Death! Sort of.

First, it was our computer. Our beloved new iMac, so modern, so lamp-ish, its keyboard so not-yet-encrusted-with-food (although I’ve been working hard to amend that). Scott was doing something fancy with video when it made a noise like fehhhhh and its screen drooped on its base* and then everything was dark; so dark, and so so cold. Our attempts at resuscitation, which I shall enumerate below, all failed, although as you can see they were failproof! They were:

- Cursing at the dead computer.
- Pleading with the dead computer to come back to life.
- Watching Scott attempt to run various programs that purport to bring computers back to life.
- Yelling at Scott to call someone who knows what he’s doing.
- Thinking about all the stories, and all the Henry photos, that were never backed up.
- Crying.
- Pleading with the tech expert who arrived to fix the computer to please, for the love of God, just fix the computer.

In the end, it is only a bad motherboard (I so want to tell someone it’s a bad mother... and then have them say "Shut your mouth!" but so far no one’s been quick enough, damn it), which can be replaced with no loss of precious, precious data. But the motherboard has not yet been replaced, and I am forced—forced!—to write on this piddly little laptop, the laptop that until a few months ago was the only computer in the house, but that now seems so primitive, so loud and droning, and so very, very slow.

We were still reeling from the loss of our computer when our rental car died. We were on our way back from a wedding when the car began to sputter and retch (its front bumper actually became a frowny mouth and its headlights turned into heavy-lidded eyes and it said "kaff, kaff" YES IT DID) and Scott shrieked "As god is my witness, we will not die on the New Jersey Turnpike" and with that, he maneuvered the dying car toward the nearest exit, and we put-putted our way to a glorious Hess Express in scenic Edison, New Jersey.

Have you ever been to this Hess Express? Oh, it’s a marvel! You can buy M&Ms there! And Combos! Which we did! Because we were there for over 3 hours!

If you visit the Hess Express in Edison, NJ, here is what will happen:

- If you are a lady, you will have cause to visit the ladies’ room. The ladies’ room appears to be clean but there is almost certainly uncleanliness afoot; I say this because of the stench of death that makes it exceedingly difficult, after the first gag-inducing visit, to stomach the idea of a return. And when you’re sitting in a car for over 3 hours eating PayDay bars and drinking bottled water, you will have to return to the ladies’ room. There is no avoiding it.

- If you are a man, I have been assured that the men's room is "not that bad." Perhaps you will also get a death-whiff as you pass by the ladies' room. I hope, for your sake, you do not.

- A closed Blimpies counter will announce an exciting new Blimpies treat: The Bluffin.

- You will make "Bluffin" jokes for the next three hours. Bluffin! Because it just sounds dirty.

- You will see that kids hang out at the Hess Express. It’s the place to be, if you’re in Edison, NJ. You will rethink any ideas you ever had about living in the suburbs.

Luckily, Henry was at his grandparents’ while we paced the perimeter of the Hess Express (there is nothing outside its perimeter, YOU CANNOT LEAVE THE HESS EXPRESS). Eventually another car was brought to us. Unfortunately it was the same exact make, which in case I didn’t mention it previously, and I see that I didn’t, is the Suzuki Swift, a terrifying tin-can of a car designed to make you feel as vulnerable as possible. It's like wrapping your body in aluminum foil, strapping a couple of Hot Wheels to your feet, placing yourself at the entrance of, say, I-95, and having a friend give you a helpful shove. Only more so. That is the Suzuki Swift Experience. I recommend it!

So we managed to make it home with this new Swift, only to have it die, yes, DIE (do you see a theme?) the next day.

All of this death was worth it, just for this: the day after our Suzuki Swift adventure, Scott was congratulating himself for his manly decisiveness in the face of adversity. We were walking down the street, and he was nattering on about how his quick wits saved our lives, and how apparently this was due to his extreme manliness; so caught up was he in this delusion that he began to demand that I pay homage to his masculinity, which I did, halfheartedly repeating, yes, Husband is manly, Husband is decisive, blar de blar—when he began slapping at his glasses and shrieking. I would call what he was doing "girlish shrieking," but it would be an insult to girls everywhere. Let’s just say that he was shouting "Oh jeez oh jeez!" and his voice might have been a few octaves higher than normal. Before I could ask him what was going on, he removed his glasses, looked down, and said, "Oh. It was a, um, ladybug." I laughed, of course, really hard, and there might have been some pointing of fingers on my part, and he got all defensive (again with the girlish rising of the voice) and said, "It landed right inside my glasses! It looked really big!"

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*It didn't really do that. Please don't send me angry emails accusing me of lying. I embellish because I love.

Comments

[Chasmyn]

I just love the way you tell a story. I was on the edge of my seat!

[Rob]

"I embellish because I love"

That phrase made my day! Thanks :)\
...from one Mac user to another...

[Melissa S]

Your Mac...your poor little Mac....I'm so sorry. I recently had to have mine fixed and I tried this method for getting it to come back to life:

Repeatedly pressing the power button and feeling hopeful every single time I pressed the button even though it did nothing. I swear I did this for nearly an hour before I drove the 5 miles to the Apple store.

You don't write ad copy for the Suzuki Swift do you? Because I think I have my new vehicle!

[debl]

Wow, the Suzuki Swift sounds like it gives the Ford Festiva a run for the money. The Festiva looks like someone took a bunch of disposable aluminum pie plates and stapled them together in the shape of a car.

[Zeynep]

I know exactly what you mean about the death of your motherboard. There are no sounds that are quite like the deathsound of a microchip. Some sci-fi flick phaser sound effects come close, but not close enough.

And cars do cough.

I'm glad your data was OK.

[bluepoppy]

*crying with laughter* at debi's aluminum pie plate Ford Fiesta but only because I was already so weakened by the Suzuki Swift description.

[sac]

Men's bathrooms at mini-marts are by definition, hellholes. However, we men know this, and so instinctively lower our standards. "Not that bad," in this case, means that waders are recommended, but not necessary. A "good" rating means the mirror was refelctive and the toilet flushed (using a shoe-clad foot, of course, for there is no rating high enough to warrant an unprotected human hand touching any part of a mini-mart bathroom); while a "bad" rating requires a week long training course and a hazmat suit before entering.

[Julia S]

Wow, that is a bad motherf...

-------------------------

Shut your mouth!

--------------------------

Mac!

Happy now?

[frog]

Yeah, well, more often than not, the guys don't have to figure out how to balance without touching anything in the bathroom. So, IMO, that means that the filth factor can be higher for the men's room with similar or fewer long-term effects.

Love the blog, Alice.

[Doug]

1. Agree with Sac: men have a far higher threshold for filth. The nastier the facility, the less need for one's aim to be true.

2. That Suzuki POS sounds a lot like the Fiat Pandas you can rent in Italy, which are little more than enclosed golf carts that whine like a KitchenAid when you reach 30mph on the autostrade.

3. My favorite place to drop dead on the NJT (expired alternator, summer '87) is on Exit 4, Moorestown, at dusk. I was driving a station wagon filled with everything I owned, so rather than park it overnight, we sprung for a flatbed ride all the way home. That made from some sparkling conversation, I tell ya whut.

[dr. dave]

You killed not one but TWO Suzuki Swifts in 36 hours?? What a ringing endorsement that is for a vehicle. Maybe next time you might want to spring for the extra $10 a day to upgrade to the Hyundai Excel, no??

And Hess Expresses on Long Island often have Krispy Kremes.

"Mmmmmm..... wet dooonuuuts..."

Dave (doctorsilence.blogspot.com)

[dr. dave]

You killed not one but TWO Suzuki Swifts in 36 hours?? What a ringing endorsement that is for a vehicle. Maybe next time you might want to spring for the extra $10 a day to upgrade to the Hyundai Excel, no??

And Hess Expresses on Long Island often have Krispy Kremes.

"Mmmmmm..... wet dooonuuuts..."

Dave (doctorsilence.blogspot.com)

[Jenn]

I am laughing myself silly at your desription of your Suzuki Swift! So tell us, have they signed you up to be their official spokesperson? Or better yet, their official test driver/car killer?

Love the blog, btw!

[Mrs. Kennedy]

Your Suzuki Swift description reminds me of one of my favorite lines from Car Talk, when the guys said that the Ford Fiesta ought to come equipped with a funeral wreath.

[jilbur]

I have personally converted at least two people to the paper-towel-used-to-touch-doorknob dogma of nasty restroom use, after someone converted me many years ago, with a little meditation on the statistical probability of someone with a poo-infested hand touching the knob prior to my touching it. It's the kind of mental image that really sticks to you (much like poo to a doorknob). Extend this thought to every other surface of the restroom that was designed for the touch of a hand, and you have a nice OCD nightmare brewing.

But what recently occurred to me is the danger of flushing while sitting, which I am told is a courtesy gesture. Courtesy, perhaps; but I am uncertain whether it's a courtesy well beyond the call of duty, since many bowls spray a fine mist of their interiors during the flushing process.

[Charla]

I am crying with laughter from your post! I can just picture you two at Hess Express stranded in your tin can. You are a hoot!

[Melissa S]

Jilbur- All bathroom doors should open out so you could just use your shoulder to get out.

[Rita]

I'm inspired by your tale of woe to share mine. Two Thanksgivings ago, my husband and I were returning from his parents' house in northeast Iowa (we live in Kansas City, about seven hours away) in my 1994 Geo Prizm, an amazing car under normal conditions. But unfortunately, the evil men who are CarMaxx workers had been dragging too hard on their cigarettes while replacing my alternator (at only 130,000 miles, can you believe it?) and punched a very, very small hole in my radiator. A very small hole that took hundreds of miles to become a very large hole and overheat my car. In the middle of Iowa. On the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend.

Needless to say, we were towed 150 miles to the tune of $.35 a mile. Upgrade to AAA platinum, people. It is worth it.

[the mighty jimbo]

i think i would feel safer on my motorcycle than in a swift.

or a geo.

god those things used to suck.

[JT]

Oh, my goodness. I have to stop reading now because I had surgery last week and you're making my incisions hurt. But this was too funny. Several times.

Bluffin!