Passing Inspection

I drove my wife's car to the dealership for inspection. The service door opened and I drove in and parked. Two men greeted me smiling. "Good morning," one said as the other took my keys and directed me to the service desk. Another guy said something to one of my guys who laughed and gave a high-five. I went to the service desk.

Four workers were each talking with a customer. A fifth said hello on his way out to the garage. "Last spot on the end, sir. I'll grab some numbers from your car and be right back." Less than a minute later he returned. A woman at the next station smiled at something another worker down the line said.

My guy told me that I didn't yet need an oil change or tire rotation. "Just the inspection today. We can have that done in no time." He was efficient, chipper, and engaging. I asked how busy the day would be seeing that all five of them were already engaged. "Not too bad," he said. "Even when it's busy that's good." Down the line a worker and customer laughed loudly. I smiled. My guy directed me to the waiting room. "I'll come get you when it's ready."

I had brought my laptop intending to write but was too distracted in the waiting room. Mercifully the television was off but there was constant movement through the waiting area. The service desk was out to the right, bathrooms to the left, coffee and the hallway to the showroom left of center, and a business office in the middle. The office was the main distraction. Someone in there seemed to have just returned from an absence.

I watched through the cashier's window and the door as it opened and closed. People smiled and laughed. The talk was light and relaxed as at a party or family gathering. I heard please, thank you, we missed you, hey did I tell you?, laughter, and the sounds of happiness, caring, camaraderie.

No wonder I couldn't focus on writing. I was too confused. I'm at a car dealership, I thought. Do people dream of doing this work? Do they feel called to it? Can they be satisfied doing it? I now hear the condescension in those questions and apologize. Blame my ignorance and confusion and know that I'm not looking down now. When my guy said the car was ready I was relieved to get away from my confusion but sad to leave a place that felt so good.

I'm on vacation from my job and absolutely dread going back. We are stretched too thin and worn out there. No one is happy and we have given up putting on brave faces. Some of us are looking for other work. It's a dark, angry place that is the primary source of my depression and declining health. It pays the bills and affords us healthcare but that's not enough. I enjoy moments on the job but far too few. The punishments outweigh the benefits. I want more. I want the car dealership.

The dealership must be run by people who get the best out of good people by giving them what they need, valuing them, and treating them with respect. What I felt and saw there doesn't happen by accident. Good families don't just happen and the dealership was clearly a good family. I'm not looking down any more. No, my neck is getting stiff from looking up at what I want and the kind of place toward which I need to move.

Rubber Band Ball

In the kitchen junk drawer (does everyone have one of those?) sits a rubber band ball that has grown just larger than a baseball. I found a purple rubber band from the asparagus on the table and stretched it around the ball. As usual, I thought of The Mickey Mouse Make-It Book from which came the idea to make a rubber band ball. I was six then. We didn't have hundreds of rubber bands in the house. Not being able to make the ball immediately, I gave up.

Fifteen years ago I wrapped a couple rubber bands around some used aluminum foil. I added bands as I found them. The ball grew but lacked bounce because of the foil core shortcut. I tossed it in the bin as a thing begun badly, but the idea lingered.

When the kids outgrew them I packed my Mickey Mouse books in a tote but lingered over The Make-It Book. I saw the things I had made. Some worked, others not so much, and one, the rubber band ball, still called to me.

I wound two rubber bands together to form a tiny ball. I added the half dozen bands lying in the junk drawer. I added rubber bands as I found them, winding each tightly around the core. Sometimes I thought of the book, the aluminum foil failure, the idea of what I was making, but mostly I wound the band I happened to have around the ball in the drawer.

In my basement nook is the tote of comics and Mickey Mouse books. Without digging into it for the Make-It Book I remember most every page, especially the rubber band ball project. In the white space I should write that these things take time, patience, and the art of forgetting, letting go. My grandchildren would do well to learn that, but maybe such things can't come straight out of a book.

Fast Food

Seventeen years ago I stopped eating fast food. I had a quarter pounder with cheese, super-size fries and Coke for dinner with my mother-in-law. My wife was in the hospital with our four-day-old daughter. I was tired and in no mood to cook. McDonalds seemed the right choice. We ate at the restaurant that used to be on the university hill near the hospital, visited my wife and baby, and went home to sleep. By eight o'clock I knew something was wrong. By ten I was camped on the bathroom floor.

At about 1:30 on the morning of the 29th I told myself, "I will never eat fast food again." By three or four I was able to shower and sleep a few hours before returning to the hospital where they discharged my wife but kept our daughter one more day. Leaving our daughter was even worse than food poisoning. I was still recovering from that and remembering what I had told myself.

It's no surprise I would swear off fast food when I was on the bathroom floor unable to move six feet away from a toilet. The surprise is that I've never gone back to McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, or Wendy's. Not even for a french fry or Shamrock Shake. I stopped cold and I don't miss it.

I'd like to tell you I'm super-healthy now but I try not to lie here. I'm still twenty pounds overweight, still likely to finish a bag of chips once I open them, still drinking more alcohol than I should, still eating too much sugar. I'm no paragon of virtue. I've just quit fast food for so long I can't imagine eating it again.

Years ago I bought Twinkies, not having had one in years and remembering how I had loved them. I bit into the first one and chewed a couple of times before it registered: this thing is terrible. I swallowed that bite with a question mark on my face and took another. I couldn't remember ever having not finished a Twinkie. My school lunch bag always held knock-off snacks. When I got hold of real Twinkies, I damn well ate them. But the second bite was disgusting too. It wasn't stale or moldy — I doubt Twinkies can grow mold. It simply didn't taste like food. I spit out that second bite and threw the second Twinkie away still wrapped in its package. I've no desire to try again.

After seventeen years, it's the same with fast food. I just don't want it any more.

I need to figure out what day I dropped Facebook. My guess is that seventeen years from now I'll have little taste left for social media. I hope that I'm healthier for it. I really thought I'd shed a few pounds without all those quarter pounders, super size fries, and super size Coca-Cola. Damn.

80th Birthday

It is my father's eightieth birthday though he's no longer here to celebrate. He died in 2015, so we won't have cake, the girls won't make cards, and we've bought no present. Yesterday Mom said, "tomorrow will be a hard day. It's the thirteenth." Dad's birthday, as if I could forget. Dates matter to me. There was no way I wouldn't remember his birthday. I've been thinking about it for weeks, but I've been looking forward to it.

The day will be difficult for Mom as are the anniversary of his death, their wedding anniversary, and even her birthday, the milestones of him being gone from her. I think of him on the anniversary of buying his business and at the start of Syracuse Women's Basketball season. For Mom these days are filled with sadness. They play out differently within me.

I'm grateful today. As the years pass Dad's memory takes up less and less space. This sad fact is inescapable: the dead pass away. All the calendar days still occupied by my memories of him, these are chances to come back to Dad, to have him come back to me. I'll spend much of today thinking of my kids and wife, the weather, my job, my brother and mother, and whatever is in the news, but I'll have Dad with me and smile because there's one thing about his death that comforts me.

Dad forever remains for me as he was. Aside from the heart attack that felled him, he was healthy and whole. His eyesight was being restored. He got around well and could drive. He was strong and able if not so much as he once had been. He took care of himself and others. All of which is to say that he never suffered a decline, something he would have hated. Dad was able and capable for all his life. Were he here now to reflect on things he would nod and call his a good ending.

Still, I miss him and wish he was here to celebrate, but my wish is mostly selfish. I want him to behold my daughters and hear the sweet voice of his beloved daughter in law. I want him to have a few more hours at the garage with my brother and their cars. I want him at home with Mom doing the simple, routine things of their lives, the ordinary magic of life together. And I want to take him to a basketball game, sit beside him, and not need to say a damn thing, just cheer and be together.

These are my greedy dreams. They fall apart when I consider having to again say goodbye to him. Instead, today, his birthday, I say hey, Dad. He doesn't need to say anything back. He never had to. Though often enough the words he said to me sounded exactly like, I love you, son and they still do.