact, as the thought entered my mind as to how this foreign matter would fare in my digestive system, another turn of phrase came to mind: “This, too, shall pass.” And I smiled happily through several more bites. Because the person who prepared this thoughtful creation for me may as well be a blood-relative (not to say that she isn’t—anonymity), and you know what they say, “blood is thicker than water”…though not thicker than that panna cotta—oh, zinger!! Though our close relationship would have permitted some candid criticism, disappointed exasperation, or outright whining on my part, I instead gained access to my terribly underdeveloped magnanimous side (do I sound like Margery Kempe?) and bit the gelatinous bullet, as it were. So, how do you penetrate an awkward or potentially hurtful situation with a loved one? One spoonful at a time.

UPDATE: B served up a second attempt this week, with half the amount of agar agar and strawberries instead of mango-lime sauce. This time, it was very nice. Much more palatable and, I must say, swimable.

De revolutionibus orbium coelestium

I was musing the other day on the relative primitiveness of "us," this current human civilization. With the advent of carbon dating, archeological excavations, and other scientific breakthroughs, we seem to be much more adept at seeing backward than we are at looking ahead. We can look back today on prehistoric peoples that had little awareness of the next village over, let alone their geographic location in the world. We were amused as school children by misguided stories that Columbus may have been afraid of sailing off the edge of the earth. We find these ancient civilizations unevolved and primal. Indeed, we have come a long way since some version of the flat earth concept was pop science, but are we not just as geocentric in our views today as the sixteenth-century Copernican detractors? We can no more conceptualize a light-year than Cro-Magnon man could conceive of a nautical mile, and we are no more aware of other life forms (ok, aliens) than the Mesopotamians were of the Incas.

To get to my point, I believe we are now in view of another Copernican Revolution, and that humans many generations from now (if the earth is still able to sustain our population in many generations) will look back on us, in the 2000s, as a mole-like culture only able to visualize our immediate environment. We will be their ancients. If you search YouTube for “The Most Important Image Ever Taken,” you will see a short video on the deep space images captured by the Hubble Telescope. The narrator explains that, even in a patch of night sky that appears dark and vacant to our eye, there are billions of galaxies that contain ever more billions of stars not unlike our sun, which could conceivably be orbited by billions of planets not unlike our own. With this knowledge, are we really to hold fast to the narcissistic sixteenth-century notion that we are the center of the universe, that we are the only ones?

Anyway, all of this brought to mind an old poem that has been a favorite of mine since I was a teenager:

EARTH

If this little world to-night
Suddenly should fall through space
In a hissing, headlong flight,
As it falls into the sun,
In an instant every trace
Of little crawling things--
Ants, philosophers, and lice,
Cattle, cockroaches, and kings,
Beggers, millionaires, and mice,
Men and maggots all as one
As it falls into the Sun. . .
Who can say but at the same
Instant from some planet far,
A child may watch us and exclaim
“See the pretty shooting star!”

Oliver Herford, The Bashful Earthquake, 1898

This delightful verse, written 70 years before man landed on the moon, debunks our own self-importance, both in biological and social classification (a millionaire is no better than a maggot in an apocalypse), as well as among the other inhabitants of deep space. It also helps to soften the impact (pun intended) of the realization of our eventual destruction; it makes it all so...pretty. But the actual light at the end of this tunnel vision comes with the conclusion that, while human beings may not be vitally important, and while all the “little crawling things” of Earth are nothing if not inconsequential, the same cannot be said for the individual. The parts are greater than the whole. Like the starfish tossed back to the safety of the sea by the kind passerby, we are all dependent on and important to someone. It’s true, we can hardly claim to call ourselves a speck within the vastness of the universe. But to someone, I alone may be colossal.

Why not...a first-draft poem:

Second Nature

The Kashmiri leather of this new journal
has not become creased with use.
The empty pages fan out endlessly
with some potential and some obligation.
I am a pitiful site to behold,
near thirty with much space and little talent.
Yet I have untied the beaded straps
from around the cover with an intention.
I must imprint on these sheets truths and lies
more lovely than the embossing that hides them.

My love stands engaged at the stove,
stirring in spices with a wooden spoon.
In a moment she brings the spoon to her lips
and blows away a wisp of steam.
She knows easily what is needed
and casually takes another jar from the rack.
She would not mar handmade pages
with strike-outs and second attempts.
I think I will begin with the way
yellow curry falls from her fingertips.

Happy Day, Valentine

I love you.