Sharp Corners

On the spur of the moment yesterday, we decided to take the kids to Busch Gardens, one of my favorite places on Earth. It’s not far from us so we threw everyone in the car and took off. About eleven miles from home, barreling down the highway, I was merrily polishing my toenails (no, I wasn’t driving, sheesh) when J got "that look" on his face.

"Feel that?" he asked.

"Here? With the kids in the car?" I said, blushing.

"No. Feel that vibration?" he said in a tone normally reserved for small children who are trying your patience. "Why is the car vibrating like that?"

J pulled over to the side of the road and jumped out of the car. When he got back in he had "that other look" on his face. Flat tire.

ARGH!

We were parked right at the mouth of an on ramp and, as luck would have it, the left rear tire had blown. Changing it would mean J would have to jack up the car and wiggle underneath while his legs stuck out into oncoming traffic. I rather like his legs and I assume he’s kind of attached to them as well so we opted to call AAA. I mean, that’s what our membership is for, right? To rescue people from their vehicular plights?

They were very efficient, quickly taking down our name, vehicle description and location and promising to send help immediately. In the meantime, I hustled the kids out of the car and into the grass on the side of the road. Ever the worrywart, I envisioned a bevy of Harley riders out for a Sunday cruise, full of steak and eggs from Cracker Barrel, not seeing the minivan in time and plowing into our back end like a huge load of aluminum cans with legs. Or something like that.

About twenty minutes later, J’s cell phone rang. It was AAA again. They told him that it was going to be tricky to find us but they would do their best. Um. We were on a major highway, fifty feet from a mile marker, at the end of an on ramp, less than a mile from another major Florida artery. Yep, it was going to be tough to find us since we were hiding in plain sight and all.

A solid hour passed while I tried to keep my hair from catching on fire in the extreme heat being generated from passing cars, the blazing sun and the overheated asphalt. The kids amused themselves by alternately fainting from heatstroke and babbling incoherently about seeing an oasis in the distance.

Then the clouds began to gather overhead.

Do you know that Florida has the highest incidence of lightning strikes in the country? Yeah, I know that too. As I weighed the relative merits of having my family electrocuted versus killed by a wayward semi while waiting in the shelter of the car, AAA called back. It seemed that the tow truck driver was reporting he couldn’t find us and had "turned around and gone back." Furthermore, it also appeared that while looking for us, he had availed himself of the very off ramp situated forty feet from the on ramp where we were waiting. Apparently that was where his district ended and, well, too bad for us. I have no idea what J said to them but I’m guessing it wasn’t "please get me his address so I can send him a Christmas card."

AAA agreed to send the driver back out so the boys and I spent the rest of the time walking around the side of the road with divining rods in search of underground water. When the tow truck finally showed up two hours after our first call, I thought briefly of warning the driver about the dangers of trying to change a flat so close to high speed traffic but decided against it. Yes, I’m that petty sometimes.

Ten minutes later, we were on the road, heading to Busch Gardens. Our morning adventure took the edge off the events of the rest of the day which included torrential rainstorms, closed rides and Son Three spiking a fever of 102 on the way home. That was our Sunday. How was yours?

Kim and Jay got to talking a few days ago about celebrities too f-ugly to sleep with (actually, they called it "The Unfuckable Celebrity List" but I can’t tell you that because my mother reads this blog and she’d ground me). I kinda like this twist on the old conversation topic of the list of celebs that you can "do" with your partner’s permission because they’re too yummy to pass up. So I got to thinking (owwww, dammit!)…and here’s mine:

Jack Klugman: His name makes me think of plugs. Mucous plus. Hair plugs. ‘Nuf said.

Carrot Top: If ever more a disgustingly creepy human being walked the planet, I haven’t seen him.

Adrian Brody: He looks like a weasel. No, really.

Dennis Miller: His voice annoys the holy hell out of me.

Any country music singer: If anyone’s going to write a song about me, it needs to be something I can listen to without making my ears bleed.

Steven Segal: The man oozes slime.

Steve Buscemi: I’ll always picture him as the guy who had little bits of person clinging to his face in "Fargo."

So there you have it. Who’d I miss?

Let’s you and me make a deal, okay? If I decide to become an AOL customer ever again, you may forever suspend my blogging privileges….no, make that suspend my right to live among the intelligent people of this planet.

What was I thinking? And why didn’t you stop me?

A couple of months ago, I signed up for A-O-Hell to complete a freelance assignment I was working on and today I called to cancel my account. Having been down this road before, I knew it wasn’t going to be a picnic. Rather than just do what you ask, these reps ask a million questions and always have a comeback for every objection you offer. They get you by the throat, these AOL people, and hang on like a rabid ferret. Jerry, the humorless customer service representative, worked me over with his brass knuckles in a conversation that went like this:

Me: "Hi, I’d like to cancel my account please."

Him: "Well, Lisa, I’m sorry to hear that (I’m sure he was devastated). May I ask why you want to cancel today?"

Me: "Well, no, that’s okay, I don’t really want to go into the details. What steps do I need to take to complete this process?" ("Like have my eyelids removed or my toes stapled to my navel, perhaps?")

Him: "Was it something AOL did? Did we upset you in some way? I’d like to have an opportunity to correct anything we did that made you unhappy." (what he meant was: "AOL is hemorrhaging customers and if I let you get away, they might make me eat a free trial CD for lunch.")

Me: "Well, thank you but I really don’t want to get into this so if…."

Him: "You seem upset. If you’ll just tell me why you want to cancel your account, I’ll see if there’s something I can do to satisfy you." ("Tell me what the problem is or I will send the AOL Gestapo and the little yellow running man to your house. I can do that, I have your address, you know.")

Me: "Look I know you have to ask me these questions but really, truly, I won’t answer them so please just tell me what I…" ("Back off, buddy. My ISP can beat up your ISP.")

Him: "I don’t understand why you won’t just tell me what the reason is so I can see if there’s anything I can do about it."

Me: "Okay, fine, I’ll tell you. I’m moving to a remote village in Guam. I will have no running water, no electricity, no phone and no ability to access your service in any fashion. The movers are here now and my plane leaves tomorrow." (I swear to god, that’s exactly what I said.)

Him: "Well, I don’t understand why feel the need to fabricate stories rather than tell me why you want to cancel your account." (I could hear him madly flipping the pages of his training manual looking up "Guam", "remote access" and "lying customer".)

Me: "Are you accusing me of LYING to you? Maybe I need to speak to your supervisor!"

Him: "Uhhhhh……no….no, that won’t be necessary…..(translation: "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit")

Me: "I though not." (HA! Take that you obnoxious little AOL weasel!)

Two minutes later, my account was cancelled. Yes, I made sure to get a confirmation number.

If America Online ever becomes Guam Online, I’m screwed.

On Sunday J decided he wanted to take us all to Chuck E. Cheese. After nearly choking on my bagel, I glanced over my shoulder to see if I was being Punk’d. In case you haven’t experienced this particular circle of hell, Chuck E Cheese is an indoor amusement park of sorts. They have arcade games, food and a guy who comes out dressed as a six foot rat mouse to scare shake hands with the kiddies. I couldn’t believe J was willing to go their of his own accord but I threw on my flak jacket, inserted my earplugs and ran to the car before he could change his mind.

The noise level in the place is out of the stratosphere and the food sucks game tokens but it does have one thing going for it. A liquor license. Yep, that’s right, moms and dads can turn their offspring loose with a pocket full of tokens and get quietly schnockered in the corner. As much as I wanted to chug down copious amounts of vinegary red "wine", I stuck with Sprite so as not to be overcome with the desire to sock Chuck E. in the face if he got his sweaty whiskers too close to me. That sets a bad example for the kids, you know.

Overall, we had a nice couple of hours. The kids ran gleefully from game to game while J and I sat forehead to forehead shouting at each other to be heard over the din. The only truly horrifying moment came when a woman at the table next to us abruptly stood up, grabbed her ankle, hoisted her foot to her face and took a long whiff of the bottom of her shoe. Honest to god, I thought she was going to lick it. I mean, if I thought something suspicious was on the bottom of my shoe, I would have tossed them into the trash and gone barefoot, not dug out my electron microscope, for chrissake. But, anyway: we went, we saw, we conquered the Big Rat. And great fun was had by all.