This is how I volvo

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 11, Verse 2

"Proud men end in shame,

but the meek become wise."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

I'm doing it again.

Apologizing.

Apologizing, for my car.

And I hate it, but I feel compelled to do it.  It comes up and out of me like vomit that sears my throat and my nostrils, but it's unstoppable.  It's propelled up my esophagus by guilt and pushed out of my oral cavity by embarrassment and fear of being judged.

The way I judge others.  The way I judge.

But people are judging me.

Aren't they?

"Oh!  You drive a Vol-vo?"

They like to put the emphasis on the first syllable.  VOL-vo.  

If you say "Volvo" enough times, it starts to sound stupid, like any word.  I didn't know what "Volvo" meant, so I looked it up.  The internet told me.

Volvo means "I roll" in Swedish.

A few years ago, I owned a 2002 Volvo S-40.  It was a very nice car.  It had beige leather seats and fake wood trim everywhere and it had ass-warmers.  And I loved the car from the moment I sat behind the wheel, all through the ride home, until the first acquaintance I knew saw it and said, "Oh!  A Vol-vo!"  And I instantly knew that I did not deserve to be driving this car.  

For the first time in my life, I had committed the sin of purchasing a car that was above my station.  If you think that America doesn't have a rigid class system like England or even a caste system like India, just try to earn $30,000 a year and by an old luxury car.  People will put you in your place, without meaning to, without trying to be unkind, without even thinking about it.  It'll just happen.

I had owned a Volvo prior to the S-40.  When I was sixteen, I drove a 1989 Volvo 240-DL.  You know, the time machine that looks like it could have been made in 1954 or 1967 or 1975 or 1989.  Nobody made me feel weird or uncomfortable about driving it, because it was Volvo's entry level car, and it had blue cloth seats and maybe four buttons on the dashboard.  I don't remember whether it had heated seats, but I doubt it.  It was about as spartan and basic as it got-- Volvo's version of the original Beetle.  An underpowered, no-frills people mover.  But, unlike the original Beetle, it was a safe underpowered, no-frills people mover.  And I guess the fact that we bought it for $2,300 and that nobody I knew when I was sixteen knew enough about cars to know that Volvo was a big deal, plus the fact that I went to school in a very affluent area where all the kids drove BMWs and Lexuses and the teachers came to work in rusted out Chevettes and Sentras probably had something to do with it, too.  My Volvo 240-DL blended in anonymously.  

And now, all these years later, I'm on my third Volvo.  A 2001 Volvo V-70 AWD.  When it was new, it cost nearly $40,000.  With the trade I offered, I got it for $1,300.  Not bad.  It was driven less than an average of 7,000 miles a year and it's gorgeous.  And I love it.  

But it embarrasses me.  Or, I'm embarrassed by it.  It's too good for me, or I'm not good enough for it.  

When people see it and they say, "Oh!  You drive a Vol-vo!"  I am very quick to jump in and say, "Well, an old Volvo."  For good measure, sometimes I'll add, "It's thirteen years old," or, for added dramatic effect, "you know I was still in college when that car was built!"  Or, to ameliorate the person's good image of the car, I'll subtlety disrespect it.

"Yea, it's beautiful, but the gas mileage is pretty terrible."

But I'm really just dissing myself.  It's my poor self-esteem talking.  Why should I deserve to drive a car like that?  What gives me the right?  Leather seats?  Ass-warmers?  A moon-roof?  More fake-wood than I can shake a fake stick at?  A V-6 engine (my first V-6 in years), all-wheel-drive?  Come on-- who am I?  A Rockafella?

No.  I'm just a skinny little shit who found a good deal and he jumped on it.  And I try to enjoy it and, privately, I can.  When I'm alone behind the wheel or I catch a glimpse of it parked outside, I have to admit, I like it.  I like it very much.  One day, when we've been through enough together, I might even love it.  But, when I'm in the presence of someone else, I can't help but feel intensely self-conscious about it.  Like I'm wearing a huge, gaudy gold necklace with the Volvo symbol around my neck everywhere I go.  

And I want to just enjoy it all the time.  Because, one day, it'll be gone.  And I'll miss it.  I'll miss the exaggerated stitching on the seats and the roar of that powerful Swedish engine.  One day, I'll be sitting on a seat that's deficient, less satisfying, less glorious and scoliosis-calming.

But, for now, this is how I roll.  And I have to learn to be okay with that, no matter who's around.

By the way, her name is "Petra."  Say "hi" to the people, Petra.  

A King by Your Own Fireside

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 11, Verse 14

"Without wise leadership, a nation is in trouble."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

There's a tale I've heard that, in a certain Scandinavian country, if your car is too ugly, you can get pulled over and fined.  I don't know what defines, exactly, an "ugly" car-- I guess it's up to the individual Scandinavian type police officer to decide-- but, if it were up to me, anyone I caught driving a Pontiac Aztek would be dragged out of their car and Tased.  

Vigorously.

Fortunately for the huddled masses, I'm not a police officer, Scandinavian or otherwise.  I'd make a funny looking Scandinavian police officer.  But, no.  I don't wear a duty-belt, or a badge.  I don't have the authority to arrest and I don't sit on a throne with a golden, engraved scepter clutched in my hand either.  I'm not a monarch of the sea or a modern major-general.  But, if I were, if I were the king of the forrest, believe me, there would be hell to pay, of that you may be sure.

There would be a list of names you couldn't call your dog.  No Fifi.  No Biscuit.  

Sorry.  

You can't name your dog "Cat" either.  I know, it's pretty clever, but not while I'm King.  Or you'll get Tased.

If I were in charge of this shit, you wouldn't have to pay for postage, either.  If, that is, you can draw a really cool design on the top right-hand corner of your envelopes.  And it doesn't have to be Harriet fucking Tubman either-- you can draw whatever you want, as long as it's really cool.  Because, really, even if you're a great artist, how many people are going to necessarily see your art work?  Not that many.  Why not send it out in the mail?  If you're that good, why should you have to pay $0.46 or whatever the fuck a goddamn stamp costs now?  

You could do whatever you wanted to people who park your car in, if I were the king by my own fireside.  All you have to do is take a picture or their bumpers kissing yours to show the authorities afterwards and you're free to do anything you wish.  Shit on their hood?  Pinch that loaf!  Pour gasoline all over their Sentra and light a match?  Hey, they asked for it.  What the fuck, is your car invisible?  No.  It isn't.  It is not.

I wonder sometimes if I'd be the sort of king who'd want a jester.  I can't imagine that I would.  I'm a naturally insecure person, especially when it comes to my ability to be funny, and I think I would get extremely angry with a jester if he was terrible, or hilarious.  "We don't know how to be happy," my eldest sister once said to me.  She'd be a duchess, or a baroness, I guess.  Anyway, she's right, of course.  I wouldn't be happy with a jester, no matter what he wore or how he sang.  I wouldn't be happy with pratfalls and banana peels, or jester jocularity, jibe and joke or quip and crank.  Anyway, why should a king need a jester?  He'd, I would think, have a front row seat to all his kingdom's lunacy, hypocrisy, pain and palaver.  I can't imagine a need for a jester, making fun.  Who'd have the time to laugh, anyway?

But, then, I think we all know I'm not king material myself.  Too timid, too frightened, to swallowed up by his own anxiety and terror.  Too apologetic and abashed.  Too self-absorbed and self-effacing.  I would make a good king's scribe; dutifully crouched over a small tablet, furiously scribbling to make sure I catch every regal word, wordlessly correcting the royal grammar.  Fetching a bone for Biscuit.  Tasing the jester for being too bad.

Or too good.   

The Lexapro Isn't Working

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 5, Verse 23

"He shall die because he will not listen to the truth;

he has let himself be led away into incredible folly."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

"So, how bad is this O.C.D. of yours?" he asked me.  Nobody'd ever asked it quite like that before.

I looked at him.

"Well, I wouldn't say it's bad, but it's definitely a part of me.  I mean, it's there.  Like, for instance, just this morning, I went to a conference, and it was downtown-- would have taken me twenty minutes to get there.  And it started at nine.  Well, my wife left the house at a little after seven.  I didn't have anywhere to fucking be, but I left with her.  So, I'm driving around like an asshole with nowhere to go, and I thought to myself, 'Oh, I'll go to Starbucks,' which makes sense, right?"

"Right," he said, furrowing his eyebrows.  He could tell I didn't go to Starbucks.

"So, I go to Starbucks, but, as I park the car, I remember, 'Oh, this guy I used to go to school with works there, and he's really nice, but I really can't stand interacting with people and making small talk and shit like that-- plus the mother of a girl I went to school with has some kind of intellectual bullshit discussion group at that Starbucks in the morning and I'll definitely run into her, in fact her car's in the parking lot and I really like her and I loved her daughter like a sister but I think I'll just sit here in the car for an hour'.  And that's what I did.  Idling, wasting gas, listening to fucking intellectual bullshit NPR like a dickhead dipshit asshole for forty five minutes until I couldn't take the anxiety of not knowing what traffic would be like and I left and got to my conference over twenty minutes early."

He looked at me.

"So, maybe this isn't working."  Pause.  "Are you feeling any... any spark?  That's what we're looking for; a spark.  Have you had moments like that?"

I looked at him.

"No."

-----------------------------

Maybe it's too soon.  Maybe that's it.  Or maybe I don't want it to work.  Or maybe they're sugar pills.  Or maybe I'm a horse.  Or maybe it's the day after Halloween and I should be writing about how my babies went as a Hershey's Hug & Kiss and how the dog at my wife's glasses while we were trick-or-treating.  Maybe I'm getting myself into trouble with my big mouth and my self-disclosure and oh, listen to that, my daughter's screaming.

Deal with that, would you?  I have neuroses to dissect.

Ordinarily, I'm a pretty decent judge of when things are or aren't working.  If I'm involved in a play and it's a disaster, I typically know it, though I am powerless to correct any piece of it aside from my own performance, and sometimes I'm not even adept enough to fix that.  I know when writing's working and when it isn't (this piece could go either way at this point) and I've known that my former romantic relationships were going down in flames while it was happening-- hindsight was not required, though it helped.

As for medication-- I don't know.  I'm not terribly aware of my emotional state at any given time to be especially keyed in to give a good report.  I feel the same as I did four weeks ago as I did fourteen years ago.  I don't know what to tell you, or him.  I don't know whether I should stay on this smack for the rest of my life just because I know I have anxiety and depression and all that other nonsense that goes merrily along with it, or if I should try something else, or just stick to drinking decaf and putting bacon on everything and split the difference.  

In the end, it doesn't really matter, because I'll be dead, and whatever decisions I've made or haven't made relating to diet and caffeine intake and psych meds and wingtips vs slip-ons won't really amount to much.  Sure, they seem like big decisions now, but really, who gives a fuck?  So I'll be a little more anxious, or a little less depressed.  I'll be out a $5 co-pay, or $10 when the insurance changes.

Whatever.

I don't know.

Would it have been such a Zen triumph over the ego or whateverthefuck if I'd gone into Starbucks that Monday morning and hob-nobbed effervescently with the guy I went to school with and the mom of the girl I went to school with and I traded witticisms with the bearded, latte-swilling members of her faux-Mensa group?  I do or I don't.  The therapist thins his lips or gives a wan smile.  Either way, I give him fifty bucks.

I think about death all the time.  Not suicide, just death.  It pops into my head at lunch or during sex or on a walk or a drive or when I'm holding my son.  It happens when I'm being cynical or brooding, but also when I'm funny or contrite, ballsy or bashful.  I don't know what it is, or why.  But I know there isn't a pill for it and, if there was, I don't know that I'd take it anyway because I don't know what, other than sex, I'd think about.  

It's silly, isn't it?  It's silly and strange and peaceful and terrible all the time.  Each and every day.  It's rainbow vomit.  It's a Crystal Light chandelier.  It's Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

-----------------

"We'll try 15 mg and see what that does, okay?"

"Sure," I said.  "What the fuck, right?"

Perfume on this Shit

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 28, Verse 23

"In the end, people appreciate frankness more than flattery."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

I have a dish soap problem.

My dish soap problem is not altogether calamitous, and it is somewhat easy to explain: I use too much dish soap.

There.  I said it.

The consequence of my dish soap problem is not altogether catastrophic, and it is somewhat easy to explain: my dishes are very clean.

Okay.  Now you know.

There is, of course, another consequence of my dish soap problem, and it is not altogether cataclysmic, and it is somewhat easy to explain: I spend more money on dish soap annually than is necessary.

So.  There it is.

The thing is, though, when the dish soap bottle is full, I get reckless with my squirting and my spurting, as so many immature boys do.  It's very Freudian.  I just spray all over the place.

WAHOO!  WHOOOPEEE!  I DON'T CARE!  LA LA LA!  TAKE THAT, DISHES!  

And, so on.  And, so forth.

It's like a party of some kind, and my sink is the Playboy mansion.  Or the Penthouse, um, penthouse.  

By the time the bottle is half empty, I don't care anymore.  "Oh, it's half empty," I say to myself, "I don't care.  Anymore."  And so I spray and spurt and squirt with aplomb.  Because, what's the fucking difference by that point?  

Then, when it's almost gone, well, hardly time to conserve now, is it?  And so I absolutely coat the dishes with pink or plum-hued oomidigoobiness.  

Clean.  Freak.  

And, as I have mentioned: we use a lot of dish soap.  Hence, my dish soap problem.  Hence, my coffee often tastes like Lemon Joy.  Hence, soap is probably coursing through my veins at this very moment.

Henceforth, new paragraph.

These paragraphs aren't very long, are they?

I didn't realize, until as recently as a couple years ago, that I had a talent for tarting up phrases, for making the not so nice appear quite so nice, on paper that is.  For tidying up phrasing or for dressing up scenarios.  For nipping and tucking, in the written form.  For cleaning things up.  I guess it should come naturally for someone who has liquid detergent for blood.  Sometimes my coworkers would be writing their notes and one would pass along a patient note to me and say, "Can you spray a little perfume on this shit for me?"  And I would suggest a rewrite or two to make something a little more therapeutic, a little tighter, neater, nicer; cleaner.  And, invariably, my colleague would make the suggested edits and trot away happily because, as far as they knew, I was a writer and knew what I was talking about.

And I am only too happy to perpetuate the fantasy.  As fantasies go, it's pretty innocuous.

Anyway, as I was washing dishes tonight, I was thinking about this alleged ability of mine, this facility with the Queen's English and my gaze fell upon the dish soap bottle (now dangerously close to empty) that sat, upright like a penguin, in front of my on the sink, with its back label facing me.

On the off chance that you are over forty (and, if you are, reading this blog will only prolong your sorely extended adolescence, which is probably why you're here) and cannot see that, allow me:

"Inspired by the winding canals of Thailand that are lined with 

dragon fruits, mangoes and papayas."

And then it says the same thing in French.  And then it talks about how it'll burn your face off and turn your eyeballs into Raisinettes if you spray it all over yourself.  

And I was thinking to myself, "Wow.  I missed my calling."  Really.  I could have combined my two great loves: dish soap and spraying perfume on this shit by working for SC Johnson Wax or whoever the fuck makes this dish soap shit, AND I'm sure that, working for them, I could score free dish soap for life and so that would really have killed two birds with one stone and that just would have been a great career move but instead I work at a goddamned psych hospital and do Gilbert & Sullivan operettas and get dish pan hands and play around in the sink like a second grader and everything is going fine.

And then I looked at the new bottle sitting next to that dragon fruit and papaya one.

"Inspired by the lavender fields of the Mediterranean."

And I thought to myself, "That's it?"  

Whoever wrote that couldn't possibly have been the same genius who penned the description for the "Thai Dragon Fruit Scent" Dawn.  Unless it was 5:00, time to go home-- oh, shit, I still have to write for the "Mediterranean Lavender Scent" Dawn, oh whatever kind of thing.  

I can accept that.

I don't appreciate it.  But I can accept it.

Sometimes, though, even when it's the end of the day and your hands are all chapped and there's nothing left in the bottle and your tank has run dry and the babies are screaming and the dog has unzipped your wife's purse and there's Kleenex and coins and glitter all over the floor and it seems like they're going to find out about you and it's time for bed and it's time for morning and it's driving and fueling and farting and crying and meds and meat and drink and sex and puzzles and cable TV-- sometimes you still have to just try.  Try to put some perfume on that shit.  For yourself.  For your mother.  For God and country.  For the Duke boys.

For all of us.

Why?

Because, Goddamnit.  Because this is America.  Because this is your captain speaking.  Because I have a song to sing, O.  Because this I believe.  Because mistakes were made.  Because this is the way we were.

Because I have a dish soap problem.  

Just Another Porpoise

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 25, Verses 21 & 22

"If your enemy is hungry, give him food!

If he is thirsty, give him something to drink!

This will make him ashamed of himself, and God will reward you."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

I'm trying an experiment.  

Don't worry-- it doesn't involve spraying Maybeline into Thumper's eyes or replacing Christian babies' blood with Ecto-Cooler.  It's just a teensy little experiment.  

A writing experiment.

Tonight, I am going to see if I can be a little bit more in tune with, or attuned to, my emotions.  Now, I'm obviously off to not such a hot start because, if I was, I wouldn't have done that cutesy little phrasing (in tune with, or attuned to-- God, shut UP) because I would have been paying closer attention to what I'm feeling right now and less attention to being clever.

I'm not, that's why I have to pay attention to it.

What I'm feeling right now, frankly, is cold.  Not emotionally, but physically.  My feet are freezing and my nose is schnuffling, and my shoulders are cold.  I've got a sweater on, and pretty thick socks but this room and this house are both drafty and I don't have the wherewithal or the ambition to go downstairs and turn the heater on.  If I had one of those nifty apps on my smartphone I could turn the heater on using that, but those are for assholes.

I don't need HVAC cellphone apps to be an asshole.  I've got it covered.

I suppose I'm feeling a little lonely tonight.  My wife is at her band rehearsal and the babies are asleep, as is the dog.  I could wake her up to play with her, but that feels a bit selfish.  Plus, she'd probably just get riled up and bark and yelp and wake the babies up, and that would be mightily sad for all involved.  I usually don't mind being alone, but I don't like the way it feels right now.  I feel like I want to call up a friend, but why?  What would I say?  

"Hello in there?"

It's frustrating when you're not sure where to go with a piece.  That nice moment there doesn't mean much if it's not picked up in a thoughtful way, or an energetic paragraph that goes somewhere else.  It sort of just hangs there, doesn't it?  Like some forgotten dream, that we've both seen...

I've been worried recently that I'm not terribly funny anymore.  And I've been thinking about it a lot.  In writing and in life.  That I maybe don't have the knack for it, or the energy for it, or the interest in it.  I looked at the homepage of John Elder Robison's wife's blog for some random reason today, and it made me crack up, just silly captions she put under pictures or the way she phrased things and I was thinking, "I used to do that, didn't I?"

But maybe I'll be funny when I'm supposed to be.  Maybe, right now, when I'm not feeling funny, I'm not supposed to be being funny.  Oftentimes, people are funny because they have to be, or they think they have to be, to cover up what they're really feeling-- to help someone else out, to prove something to themselves or the world.  It's our way of making Ecto Cooler out of lemonade.  It's a neat trick: Hey!  I can do that!  Look at me!  I'm depressed as hell but I can still make you laugh.

It's a neat trick.  Better than a goddamned porpoise bouncing a beach ball on his fucking nose at Sea World.

I saw a headline today, I guess it was on an advice column, and the title read, "Should I Take My Child to Sea World?" and I was thinking "No, you fucking stupid cunt," and I was thinking about how much I wanted to smack the asshole who wrote that, and then do the same thing to the asshole who printed it, and then do the same thing to everyone who clicked on it and read it.  And then I thought, if my children want to go to Sea World, I am going to take them.  And then I will want to slap myself.  Because I am my own worst enemy.  My mortal enemy.  I'm going to be around myself forever.  

No, don't take your lousy lopsided miserable kid to Sea World.  Buy him a Siamese fighting fish instead.  He'll love the fucking thing because it's beautiful, and Sea World isn't beautiful.  I've never seen it; 

but I know. 

The Spandexversary

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 25, Verse 24

"It is better to live in a corner of an attic than in a beautiful home with a 

cranky, quarrelsome woman."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

I'm very fortunate.

I know that, if you read back through the fifty-some-odd, quite odd, yes, posts on this blog you might legitimately wonder if I really believe that.  

But, I do.  

One of the things I'm frightfully fortunate about is that I married a woman who thinks that a lot of things related to romantic relationships are stupid.

Like roses'n'chocolates.  

Now, don't get me wrong, she loves flowers and chocolate, just not "roses'n'chocolates".  And I particularly enjoy going to a florist and hand-picking an eclectic, autumnal bouquet for her.  I always say I want to spend "between $35 and $40", and it almost always comes out to "$44.85" or something like that, but who cares?  I love snapdragons and sunflowers.  No, snapdragons'n'sunflowers.

She also thinks Valentine's Day is stupid, and I love that.  Fortunately, we came into each other's lives on February 16th, 2003 so it's a convenient way to dispense with Valentine's Day.  For us, it's unnecessary, superfluous, excessive.  And it's also, you know, stupid.

And, every year, on October 22nd, I am reminded of how lucky I am that she doesn't buy into all this wedding anniversary theme horseshit.  

Wood.

Paper.

Formica.

Neoprene heat-resistant rubber.

Anthracite.

I mean, don't worry, ConsumerWorld-- I got her something, but I don't need you to provide direction as to the requisite raw materials.  I'm not that dumb; it's not that deep.  Her mother, while descending on us last weekend, asked what anniversary this is, meaning the "traditional gift theme".  My wife, absently petting the dog, mumbled, "I don't know-- Spandex?"

And I love that.

I love that things like that, that other people buy into (which, if it works for you, rock on) are pretty much a joke to us.  Because, really?  Life's silly enough without all that silliness, and that pressure, and that prescriptive-ness.  

Tomorrow my wife and I will celebrate being married for seven years.  I don't know what the "traditional gift" is, and, as I'm sure you can figure out by now, I don't care.  I'm not going to Google it, though you can if it makes you feel better, and I'll love you just the same, you inquisitive little scallion-face.  I don't know.  Maybe it's the meds, but I kind of want to run down the street naked screaming because I love my wife so much.  I want to stand on the roof and shout that I love a woman who thinks roses'n'chocolates are dumb.  

And maybe they're not, and maybe they are, but whatever they are; they're just not her.

She's Pippi Longstocking.

She's Stargirl.  

She's Margot Tenenbaum.  

I get to go to sleep and wake up every morning with my favorite person, my buddy, my pal around, knock around, be silly and be sad together buddy.  And that's the coolest fucking thing in the world.  I'd have to be one lousy stupid fuck to not blog about that tonight-- for this is my running down the street naked, this is my standing on the rooftop screaming, this is my P'TANG YANG KIPPERBANG!

I love this.  This crazy fucking marriage.  Yes, there's bizarre inlaws and random shit all over our house and I'm succumbing and resisting all at the same time and there's change and there's sameness and there's a Volvo outside and babies asleep under blankies and the dog is splayed out on the couch like a five dolla handie-handie washie-washie and I'm getting grayer and she just looks better and better with every haircut and every Modcloth dress and it's not always easy but it'd be pretty fucking boring if it was and it's almost two hours to bed and two hours till tomorrow and it'll be seven years and I can't wait to give her her gift.

Me: I just want to say one word to you.

Her: Yes, sir.

Me: Are you listening?

Her: Yes, I am.

Me: Spandex.

Her: Exactly how do you mean?

Happy Anniversary, Mrs. Robinson.

Beware of Strangers with Candy

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 7, Verses 16 & 17

"My bed is spread with lovely, colored sheets of finest linen imported from Egypt, perfumed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.  Come on, let's take our fill of love until morning."

--

CHIPPED WISDOM:

Beware of strangers with candy.

What does chocolate do?  It releases little chocolatey molecules of wondrous rapture inside you.  You seek pleasure, chocolate finds you.  

Mm.

Noice.

It gets on your fingers, unless it's encased within an MNMey colored sugar-shell, but you don't care, because it's chocolate, not dog shit or roofing tar.  You don't like when dog shit or roofing tar get on your fingers, because you can't lustily lick it off.

But you can, and should, do that with chocolate.

Chocolate is what you give to people whom you want to like you, or forgive you, or worse.  So I should have been hearing all kinds of alarm bells going off inside my head when the Volvo saleslady pushed a gold box towards me with two sets of Volvo keys on top of it.  

That should have been the warning.  That should have been the knell.  But instead, I melted in my chair and said read my line like the trained performing artist/monkey I am and said, "Oh, that's sweet."

GET IT?!  CHOCOLATE?!  SWEET?!!!!

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They gave me chocolate, and a thirteen-year-old car.  Granted, this car has 90,000 miles on its odometer.  That's under 7,000 miles a year.  That's amazing.  The car, a V70XC wagon, is beautiful.  On the long, LONG 105.2 mile drive home from the dealership in Mechanicsburg (oh, yes, I will name you if you don't make this right) I almost cried out because the ride was so tank-like, so ferociously smooth, so luxuriously sumptuous.  It was like piloting a Dane Decor furniture showroom down the highway.  

And then, twenty-six hours later: the Check Engine light came on.  

It's at my mechanic's right now.  I'm terrified about what he's going to say.  My mind is reeling and racing and raging.  I was so furious when I stared down that little orange light I just wanted to disappear.  

But, no.  

No.

That's what I do.  That's what I do when I get mad: I disappear.  I crawl and slink away into the shadows, apologizing-- bowing out, exiting stage left.  "It's wrong to yell," I said in therapy, just today-- just an hour before the Check Engine light came on.  I said that.  For real.  Like a third grader, with the most basic black-and-white conceptualization of morality, social constructs and acceptable behavior.  

It's wrong to yell?  

Wow.

And I can hear it, of course, the illogical nature of that statement.  But I try so hard to be nice.  To be nice, good, kind, kind, good nice.  I'm so terrified that someone might think ill of me if I let loose one time, if I say what I'm really thinking or feeling, if I react in a way that my muscle can't back up, if I cry or if my voice shakes or if I raise that voice that makes me so sick to listen to, that halting, stilted, can't find the word for the love of all that's holy voice.  

Holier than thou.

Holier than chocolate.

Holvo Volvo.  

Fix my car, please.  I love that car.  Or, at least, I want to love that car.

And you can keep your fucking chocolate.