Nov
20
I’ve had my Touareg for almost exactly a year now, and for the most part I am in deep, hot, inappropriate automotive love with it. It handles like a dream, has tons of storage, and has some BEEF behind the accelerator (I like to drive it kind of macho-style when I’m by myself: motor growling, music blaring, my eyes narrowed in badass concentration . . . until that deflating moment when I take a tight turn and my groceries fall over in the back with a depressingly suburban-sounding thunk, and I’m like, oh yeah, I’ve got on MOM JEANS).
The only bummer is that the car’s had an extensive, creative variety of electrical problems, all of which have thankfully been covered by the warranty but still, in twelve months I’ve taken this rig into the dealership more than I ever did with my Corolla in the ten years I owned it. Apparently the Touareg is powered by a number of tiny robots, all of which are prone to failing, or thinking they are failing and thus triggering an internal alarm on my dash. I had a TYRE FAULT a while back, where my car worriedly informed me that I should CHECK TYRE PRESSURE and finally shouted that I had a FLAT TYRE! FLAT TYRE! (I was driving on the freeway at the time and about had a damn heart attack, luckily there wasn’t actually anything wrong with the tire tyre itself). There was a wonky headlight connection, something with the brakes, and now my car is intermittently telling me I have an AIRBAG FAULT, meaning there’s something problematic with the passenger seat sensor that comes and goes. When the car decides that yup, something’s definitely wrong with that there sensor, it sounds a brief alarm before flashing the FAULT message on the dash, which causes Riley to chirp, “Beeeep! Be quiet, car!”.
It’s kind of like driving KITT, except if KITT were maybe suffering from Alzheimer’s, or Tourette’s, or something.
Electronic hijinks aside, I do love that car. It is by far the nicest vehicle I’ve ever owned, and I feel guilty that I’m not better about shoveling out the kid-related detritus on a more frequent basis. I mean, a family of sparrows could probably live for months on the leftover cracker crumbs strewn next to Riley’s carseat. And just think, soon enough there will be TWO carseats back there, one with a halo of toys and crumbs, one with a radial spray of milk-barf.
Two carseats. Two. Oh my god I just totally freaked myself out. Hoo, boy.
In other driving-related news, we are motoring to Bend tomorrow to meet up with JB’s family for Thanksgiving. We’re going to stay in the same spot we did last time, and hopefully the neutral location will alleviate any holiday-host-related-pressure so we can all just chill out and eat massive amounts of stuffing and gaze at the mountains. JB’s parents are in charge of the tricky meal items like the turkey and gravy, while I got the relatively no-brainer cranberries and potatoes. It should be fairly low key but nice, I hope.
If you’re doing the Thanksgiving thing this week, what are your holiday plans? Where are you going to be, who are you going to be with, what are you going to eat?
Nov
18
Okay, I have the results of the Cat Hive vs. Trap query, but before we get into that, can I just say that MANY of you did not play by the rules. You had the choice of 1) HIVE, or 2) TRAP, with no fudge room for debating the validity of either term, and yet there was a distressingly large Cave/Lair constituent, not to mention various other suggestions which I helpfully filed under “Other” (including “hello, it’s two pillows on a cat”).
You are a Question Authority kind of group, is what I’m saying. The kind of person who sees the choices before them, and decides that you know what? That isn’t good enough. It’s not a hive or a trap, for the love of god, and I refuse to cast my vote accordingly. You like to Think Different, but without going the path that has been easily laid out before you.
In other words, you are the perfect demographic for the Zune. You make it you, you crazy dreamers.
Here is how the voting broke down:
Trap for the win! Because come on, THAT WAS SO A TRAP. Those of you who thought the trap referred to Cat being trapped instead of being an actual, living trap for me, you get negative ten points for not comprehending the full evil potential of Cat but an extra five points for being cute (net total: five point loss, but you got your own data slice in the Excel pie!). Josh gets an extra fifty points for delivering his trademarked foamy-mouthed rant on the subject of hives and traps and pointing out that “if you had walked into your room, and the cat was in a bucket balanced on top of the door, now that would be a trap,” which sent JB off on a goattrail about how we should totally stage a photo that depicted Cat in a bucket on top of a door, or maybe a whole series of photos with Cat in a variety of human-trap poses and hey babe do you think CatTrap.com is taken? (Sadly: yes.)
I plan to spend an extra twenty bucks at Target this afternoon to celebrate my victory. The curtains of history will have to remain demurely closed on whether or not JB got a silver place Knowing Leer.
And lastly, toddler hive . . . or TRAP?
I’m just kidding, that’s clearly a U.S. Bear Patrol employee hard at work.
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