Good Morning.
One of the most wonderful things that can happen to a human being happened to me this past Tuesday: I found out my car wasn't as sick as I thought it was. The battery wouldn't hold a charge and when I made an appointment with the place where I get my car serviced, the guy told me it might be an alternator problem. This is not car trouble any owner wants.
I called AAA to come jump my car and within half an hour I was on my way. I had tidied up the garage before he showed up; before I go out of town, I leave the house in reasonably good shape because if I die while I'm away, I don't want my handful of mourners coming to the house and saying, "Well, for heaven's sakes, she could have vacuumed and emptied the dishwasher before she left."
I drove to the car place, handed over the key at the desk, and went into a large, attractive lounge
area where maybe two dozen people were reading magazines, talking on the phone, or watching
Let's Make a Deal. It's not a show I regularly view, but I grateful the TV wasn't tuned to one of the cable news channels. I got myself a coffee and a chocolate chip cookie, still warm and gooey, and settled into a comfortable chair with a magazine. The selection on the coffee table included Golf, Men's Health, Family Circle, and Cosmopolitan. I hadn't had a look at Cosmo for at least half a century and picked it up.
Here's the deal. Cosmopolitan is a publication for women who are decades younger than I am. The articles were about fashion, particularly clothing that would be inappropriate for, say, a job interview, and makeup that promised flawless skin, smoky, seductive eyes, and silken, slightly glossy lips guaranteed to have men breaking down the door. On every fifth page there was an ad for a fragrance with one of those flaps you pull back to have a whiff, but all of the big features, as I expected, were about how to jazz things up in the bedroom. There was nothing, for example,
about how to furnish an apartment on a budget, where to go for an interesting vacation, or what
to serve the in-laws when they come for dinner.
An old guy wearing a cotton shirt, khakis, and black socks with his white tennis shoes arrived and took a chair within five feet of me. He picked up Men's Health, sat down, and shot a very disapproving glance my way. I immediately lowered my magazine so he couldn't see the cover, but apparently it was too late. He had already labeled me as hopelessly misguided, even morally bankrupt. When I finished reading, and I use the term lightly because all I really did was thumb through the pages, pause briefly here and there, and smell the lingering perfume samples, I replaced the magazine, face down, on the coffee table.
Interspersed in all of the activities in the lounge were the announcements about vehicles. "Ken, your Navigator is ready to go." "Bill, your BMW is waiting for you." I wondered if this was a good idea, considering the fact that few people drive in a manner to which many of them would like to
become accustomed. If I ran the joint, I'd keep the announcements generic and say, "Marge, your vehicle is ready when you are." This may sound somewhat socialistic, but so be it. Marge teaches kindergarten and cannot afford the kind of wheels that Ken and Bill have.
It turned out I had a crummy battery, not an alternator problem, and I almost felt bad about my good fortune, considering what I had read (glanced at) that morning. "Elisabeth, your Saab is all set to go" the voice announced to the room, and I remembered that when I purchased the car, I thought it would make me feel emotionally well-adjusted and intelligent. I had betrayed my car that day and a few minutes later, I sat down in my living room and read the latest issue of Traditional Home.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
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