The Jux Entente

Today, my air conditioner in my car took a second to kick on.

I got that fixed a month or so ago. Thus the “Muh Truck” saga.

…at least I’ll have time to go get this fixed again after my last day at Verizon next Tuesday. Damnit! WARRANTY, DEMONS, AND FIRE are about to summoned.

So yesterday I was supposed to head up to the mountains to spend the weekend at the River Terrace in Gatlinburg. Instead, the transmission in the Bravada gave up with no warning right outside the Nantahala. Erin was driving at the time, and we pulled over, called my parents [who were about 20 minutes ahead of us in our newer Mustang], and then we switched off. I proceeded to limp the Bravada the rest of the way in to Cherokee in 3rd gear only.

After spending 3 hours in a parking lot of a hotel watching the dogs and reading Harry Potter in a Holiday Inn parking lot, the tow truck came to leave the Bravada stranded somewhere in North Carolina. I do not miss it.

Four people in a Mustang convertible, plus two dogs, plus all the luggage that was in the SUV, plus a three hour drive?

No.

Did they make Pop-Tarts more healthy or something? I swear when I was a kid they were horrible for you, if I remember correctly. They’re still mostly empty calories, but they’re only 200 calories each and only 45 of those are from fat. Didn’t they use to be like 85% fat with some cardboard around them? Am I missing something?

For the record, these are the frosted strawberry ones, and I used to eat the unfrosted ones as a kid. This is the first time I’ve bought Pop-Tarts in like ten years.

In the fall of 2001 my mother bought me a pair of new sneakers from the Converse outlet in Pidgeon Forge, thinking I’d get around to needing them at some point. Little did she know that I had switched to boots already.

Well, as of a few weeks ago in a rather bad rainstorm, my treasured, oft-mentioned boots are dead. They just barely died before the Vivian thing.

I already had new boots, but they were “nice.” I needed new shoes for tromping around in the woods playing disc golf, kickball, and whatever else. So, from the back of my closet in Japser, where they had been placed after we moved from Canton, I brought them out. The shoes. From 2001. They had never been worn.

This is what the box looked like after I dusted it.

They don’t look any worse for having sat around for so long. Obviously not the hip new style, but they probably weren’t when they were new either. They’ll suffice.

I’ve not worn a pair of tennis shoes since 2002 or so. Maybe early 2003. Regardless, I’ve been wearing boots and Birkenstocks so long that putting these on made my feet look and feel smaller than they really are.

Stylin’

They already got muddy on Sunday. Their life will be hard, as their only purpose is to serve me when I’m in the wilderness.

(10:54:01 PM) Crossed Reality: I swear it’s insult to injury week. Sometime yesterday they turned the spot where I park 80% of the time into a handicap spot…directly in front of a building with no handicap access.
(10:54:03 PM) Crossed Reality: No ramps, nothing.
(10:54:30 PM) Crossed Reality: It’s one of the farthest possible spots from any of the buildings that do have handicap access.