Vital Fluids

Let me take a moment to send out a warning...

This is to all of you little adapters which allow CDs to be played by cassette tape players and the cassette player in my car... I will destroy you all, unless you choose to fucking work together in my car!

I�m hoping that somewhere in the Sony Headquarters in Japan, the little CD adapters are monitoring this website so they can warn all of their little friends across the world.

Ok. I�m not crazy... but I�m running out of options. After an unfortunate accident involving my antenna and a garage door, my antenna is now lying in my trunk, lifeless. Absent antenna, my car gets crap reception. In Ithaca, I think I only get two stations... I mean... not that there�s an over abundance of radio stations... but... that�s all! And in Orlando, where there�s a radio station on every imaginable frequency, I get three stations.

So... I am left to rely on my portable CD player and my mp3 player. Which is totally fine with me... that way I don�t have to deal with commercials and obnoxious DJs...

But the damned adapters take a lot of effort to get working. My cassette player plays other tapes... but... it takes a lot of coaxing to get the adapter not be rejected and read �Eror� (there isn�t enough room for the other �r�... unfortunate, isn�t it?). I�ve bought several different adapters... and they go through phases... they work really really well for a while... then slowly, they cease to work in my car.

I just don�t understand it. And since I�m broke and can�t afford to buy yet *another* one... I am left to plea and threaten.

So there.

So... they say that you don�t ever really miss what you have until it�s gone, right?

This paradigm was never as apparent to me as it was last night.

Now, I�m not talking about a boy... and I�m not talking about a vital organ or... air.

I�m talking about windshield washer fluid.

And son of a motherless goat, did I miss it last night!

So... I�m driving up to Syracuse to visit my friend James... (I use friend for lack of a better term... possibly more to come on that... later.) and it was just *nasty* It was dark and snowing and icy... and just generally icky.

When I was leaving Ithaca, I used the fluid squirter thing (and since I�m so butch and know so much about cars and all... yes, that is a technical term) to clean off the nastiness which had caked on the windshield after being parked on the street for five days. And while there was still that nasty streak on the window where the friggin� wiper just doesn�t want to reach, the windshield was fairly clean and allowed for vision.

I stopped to get gas at the Mobil... which actually pissed me off. Let me take a second to say that I *detest* the game involved with purchasing gas. When you�re on your way somewhere, it�s fairly hard to judge how much gas is going to cost on the way to the destination. When you still have a quarter tank, you could either stop and get gas... or you could hold off, since you know there�s another gas station on the way at which you can stop. So... it�s a crap shoot. Is gas going to be cheaper at this Mobil... or the one 15 miles away? So... you stop... only to discover that the gas station 15 miles away is 4 cents cheaper. DAMMIT... I *hate* that game! Ok... so... it�s only 4 cents. But... 4 cents times 15 gallons is 60 cents. I could have gotten a totally un-nutritious meal out of a vending machine for that! Plus, I�m a college student. I�m poor. I�m about to run out of food, as I am currently consuming the last grains from the 10 lb. bag of rice that I bought at the beginning of the semester. But... I digress...

So... I stop at the Mobil and get gas and wipe down my windows... So... as I�m driving to Syracuse, I intermittantly use the fluid to clean my windows... and as I�m driving the final two miles to James� house, I run out of fluid.

Fuck.

I really just couldn�t see out of my windshield. I mean... if worse comes to worse, I could always roll down the window and stick my head out, right?

Wrong.

Fuck.

Too bad the driver�s side window in my car decided to cease operation about 8 months ago. Not to mention that the passenger side view mirror is now in my trunk rolling around the remnants of my antenna...

So... I change lanes to drive about 10 feet behind a giant truck, just to get enough water on the windshield to get the dried on crap out of the sight line. Luckily, it worked... and I�m still alive.

I finally stopped at a gas station to buy more fluid... and after a mildly frightening interaction involving an obese man who looked like he could eat me for breakfast and a sketchy guy with a big beard and a twitch, I got the fluid into my car... only to discover that after about 2 minutes of operation, my windshield wipers just didn�t want to dispense fluid, anymore.

Fuck.

So... what should you be taking away from the story?

Buying gas is like shooting craps.

Windshield fluid is vital.

Tread lightly around people who could feasibly eat you.

Side view mirrors are unnecessary.

And most importantly... never live in a place where it snows.

later, kids

~robert