memories – Like I Say…

The Love Of Strangers

I realized something this morning.

The best Christmas my family ever had when I was growing up was the one time my parents actually accepted help. To them, the reason we kids enjoyed it so much was because we were given more than we deserved. We were spoiled, and happy about it.

That wasn’t it. In fact, it really wasn’t that much at all.

It was the thoughtfulness they, possibly even strangers, put into the gifts.

It was the feeling of actually being seen.

Care from strangers > “care” from parents.

Patience – I had that Once

I’m a pretty impatient person. At least, I am now. As a kid, I was always the last in my family for everything, as my mom would say “littles first” no matter what it was. This meant that anything (at least anything good) was done or handed out by age, starting with the youngest – so I was consistently dead last as the eldest child. Mum insisted on doing this as she bemoaned that the younger ones would cry if they had to wait a mere second. It sucked, and still does, as this taught my youngest siblings to not have any patience, even now as adults. I’ve noticed how their careers have been impacted and it bugs the hell out of me.

But it wasn’t just at home. It seemed adults were always telling me to wait for this and that when I was young. I imagine that’s pretty typical, but it sure feels like I got to wait more than others. I remember a class where I patiently waited the entire period as the teacher never did get back to me. He lauded me for how good I was about it, but even so… it’s not like it wasn’t hard for me – an hour wasted, standing and bored out of my mind. I just wanted to do my best, and that meant following what I was told.

So now I feel like whatever patience I was allotted for my lifetime was already used up in my childhood. I don’t sit by the window expecting Amazon packages to appear immediately after I click the order button or anything like that, but with how fast things, such as the internet can be, when they take longer than usual I do start to get annoyed…

And thus I’m sitting here writing this as a means to get my irritated mind off of waiting for ChatGPT to generate an image, lol!

Waspiness

I walked into work the other morning while the wind blew my hair all over creation, as usual (no good hair days where I work). I saw a wasp headed straight for me, and ducked. But unfortunately the nasty creature flew right into my mess of purple hair. And got tangled up in it. What was I to do?? I could feel it, but I knew if I blindly tried to use my hands to help it along I’d likely get stung. Luckily it eventually extricated itself, though I was left with the creepy-crawlies the rest of the day.

This awful incident reminded me of a similar experience years ago.

Once when I was a teen, one of those large wasps with the incredibly long legs got into the house. It was flying around the front window and keeping us from going anywhere near the living room. Well, some of us anyway. So Mum told my oldest bro to get rid of it (in other words, smash it to smithereens!), but my brother didn’t care much for the task and put it off a while – lazy bastard. Thus when he was finally pressured into it, the wasp was nowhere to be found. “Oh well,” he said. “Must have gotten out.” Oh, no it didn’t!

wasp in window

The next morning I got up and got ready for school. I had just stepped out of the shower, toweled off a bit, and was wrapping my towel around myself as I felt some water droplets on my leg that seemed… strange. Something not quite right. I looked down to see that very large, and very wet, wasp sidle down my foot and onto the floor. I was shook, I tell you, and got out of there FAST. And had some very choice, and very loud, words for my brother.

wet wasp on leg

I surprisingly didn’t get stung though. Had I noticed the horrible, stingy thing a second sooner, when it was higher up on my leg, I would have had more time to freak the fuck out before it reached the floor, and I’m sure it would have stung me in panic. Probably in pleasure too, the awful thing.

Needless to say, I’m not a fan of wearing wasps.

The Horror – My First Car was Not a Jeep

I’m a Jeep girl. I always wanted a Jeep or a convertible, even when I was little. My plan was to start working part-time once I turned 16 and use what I earned to buy a Sebring convertible. I would paint it a metal-flake blue that was more green in some lighting and more purple in others. But despite my pie-in-the-sky dreams, I was still practical; I planned to keep a pair of tennis shoes in the car to wear while driving instead of heels. Because of course I would be wearing heels. As a smart, independent, employed young woman, I would certainly be wearing heels.

But my plans were all for naught when I turned the big 16 and my father refused to let me obtain after-school employment. He insisted that school was my job and working elsewhere would affect my grades. I couldn’t work while in high school and that was final. My hopes of becoming a self-made career woman who drives a beautiful car were crushed.

I didn’t get my first car until my second year of college. I’d held jobs by then, of course, but I was able to use my parents’ Ford Escort when needed (until my brother [who was allowed to have a job at 16!!] crashed it into a ditch), and I lived on campus my first year at university. But by my second year I really needed a vehicle to get to and from my night job, my apartment, school, home, and anywhere else I needed to go. My mom said she would buy me one, and because of this, Dad said he would.

I wanted a Jeep Cherokee. I read about them, researched them (they are safe!), and looked around for used Cherokees in the area. But alas, my first car was a Ford, not a Jeep.

As I said, I am a practical person, and I looked around for a suitable used vehicle out of all those available, not just Jeeps. Giant Husband (then Giant Boyfriend) and I found a nice Buick Regal that fit the bill, and test-drove it home to show my dad. He said it idled hard. Dad brought home a little Geo hatchback of some sort to show me. I hated it. A four-banger? No way. That wouldn’t even make it up the hill to my university! Dad thought I would like the lace an apparently-cutesy past owner had glued to the dashboard cover. I was not amused.

In the end, Dad said he was sick of looking (after two cars? when he looked for the perfect truck for years??), and suggested a 1993 Ford Thunderbird. Powder blue. I was interested in the Cherokee that happened to be on the same lot, but no dice. So my dad laid down money and we brought the T-bird home.

Thunderbirds can be pretty cool cars. The old ones are gorgeous, the newer ones with the little round windows are fun, but the years in between… well, let’s just say the 90s were a little bland sedan-wise. I lucked out on the pretty paint job at least, though the boa constrictor seatbelt in the door took some getting used to. And there was definitely a learning curve to parking the blue behemoth compared to the little Escort I had driven in the past.

However, I gained an enormous amount of independence by having my own car. I could go places. Do things. I didn’t have to wait to borrow the Escort or ask Giant Boyfriend to escort me around. No more escorts! It was great. I celebrated by independently taking my own damn self into town where I took my sweet time staring at TVs at the mall, actually listening to the salesperson’s spiel, and buying the extended warranty along with my little TV/DVD combo purchase. I had wanted a car. I had wanted a television. This was awesome.

My mom was coming out of the house when I arrived home and saw me pulling the TV box out of the car’s backseat. She asked me if the TV was for Dad. For Dad? We had several televisions in the house, including one just like the set I had bought in my parents’ bedroom, right next to Dad’s side of the bed. Mum told me that this TV had recently stopped working, and pointed out that Dad had just bought me a car…

So I walked right in and handed my happy-box-of-extended-warranty-television to my father. Because I’m nice like that. And appreciative. And as easily guilted as shit.

And that is my first car story. Highlights of my Ford T-bird ownership of ~3 years include:

Naming the car Moonshine but having to change it to Starlight as the other could refer to booze. Tsk tsk.
Enjoying the rollercoaster ride of driving between home and university on the freeway as the struts wore out.
Racing Giant Boyfriend along the way.
I swear that car drove best at 90 MPH.
Winning a chance to win a bullet bike from a local radio station and having to drive back to uni-town after working overnight and subsequently falling asleep at the wheel for a second and waking up to driving over 100 MPH ~ luckily during an empty road and still on it.
Finding out that the oxygen sensor that needed to be replaced was relatively cheap. Then discovering it needed two of them.
Gaining a stripe of black paint across the door trim piece when someone decided he/she wanted to be in my lane. Right where I was driving in it.
Trying to get the incredibly heavy, back-wheel drive vehicle up the slanted apartment parking lot to the road in two feet of snow.
My dad always teasing me about the vehicle because my university’s mascot was also a Thunderbird. Did he by it for me on purpose?
Tapping the bumper of my rich roommate’s ginormous Escalade she had decided to leave behind my T-bird in a blizzard.
Giant Boyfriend fixing my alternator when it went out and subsequently dropping the part before getting it back in.
Having the car die in the middle of the lot at work, Giant Boyfriend (may have been Giant Fiancé then) and a good friend struggle to figure out why it wouldn’t start, and later finding out that it had an anti-theft device that had gone awry. The vehicle had originated from Vegas. Go figure.
Struggling to get out of the car after parking in regular-sized parking spots at school because of the dang obnoxious doors. That car had an impressive wingspan.
And having to wish it a sad farewell when I sold it. To buy a Jeep.