Head in the Sand ... and other unpopular positions (16 page)

There are a few of his “math brain” things lying
around the house that perplex me, though—in ways that can’t be
easily explained by the word brain/math brain dichotomy. The first
is a small cardboard box that reads “Professional Soldering
Station.” Don’t misunderstand me: I get why a guy wants—and even
needs—a soldering station. I’m cool with the whole “I need to burn
stuff but not get arrested or sent to a psych evaluation for it”
mentality.

What puzzles me is the obvious question raised by the
wording on the box of the Professional Soldering Station: Is there
such a thing as an
Amateur
Soldering Station? And, given the
nature and temperature of soldering, in addition to its close
proximity to one’s fingers, would anyone rush out to buy one?
Besides Wayne, that is, who placed as first runnerup in the local
Mr. Clearance Rack contest three years straight?

The second item of confusion is really two items. He
currently owns two shop-vacs: one that really sucks (which means it
works), and one that really,
really
sucks (which means it
doesn’t work). That second one seems redundant, if nothing
else.

The third item that baffles me is really about twenty
items, and they’re all currently residing in Wayne’s office.
They’re all the computer cases and CPUs from every computer each of
us has owned since the mid-nineties. (For you word brains out
there, that’s over fifteen years ago—last century, last millennium.
Get a calculator. I already double-checked the math on this one.)
I’m not sure what his plans are, but I’m guessing one of two
things: Either he’s going to open a technology museum in the back
of our house, or he’s planning to take over the world with his own
private bank of computer servers able to run multiple heavy-duty
software applications and hack into government mainframes the world
over.

All that intrigue sounds mildly fascinating, as long
as I conveniently forget that most of those old computers are
missing power supplies, hard drives or motherboards and the
software loaded onto the remaining servers is stuff like free
online poker games and shareware programs that change photos of
people you don’t like and stretch them into funny shapes. But, hey,
I could do that stretchy thing back in the 1970s with a hunk of
Silly Putty and a newspaper.

So, while Wayne is busy taking over the world one
royal flush at a time, I’ll be recataloguing my books, promising
myself to get rid of some of them, and then tossing out Wayne’s old
college textbooks instead.

In the perpetual war of the word brain versus the
math brain, the word brain wins another battle—but perhaps not the
war. There is still that shop-vac to contend with.

I’m trying to catch up to everyone else in the world
who’s been watching
24
. God bless Netflix for allowing me to
catch up on TV series. (First
Lost,
now this.) I just
finished Season 3 today. Watching the episodes back to back to back
to back, I’m noticing patterns—and I’m guessing the patterns hold
throughout the rest of the series’ history. Here’s my list so
far:

• Always have a mole inside CTU. It makes for extra
excitement just when things are going right everywhere else.

• Have Jack Bauer shoot someone under iffy
circumstances at least twice per season. More, if you can get away
with it. And you can
always
get away with it.

• Everybody has to talk in a really raspy voice and
sound breathless at all times.

• Have Jack go renegade every other episode, so that
people back at CTU can pair off in groups of “helping Jack” versus
“totally out of the loop with Jack.”

• Each actor in the series gets fifteen minutes of
total self-righteous overacting every season (cue raspy breathless
voices here). It’s in their contracts.

• Viruses and bombs get released/detonated but then
are revealed as false alarms, so that they can be
released/detonated again—at least three times in that single
twenty-four-hour day.

• Apparently technology has invented a cell phone
model that never needs its battery recharged, and CTU bought them
all.

• No one ever eats or goes to the bathroom during the
entire twenty-four-hour period. And with all that takeout coffee
they drink, that’s quite a feat. Evidently they all wear Depends or
something. I still want to see an episode with Jack Bauer careening
that SUV through a Jack-in-the-Box drive-thru and ordering some
large fries and a root beer.

• People at CTU who get wounded in the early part of
the day (shot, stabbed, preferably both) can get by with very small
amounts of medical attention before going straight back to work for
another eighteen-plus hours. They’re then given another fifteen
minutes of self-righteous overacting (with raspy breathless voices)
to compensate for the really bad day they’re having.

• “
Brrrrrrr-dee-dee-doop!
” Those phones in CTU
are really going to drive me crazy by the time I work my way up to
Season 35.

• Why doesn’t anyone ever say to Jack, “Have a nice
day”?

• Someone at CTU will be charged with treason at
least once per season—and then turn out to be the most patriotic
person on the show.

• This is supposed to be the most high-tech place on
the planet, but yet, whenever it’s convenient, even low-level
employees can find a way to do something untraceable or go offline
and off-grid and not get caught. Oh, and they’re always the ones
who work right in the middle of the main floor where everyone can
see them. Doesn’t this place have better security cameras? Two
words, people:
browser history.

• Why doesn’t that place have proper lighting, even
in the middle of the day? It’s like watching a crime scene workover
from
CSI
with all that cool high-tech mood lighting
everywhere. Three words, people:
hundred-watt bulbs!

C ‘mon, CTU! I shouldn’t have to keep telling you
people this stuff. Aren’t you supposed to be the smartest people on
the planet? Or is that only on some
other
day we
never get to see?

I’m checking all the international dateline stuff all
over the world, just to make sure yesterday is officially over . .
.
everywhere
.

Here’s the quick-and-dirty of what went down
yesterday that made it so, uh, memorable:

•
Late morning to mid-afternoon:
My elder son
and I stand in the scorching heat in gravel parking lots looking at
used cars. The noon news has declared this an official “ozone
action day.” I have no idea what this means. I want to do as little
action as possible, and I’m sure the ozone agrees with me.

•
Mid-afternoon:
Son signs 2.7 million pieces
of paper and makes several phone calls to the insurance company to
set up proper paperwork to drive a 1990 Buick Century off the lot.
One owner. Primo condition. Nicer than any car I’ve ever owned.
Which is sad. We are all pleased, and I secretly hope to get the
gecko’s autograph.

•
Early evening:
Hubby comes home from work,
hobbling on his bad knee. He has had to climb ladders this week,
his first week back after being on crutches for aforementioned bad
knee. I feed him and son hamburgers and hot dogs (which I grill
outside on the sidewalk to save money on propane), and waffle
fries. (Despite the name “waffle fries,” I refrain from putting
syrup on the table. Evidently a misnomer.) We all have a special
bonding time talking about first cars and the excitement of new
apartments and new lives. I sniffle. Son rolls his eyes.

•
7:30
p.m.
:
Son packs up car
and heads off so that he can work in the morning and start moving
into new apartment.

•
7:45
p.m.
:
Son calls on cell
phone from three miles down the street to say the battery light has
come on. Hubby tells him to turn around and come back.

•
8:00 to 8:30
p.m.
:
Local auto
parts store assures them alternator is good, so it must be the
four-year-old battery. Son buys new battery. Naturally, they don’t
have any of the low-cost batteries in stock, only the “Titanium”
ones.

•
8:30
p.m.
:
The three-block
trip back to the house to pick up his stuff reveals that the
battery light is still on. Hubby determines with one of his
electrical-engineer-magical-gadgets that it is indeed the
alternator causing the problems. His knee is screaming a third
chorus of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” in some Scandinavian
language, so he bows out of changing alternator in the dark. I
sniffle. Son rolls his eyes.

•
8:45
p.m.
:
Son gives up on
getting back to his place for the night, and makes twenty-seven
necessary phone calls to rearrange his schedule.

•
10
p.m.
:
Depressed, son
decides to make a bag of microwave popcorn in our new microwave,
not noticing the button marked “Popcorn” and instead setting it for
four minutes on high . . . and goes upstairs to do something while
waiting. Waiting? Apparently four minutes is an eternity to his
generation.

•
10:03:45
p.m.
:
I naively say
to no one in particular, “Is something burning?” and realize I
still hear the microwave humming in the kitchen, although the
popping sound has long since stopped.

•
10:04
p.m.
:
The inside of the
microwave now has a brownish yellow film permanently burned onto
its inside walls, and the smell of burnt popcorn permeates the
neighboring counties.

•
11
p.m.
:
I am weary and cranky
and I feel like a bad mother. So I do the only natural thing: I go
to bed early and hide.

•
9
a.m.
:
I wake up early to
call the local mechanic to ask about taking an alternator we buy
elsewhere and quick-changing it for us on the fly. He agrees. I
make a mental note to add him to our Christmas card list.

•
9:01
a.m.
:
I go upstairs to
alert son. Well, okay, to wake him out of a dead sleep. Clearly,
“alert” is a relative term. Son sniffles. I roll my eyes.

•
9:02
a.m.
:
I decide to slip
into my office across the hall and check mail and get back to the
real world . . . a place I’ve forgotten over the past two days. I
see a note near my computer from one of the other kids: “Mom, last
night I threw up because of the burnt popcorn smell. It was around
4 a.m. and I didn’t want to wake you or Chris up. I don’t know the
first thing about cleaning up throw-up, so I left it by the side of
my bed.”

Is it tomorrow yet?

It’s now noon, and son left again this morning, after
mechanic did a flawless quick-change of old dirty alternator to new
shiny alternator for very little money. Son left around eleven
o’clock, so I should be hearing from him soon at the other end of
his trip.

I just hope it’s not a call about the engine light.
Because I’m officially declaring yesterday over.

Final update: Eventually, son made it back home with
no more car problems. Nothing burned or exploded. No one threw up.
The world as we know it didn’t end.

I’m taking a nap. Wake me in September.

The clock is ticking off the hours,

One thought dies, another cowers.

The page is filled with penned red lines:

One word stinks, the other shines.

My mind’s devoid of all its powers,

Ideas ripen—then each sours.

My scattered thoughts make no headlines;

In fact, they mostly just shred lines.

Editors think, “Let’s disavow hers,

Since every line can’t rhyme with ‘flowers’!”

Now I’ll end up in those bread lines

Unless I make a few deadlines.

* * * * *