It is getting cooler here in the northeast with morning frost occurring regularly and I am certainly not one to complain. I'd rather be dealing with 4 layers of fleece and numb butt cheeks than with trying to keep my gray t-shirt from looking like I was lactating due to all of the sweat build up on my chest on a hot and humid August morning. I bet you didn't know that humans have sweat glands on every part of the body except for the lips, nipples and the penis. It's true. And just imagine... work with me here... what if we did have sweat glands in those areas... the television we would get to see.
"...and welcome back to game 6 of the 2010 World Series. Today's game is being brought to you by Budweiser, the King of Beers ...and Mennen's Lip, Nipple and Penis Speed Stick - it's not just for under arms anymore. By Mennen!"
Lately, we have had some chilly nights which has been putting an icy grip on my car overnight. The result… I have been driving to the train station with a windshield that is 85% covered with ice. You see, I am one those people that just jumps into the car, flips on the defroster and takes off, giving the car no chance to wake up and prepare for work. The more I think about it, the more I feel bad for my little German friend. Perhaps I should treat him a little better. Yes, I called my car a him, and why not? Let's throw the automobile a bone here. Ships and boats already have first dibs on all of the feminine pronouns, right? So, what happens when they... "fix" a ship. Does the ship become an "it" like the dog whose testicles are snipped and then dropped into 20 ounces of formaldyhyde.
Only to later be shipped to some high school where a freshman, percolating in his own testosterone can hack at them on a 10" x 6" tray of black wax. Kind of ironic isn't it?
Now, asking my car to just get up and go is pretty unfair. Especially that early in the morning. I guess it would be like someone waking me up at 3:15am on a cold December morning and immediately plopping my unclean, unshaven groggy ass into a pair of khakis and wrapping my hands on the handle of a started lawnmower and demanding me to mow the lawn. Machine or human, I suppose we all need some time to warm up to get started. I’ll usually give the windshield wipers a quick try but that only smears the ice and frost over the remaining 15% of the window. Look ma, now I have a 100% fully obstructed view.
Now I am basically driving on memory. Getting out of the driveway is pretty simple. Go straight 90 feet and turn left.
From there it gets more challenging. There is a large hill that you have to navigate, sometimes dodging an idling landscaping truck or a hopping crow, standing guard over some half eaten ball of rotting molecules.
I thought crows were supposed to be curious and intelligent and clever. Ravens and crows, the Ivy Leaguers of the bird world, right? We should be seeing crows ringing doorbells and pointing to the bread box or peanut butter jar in our kitchens or hanging outside a Hooters for freebies. But then again, the Crows and the Owls never did get along. The Crows never did trust those birds of the night with their pretentious attitudes and bulging eyes.
And every now and then you have to watch for the deer, especially in the late Fall. You see, right now in NJ, we are in the middle of what is called the Rut. The annually recurring period of sexual excitement and reproductive activity in male deer. The bucks are sniffing out the females and chasing them down all over the neighborhood. Strutting, flexing and sometimes fighting to get some attention, trying to show who the biggest baddest buck is in the woods. I guess it would be synonymous to a summer's Saturday night at Temptations on the Jersey shore where North Jersey's Guido Nation goes to dress, impress, assess, obsess, possess and caress. And I am pretty sure the girls at Temptations do not emit doe estrus urine to attract their mates. But then again, I don't quite understand the whole Guido thing in the first place, so I guess anything is possible. Kind of an ironic word, rut, when you come to think about it . I had a good friend of mine once tell me that he was stuck in a rut... tired of doing the same ol' same ol'. There is one thing you will never ever hear in the woods, and that is a corn gobbling, ten point, mature, white tailed buck say, "huhhh, I just can't seem to get out of this rut."
To a male deer, the rut is a Viagra, Lavitra and horny goat weed cocktail and I am sure there are some pretty intelligent deer out there trying to bottle rut. And if they can, they are selling it at Temptations.
It will take at least 5 minutes before the defroster starts realing warming up and I start to get that little peep hole in the center of my windshield. My virtual periscope. Hey, it's enough to keep my car on the road. My driver’s education teacher back in 1984, who worked out of a Catholic church in Pocasset, MA would have a heart attack right now realizing I learned not a thing from him. I will give him two thumbs up on his choice of movies though.
Death on Highway 71 was a classic 'scare the kids straight' movie. It contained footage of car accidents from the 1950's and the narrator was a tall Ohio state trooper with a message. I want to let that trooper's family know that I every now and then, I still see that 57' Ford Country Squire station wagon sitting on its roof and him telling us, "This is you! That's right you, if you drive fast and out of control. See that shoe on the ground, the driver was wearing it before he hit the pole." You know, I think that trooper reached me. Maybe he knew what he was talking about. But mind you, I would never be caught dead driving a Country Squire in red Chuck Taylors ...but he reached me.
My driver's education instructor's first words every time we took a trip in his two toned Datsun B210 station wagon was “check your view and check your mirrors”. Well, I did. My view was covered with ice and I still had three mirrors. Who checks their mirrors at 6:40am as you are pulling out of your driveway in the dark and chill of the morning. My ass and thighs are still getting over their initial introduction to my car seats. One thing Volkswagen has done is perfected pleather and my Jetta's seats can retain cold temperatures well into mile three of my commute to the train station.
Meandering through the remaining roads to the station is pretty uneventful. You've got stops signs, blind turns, and a Dunkin Donuts. Roads named after trees and flowers. I pass garbage trucks and contractor's vans and see kids waiting for their school buses. I know this because that little hole that was forming in the center of my windshield is now almost the size of the entire windshield. And guess what, my ass is warming up too.
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