I'm BA-AACK!
Wherein Our Heroine is
Road-Weary and Ill.
Hello, Dearest of Dear Readers. Thank
you for bearing with me in my blogless state. Today's entry is rambling and
unfocused - kind of like me on this chilly
morning.
I'm back. And I come
bearing microbes of no great joy. Why, oh why does every cold I get have to
turn into a sinus infection, I ask you? Okay, I'm done
moaning.
To briefly recap, I
went out to Indianapolis for my cousin's wedding. I flew to Chicago on
Wednesday and spent 24 lovely hours with my Darling Maria Perez (hostess and
tour guide extraordinaire). Then I collected my mother at O'Hare and off we
went to my grandmother's house in Indiana. It has been a long time since I have
been back to the heartland. I can never really get comfortable in that part of
the country - it is just too darn flat. In Chicago, the flatness is obscured by
tall buildings and fun things to do. Once outside the city, though, the
flatness makes me nervous. There's too much horizon - you can see too much out
there. I clearly have an underdeveloped primitive danger-sensing gene, so go
ahead - ambush me. Just give me my hills.
Grandma had tasks for us when
we got to her house. I like having tasks at Grandma's: it gives me something to
do and makes me feel useful, even though she clearly believes me unable to
successfully complete any technical task. Her garage-opener light was burnt out
and her cordless phone's battery was dying. Since the housing of her
garage-opener was rendered almost completely inaccessible by the way it was
installed, Mom and I decided that duct tape was a better solution than trying to
reinstall it with the screws that were so cleverly obscured by the garage's
beams. My grandmother had never heard of duct tape, and the new phone battery
needed to be procured, so off to Target we went.
On our way to Target, the
"low tire" idiot-light in my grandmother's Buick went on. Visual inspection
showed normal-looking tires. Duct tape and phone battery were secured, and off
we went to seek out some tire help. My grandmother's normal tire place was at
some distance and she was progressing from merely worried to seriously agitated,
so when I spotted a local tire store on the main drag, I pulled in. It was your
standard, shabby, run-down tire emporium, and three rather suspect-looking
gentlemen regarded me when I entered. Skinhead tattoo guy, short weaselly guy,
and skinny longhaired guy all looked at me as if I might possibly be an alien
recently beamed in from the Planet East Coast (which, in fact, I am - but that's
beside the point).
"Hello
Gentlemen," I said, "My grandma's car has a low-tire light on and she's pretty
worried about it. The tires look fine, but we have to drive to Indy tomorrow
for my cousin's wedding..." Miraculously, their suspicious expressions melted
away and they all smiled at me. Grandma needs help! To the rescue! Skinhead
tattoo guy followed me outside and carefully took the measure of each tire,
clearly delighted to help a grandma in need. After putting in a couple of
pounds of air per tire and figuring out how to reset the idiot light, STG
graciously wished us all a safe journey to the wedding the next day.
When we got back to Grandma's
house, there was a broken water-main gushing water into the ditch at the end of
her street. It really was that kind of
trip.
I'm glad to be
home.
Posted: Monday - October 11, 2004 at 08:52 AM
|
|
