I get Laura's car dirty...

Yesterday, I committed a cardinal sin against my wife, Laura.

There are a few sins that a man must never try to do. That list includes: never comment about her weight, never oggle another woman in her presence, never declare your admiration for a hot actress in a movie, never wake her up with your snoring, never leave the seat up, never scratch her car, and there are many others.

I can add a new one to my never list: never get your wife’s car dirty with her in the car. This is not as severe as the 'never scratch your wife's car with a key while she's watching, which I've done, but it's still high up there.

I mentioned that Laura got a newer used car, a Mazda 3, which also has a stick shift. Because of her lack of prowess with the stick shift, she has been having me drive on the days that we commute together. This has led to some interesting car rides to say the least. Now Laura can barely shift without lurching the car, but when I drive, she seems to expect total control of the stick shift on my part. I lurch the car just a tad and she’s exclaiming “Jeez!” or “Easy!”.

Also, when I’m driving her car, which I do when we commute together two or three times a week, she’s the world’s worst back-seat driver, except she’s in the passenger seat.

I’ll be cruising along at a comfortable speed and invariably, I’ll hear things like, “Why are you going so slow?”, “Why are people passing you?” or “Shouldn’t you be driving faster?”

If I’m in a lane that looks a slightly more congested than the one next to us, she’ll recommend, “Get in the other lane.” or “Why are you in the slow lane?”

There has yet to be a car ride yet with both of us in her car where she doesn’t critique some aspect of my driving skills.

The other day, I was driving her car when she mentioned something about my driving. We were almost home and I swear I had heard at least a dozen suggestions on how to drive better, which is pretty ironic coming from someone that drives like they want to dry hump the car in front of them. Having Laura drive is akin to being in a roller coaster. You know the ride will end soon and you pray to God that you get there in one piece. I find it’s just better if I not look up when she drives because it’s only bound to scare the living shit out of me when a line a cars start to slow down and Laura doesn’t slow down until the last second. I make frantic stomps with my foot to signal a stop. Finally she does and she looks over at me and asks, “What?”

But anyway, I was driving the other day with this model citizen of driving (just kidding honey) when I got another tip on driving. I turned to her and said in an exhausted tone, “Will you shut the f*&k up?!” My meaning was to get her to stop with the suggestions and for her to laugh. Amazingly, I nailed the right tone and she did laugh.

So yesterday morning, I’m driving again and I stop at the local gas station to get a roll of Little Debbie donuts as I had forgotten in my haste to get Julia out the door, to eat breakfast. I run in, grab the donuts and get back in the car. I pull around the back of the gas station to a side rode, which happens to have some construction. Unbeknown to me, I am heading for a rather large dirty water puddle (it had been raining all night so everything was wet). I didn’t see it because I was in the process of shifting and opening my pack of donuts at the same time, which is possible but distracting.

Laura exclaimed, “Watch it!”

We hit the puddle at a slow speed, but it was enough to send a cascade of dirty water over the entire car. She still has a nice wax job on the Mazda, so it rolled off quickly down the entire wind shield and passenger window. It rolled off the car, but many small beads of brown water clung to every part of the car.

Laura said something like, “Ungh… Ungh… You idiot!”

I laugh and exclaim, “Sorry!”

She glared at me, “Look at my car! Does it look like I’m laughing?”

I suppress a smile and say nothing. She exclaimed, “What did you think was going to happen when you hit a dirty puddle, sunshine and roses to fall on my car?”

“No,” I retort with a smile.

“It’s not funny,” Laura said defiantly. “And you know what? You are going to take my car to the car wash and get it cleaned today. And it’s coming out of your pocket!”

I laugh a little and we continue. The entire trip to work, she periodically pointed to various dirty spots on the outside and muttered, “Look at that.!” I nodded. Later, I did get her car washed. I’m not that much of an idiot to leave her car dirty when I picked her up that afternoon.

Redundency fun with the DMV

I think I mentioned that we just got a newer used car for Laura. Since we had to shell out money to license it, I checked the DMV website to check how much we'll need.

For a living, I am a QA Tester of software programs. I am paid to notice things that most people ignore. Looking at this page, I was struck by this field:



Notice anything wrong with it?

The field is named "Vehicle VIN Number". VIN stands for Vehicle Identification Number. So basically, the field is called "Vehicle Vehicle Identification Number Number".

If you don't enter the right VIN, the following error appears: "Vehicle VIN Number is required."

Again, you are prompted to enter the Vehicle Vehicle Identification Number Number. To be fair, the VIN evolved into being called the Vehicle VIN Number due to its popular usage, but that still doesn't make it right.

It's a lot like when a person asks for an ATM machine. You are basically asking for an Automated Teller Machine Machine in which you will enter your PIN number, or Personal Identification Number Number if you prefer...