Journal

On the way to the mall yesterday, Mark ran me out to my parents’ house to drop off the Ice Queen’s birthday stuff. When I saw the driveway I let out an “Uh oh.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Mark.

“You see that crash damage on the front of Mom’s car?” indicating her Buick LeSabre Limited in Emerald Green Pearlcoat.

“Yeah.”

“They got the car less than a month ago,” I told him.

“Uh oh.”

As we surveyed the custom sheet metal work I explained. “It cost over $30K and they’re planning to keep it for ten years.” What I forgot to tell him was Dad has been talking about buying the car, not any car, this car optioned just the way it is, for over a year now. Wilburs never buy off the lot. They ordered it in October. When it came in in November it was missing several options, for instance the memory option for the power seats. They declined delivery and reordered.

The LeSabre is your classic American luxobarge. It’s big, roomy, comfy, a real Grandma and Grandpa car. As purchased off the lot, it comes with plenty of gadgets and gizmos and you can pile on the options from there.

This car had to be a compromise. Dad wanted a luxobarge. Mom was trading in her Pontiac Grand Prix with the boy-racer styling, big motor, sport suspension and fat tires. They each got what they wanted. Dad added all the grandpa options. Mom checked off supercharged engine, touring suspension, fat tires, heads-up display and trip computer.

Between them, the only things they didn’t add were leather, On-Star, the CD changer and the sunroof. This is why Wilburs don’t buy off the lot. That and the fact we can delay gratification in order to have just the right car for the long term.

Behind the wheel, the car doesn’t seem at all schizophrenic as you might think the combination of luxobarge and sport suspension might be. The supercharger provides plenty of grunt right from idle, and the nearly two-ton car can definitely get out of it’s own way. I suspect that were one to disengage the traction control and stand on it from a stoplight that the grandkids could be treated to impressive smoky burnouts.

The suspension lets the car be driven in a spirited fashion without causing seasickness from the overly soft suspension Detroit’s boats are noted for. Yet, the car handles Rochester’s moonscaped streets and crumbling freeways without a hint of harshness. Overall it seems the perfect compromise for a couple in their 60s with distinctly different driving habits.

Anyway, inside we learned that a lady down the street did the classic glance–and-roll through the stop sign at the “T” intersection two doors from my parents’ house. There is no stop sign coming from Dad’s direction either. She never saw Dad coming even with the Buick’s daytime running lights.

Fortunately she just clipped the driver’s-side of the car, just in front of the front wheel. The angle and velocity of the impact were such that the airbags didn’t deploy. A split-second later and she’d have tested the Buick’s side-impact protection, with Dad as the crash-test dummy. Naturally my parents didn’t see it that way. Their viewpoint is that she did over $2,500 damage to the Buick, which had only 641 miles on the odometer.

After an appropriately polite interval, during which Mom made the appropriately polite noises about her birthday gift, (candy, and you can’t miss when you include some cheap stuff for her to share with the grandkids,) Mark and I headed for the mall.


One of the goals of the exercise was twink watching. Alas, our annual excursion to the mall yesterday was not well timed. We’d forgotten that the bulk of the mall-rat population would be home recuperating after having spent the entire recess week hanging-out. Still, there were a few cuties to be seen, just enough to remind one of one’s advancing age.

This may not be news to you, but living such a cloistered existence as I do, I was quite shocked at the rags being worn and sold. Suburban young women’s fashion seems to be a curious mixture of 60s and 70s. It was hard not to giggle at ersatz flower children perched atop platform sneakers or sandals. Platform sandals? Is this not a comfort oxymoron?

While suburban young men’s fashion seems to be stuck in that dreadful baggy pants and baseball cap thing, there appear to rumblings of neo-punk on the rise. Anything to wipe the planet of the scourge of baggy pants and baseball caps among our young people can only be a good thing. The baseball cap look was entertaining ten years ago. Juvenile flocks of young males in baseball caps always made me think of similar juvenile flocks of sparrows. You could tell what the group was thinking by the direction their beaks, or bills, pointed.

There’s nothing quite like fashion commentary from a balding longhair who still shrinks his 505s. And if you want my opinion of business-casual, check this out.


Never take me shopping if you assume I’m telling you the truth when I say, “I only need a couple of things, and I can’t remember what one of them is.” Earlier in the month, just after taking delivery of the new Buick, my parents took me out to BJ’s Wholesale. I wanted to get one of those foodservice size containers of onion flakes. That’s all. Two-hundred dollars later, we tested the capacity of the car’s trunk. It came up short by two pillows.

Mark was treated to a similar spectacle yesterday. My shopping list consisted solely of kitchen tongs and a salt shaker. He dragged me kicking and screaming from the kitchen gadget store, my wallet $40 lighter, just before I talked myself into a new griddle and a retro-look Cuisinart toaster.

CAUTION!

CAUTION!