Of Flo the insurance gal. She’s a sweetheart and all, but she’s run her course, I think. Vampires. Mean people—people who get some kind of weird-assed pleasure in causing pain and heartache in others. People who care so little about themselves and their time on Earth that they effectively stopped learning when (if?) they graduated high school. Best example? The kind of person who would ask someone why they are reading a book or someone who actually believes in the mythical right-wing idea of Too Much Education.
Country music that has no “country” in it. I watched the recent CMA awards and there was not a single shit-kicking moment in the whole show. And I don’t even really like country music! Cars that all look alike. When I was a kid, you could tell a Ford from a Chevy from a Chrysler coming a block away. Today, you can’t tell for sure what kind of a car you are next to at a traffic light.
I don’t like tennis shoes that make you look like a space man or a reptile. Can’t I just please get a simple white shoe without gills or lightning bolts or vents or rocket boosters on it? I’m sixty, for crying out loud! Drive-through restaurants that mess up your order. If they’re just going to give you whatever they want, why bother to put up the giant menu board with the shitty PA system in the first place?
Waitstaff who think that whatever they have to say is more important than whatever we are discussing at our table. “So, the thing is, honey, the doctor said I have cancer of the—“ “Hey! Are we saving any room for dessert?” “I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I really think it’s time we considered putting Mom into assisted living, honey. Just yesterday she—“ “How is everything tasting, folks?” Come on! It only takes a moment to take a breath and wait for an opening.
Those little bogus collection boxes the post office is using now. The letter carriers in a lot of neighborhoods no longer deliver to your door, they deliver to some box down the street from your actual house. It’s up to you to get dressed and brave the ice and snow and go get your grocery store circulars. That’s bullshit, I think.
The two Bozos in the Sonic drive-in restaurant ads. I have never liked their “dumb and dumber” shtick, and it’s not getting any better or any funnier. Really. It’s actually keeping me away from Sonic, and they have some great car shows in the summertime.
People in political discussions who don’t think they have better ideas, they think they’re better people.
And speaking of politics: Our president, and the people around him.
I’m tired of the way I can’t seem to settle on a hobby car. I want to have an interesting car for myself, as kind of a pet. It doesn’t have to be fast, though that would be nice. It would be great if it handled really well, but again that’s not a real deal breaker, either. Styling is important, but there have been some really plain looking cars I would not mind owning, too. The thing is, I look at a really nice old Triumph Spitfire and I just fall in love with the thing. The size, the shape. The way the whole front end comes up to reveal the engine and front suspension and everything. But then I remember that these weren’t good cars when they were new. And the newest ones are thirty-seven years old, today.
I loved everything about the DeLorean. I loved the way John DeLorean told GM to fuck off and walked out. I loved the ideas that went into the car and how he brought the whole thing off. It’s seen as a flop, but people forget he outsold Porsche for a while. And he’s remembered for his cocaine arrest, but not for walking away. It’s too bad this was all Thatcher needed to close the plant, and especially bad that she had the tooling dumped at sea. There was no point in that. Anyway, I would still like to have one of those, I think.
I’ve always liked Jaguars. I’ve always liked Ferraris. A few Maseratis look interesting to me, now. And some old Lotus cars, though few of them seem to hold up well. And of course Porsches. Each of these come and go in my heart and mind… but so far never in my garage. Quite a few times I’ve gotten frustrated and looked into old Mustang and Corvette convertibles, too.
I’m really tired of not being able to settle on a fun and interesting old car. Maybe this year.
