Keriosity

Almost two years ago, I wrote about my experience driving and subsequently purchasing a Lamborghini. I mentioned that even though I enjoy a little speedy competition on the road, I did not share my husband’s car-themed psychosis. Well a lot has changed since then.

I sold my beloved BMW M3 in favor of a car with a manual transmission to force myself to learn to drive stick. The new car had to give me enough incentive to get behind the wheel, since I can pretty much walk anywhere I need to go. A Porsche 911 Cabriolet was a good incentive.

I liked driving stick so much that I purchased a second car with 100 more horsepower, without consulting my husband first.

I learned that, even in the year 2006, male car dealers don’t treat female customers with respect. Even after said female customer drives the 425hp V8 limited-production car better than they do.

I went on a 7-day illegal cross-country road race and learned that a giggle and a smile can get you out of at least 7 tickets. I also learned that a fast-driving airhead in a miniscule outfit gets attention, but a fast-driving chick in sweats and a baseball cap gets respect.

I drove on the track at Pocono Raceway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and the California Speedway and experienced that some male drivers underestimate, if not dismiss, female drivers.

I drag-raced on the most famous drag strip in the country, which is in Great Bend Kansas and learned that you can’t judge your opponent’s car by appearance alone. A broken-up taxicab with a subtle NOS sticker on the back is pretty much going to kick your ass. (NOS= Nitrous Oxide System, for those of you who don’t know. I didn’t.)

I drove every new model of BMW at the California Speedway and discovered the joy of spinning around a skid pad in someone else’s car.

This past Friday, I spent all day driving a Ferrari on the track at Pocono Raceway, and I learned that even a seasoned racing instructor can get scared sometimes (hey, you have to scare the instructor once.) I think I’ve contracted my husband’s psychosis. And I like it.

I just got finished reading a great book. Its cover is filled with accolades about what a beautiful love story and how it’s a triumph of love and how soaring and brilliant and poignant and sweet and blah blah blah blah BLAH. What did I think? I was depressed and sad. It was a great book, yes. But I will never read it again. And I often read great books more than once.

I never read love-stories and this is why: When I do read them, I feel unhappy afterwards. There is a reason that love-stories are always in the fiction section. They are so wrought with inaccuracies of real “love” that really they need a fiction section of their own. In fact, let’s make up a whole new bookstore section for them: The “Overly-Dramatized Never-Gonna-Happen Men-Aren’t-Like-This Fantasies That Make Every Woman Feel Bad About Her Own Relationship” section.

I don’t think I’m alone here. I happen to know that I have a great marriage. We aren’t perfect, but we have a strong relationship and I’d even say we’re happily in-love. Yet suddenly after reading a love-story or watching a love-story book made into a movie, I start to become resentful of all the normal marriage stuff that is too normal to be in the book or movie. Somehow, I start to think that since Vanessa and Mikel never fight about who left crumbs on the kitchen counter and their love is deeper and more passionate than this world can handle and so they need to quantum leap to other lifetimes to fulfill this massively endless timeless love, my simple one-lifetime crumb-filled marriage must be so…lacking.

Love-story characters never fight over the bills, they never slouch on the sofa watching TV all weekend because they are bored but too lazy to make plans, and 60 pages of each book are not dedicated to football. Also, love-story sex seems to bring about altered states of consciousness instead of inspiring such mood-killing outbursts as “oh your mother called today” and “don’t forget to pick up stamps.”

I think that the high divorce rate can be attributed, in part, to love-stories. If we can blame the media for warping women’s body-images, I think it’s not a stretch to blame it for our unrealistic idea of what a relationship should be. Men are not romantic by nature. (No, they are not.) When they do anything romantic, it’s a means to an end. And they know better than we do that there are many other means to that end, so Romance is the least used of all the means. He probably does the dishes to get the end more often than he lights candles and pours you a glass of wine, right? And how many of us have actually come home to find a pathway of rose petals, or candles, or love-notes, or anything other than dirty socks or piles of mail or the kids’ toys leading us to the boudoir? Hm?

With all these loving, romantic, thoughtful, apologetic, communicative husbands and lovers in these books we read - women develop very high standards for real-world men - who, by the way, rarely read books, let alone love-stories. How are men to know what they should be aspiring to be?

I think the solution is for women to start to write whatever it is that men DO read.

They like to read car magazines? Here’s a sample:

“According to Dodge, the new Ram Mega Cab boasts a number of “biggest” in its class: largest cab (perfect for when your beautifully pregnant wife is 9-months along…have you told her how beautiful she looks?), most interior cargo room (great for antique sales!), most cargo volume behind the rear seat (lots of long stem roses can fit there!), most second-row legroom (How about a double-date with her sister and brother-in-law? That new Julianna Moore movie is playing!)”

Is your guy a home improvement do-it-himselfer?

“The key to properly re-carpeting the master bedroom is to choose a high-grade extra-plush quality carpet, so that when you spontaneously decide to shower the bed with rose petals, light candles, play soft music, have chilled champagne ready, and present your lady with outrageously expensive new lingerie - and a diamond tennis bracelet to match - she has nice soft carpeting on which to faint from the shock of what a perfect and romantic man you are.”

Or maybe he’s a sports fan?

“Police have reportedly been called to the home of Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Milton Bradley three times this summer due to domestic violence issues.” …Uh…

“Anchor-reporter Carolyn Hughes has been taken off Dodger coverage at Fox Sports West during an investigation of her relationship with pitcher Derek Lowe. Neither Lowe nor Hughes would comment, but Lowe’s wife Trinka had plenty to say.” …Um…

“Nike is using photos of Kobe Bryant for the first time since his arrest two years ago for an alleged assault on a female employee at a Colorado resort.”

Ok I tried to find articles I could tweak to give examples of professional athletes being great husbands - but I couldn’t find any who are! Those guys are dogs!

I guess I’ll just go back to reading suspense thrillers and historically-based novels. At least those books make me grateful that no serial killers are after me and that I live in the age of chapstick and tampax.

PS - The Time Traveler’s Wife: good book, but don’t hold it against your man. Especially if he travels a lot.

I’m afraid I may have crossed over to the dark side.

As most of you know, my husband has a rather unhealthy affinity for cars which I do not share. I won’t go into the details of how this manifests itself in our daily lives because, frankly, I don’t think it’s proper for a spouse to reveal such things outside of a setting that includes both a sofa and an impressive collection of books by Freud, Jung, and Maslow. Suffice it to say I find myself being inundated with talk of cars, performance specs, performance parts and upgrades, industry gossip, photographs, video clips and the like - usually prefaced with an excited “Here, check this out!”or “Hey, what do you think of this?” and I could not be less interested. Really.

For my part, I have honed the art of acting just interested enough without being exactly encouraging nor disapproving. This is a hard line to walk, and I am very proud of how few times I have lost the balance. There are definite areas in which I put my foot down - for example: no yellow cars. Until recently, COST was the other foot-putting-down issue which I have been steadfast about.

Then we went to the Lamborghini dealer.

Here is some background: Since moving, Emil has been searching for a new car for himself. His 9-year old Ferrari is begging to be retired to a person who will only drive it on the weekends to Crystal Cove and back, so there is a need for a replacement. I have quietly accepted the fact that any car he buys at this point will throw me way off my well-crafted and maintained line - so rather than lose the battle, I’ve decided to just go with it and secretly plot to use how cool I’m being to my advantage in the future.

Being the cool wife that I am, I went with Emil to the Lamborghini dealer to look at a Gallardo: a car I had been consistently calling “ugly” for several months now. The Gallardo in question is blue. I like the blue. It’s pretty. But the interior is also blue. That’s a foot-putting-down thing with me - I really dislike colored leather interior.

…Deep breaths. It’s going to be ok. The worse the car, the cooler you are…

I sat in it and felt very claustrophobic. This might be a deal-breaker. I can be cool about blue leather, but if I vomit on it - that’s not cool. We decided that a test drive was in order because maybe when the car is in motion, I won’t feel so claustrophobic.

The dealer took me out in the car. We had a pleasant little drive. A few minutes into it, I looked at him and said “Um. This is nice, but could you maybe drive faster?”

He furrowed his brow. “Are you sure because-”

”Yeah I’m sure - you can really drive.”

“Ok, because sometimes people tell me I can drive fast and then they get scared and hold on.” I just laughed. Oh silly man.

“Look, if I start holding on - you can back off. I have to know what it’s going to be like when Emil drives, because he’s going to drive the snot out of this thing,” I said. He just grinned. And then he gunned it.

It has taken me forever to finish this blog because I have been trying to find the correct way to describe my experience driving the Lamborghini. (yes, he let me drive it) Sure I could detail my galloping heartbeat, holding my breath, stifling back the inner “HELL YEAH BITCHES!” - but so cliche, no? I could have taken another approach and written a sexy little paragraph with naughty double-entendres for your interpretation because really - driving this car was HOT and I did feel like a little hottie driving it.

But I think you all know enough about my thought patterns at this point to expect a little more of a real reaction from me. Truly, after the racing heart, inner swearing, and getting a little hot & bothered, my real thoughts were “This is probably the closest I will ever come to feeling like Jane Jetson!” because I think this car might become the inspiration for the everyman’s hovercraft in 2050. Although Jane could fit way more shopping bags in her space car than will fit in the Lambo, whose trunk will fit about one box of Jimmy Choos. Strappy heels, not boots.

Getting back to the dealer, I had the biggest grin on my face - and it wasn’t just from the g-forces pulling my cheeks back. It was a genuine “ok, I get it now” smile. Emil walked over and I was completely off my game. I did the unthinkable. I actually said “We need to get this car.”

…HUH? Get ahold of yourself, woman! That is no way to maintain the line…

Surely I could have thought of a more subtle and manipulative way to allow the purchase of this car without appearing to approve so wholeheartedly - let alone have it be MY idea! Years of honing the art of disinterested interest and I blow it all after a 5 minute 100mph ride in an ugly car that is obviously also evil.

On a side note - this little slip in composure came in handy two days ago when I was at the gas station with my M3. Some loser came over to me and said “Did you pick this car out all by yourself?”

I rolled my eyes. “I did.”

“I’m impressed!” he said flirtatiously.

“Yeah? You should see the Gallardo I picked out that’s at home.” I coldly shot back.

He was taken aback but inquired with a sly grin “Well, why is it at home?!”

“Because when I take it out, MORE ass-holes like you talk to me.” (they make it so easy)

I hope I enjoy my new place on the dark side. Emil seems to like it just fine. I think we will be eating nothing but popcorn and spam for the next two years, but man our car’s gonna be hot!

Ok, Ok - I promise to try to have blog entries more often. I’ve had a busy month, OK?

Over the weekend, besides visiting my family and touring a creepy old house that was definitely haunted, a conversation arose about childhood “beware of white vans” stories. Did you have these? For some reason, when we were younger, there was a rumor going around that a man in a white van was kidnapping children. Whether or not this was true, we will never know - but this actually seems to be a common childhood rumor. This conversation reminded me of several things….

- When the DC sniper was on the loose, there was a point where a white astrovan was being sought. Apparently, it had been seen in the area of many of the shootings.
- When Laci Peterson was “missing”, there was also a white van seen in the area that investigators were interested in finding.

Do a google search on “white van”, “at the scene”, -sniper and you will see many many references to white vans at crime scenes.

I think this is vehicular profiling. Why are white vans always to blame? Aren’t vans of color equally as likely to be involved in crime? What about other types of cars - I’m sure there are a few sedans involved from time to time. And I’ve never trusted those sneaky convertibles. White vans are always seen at crime scenes because look around you! There are a LOT of white vans.

I think this sort of prejudice and rumor needs to stop.