Be Seated

I hate when I get accused of being lazy just because I put something off for a few days or several months. You know - like posting.

(True, sometimes it is because I'm lazy, but that doesn't mean I have to like being accused of it.)

Yet sometimes the reason has nothing to do with laziness. For example, I have a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be organized. I also have developed a pretty good framework for how I want to organize it. I just need to put the organizational system into place, then all the organizing will be easy. My problem - and thus the delay - is finishing the system. You see, I'm a perfectionist; I'm just not very good at it. But here the problem is crazy, not lazy.

Then there are other reasons. The driver's seat of my car, for instance, broke. Apparently there is a weld in the frame of the seatback that snapped at some point. When this first happened, the seat leaned to right a little bit but still held up OK. After a while, something snapped again and suddenly I could no longer incrementally adjust the reclining angle of the seat. Also, if I leaned too hard, the seat would make a Pop! and suddenly it would recline a lot. When this happened, I would have to get out of the car, pull the lever that allows you to recline the seat, and give the seat back a big shove forward.

Lately, however, the seat turned terminal. The seat back had all the structural integrity of wet cardboard and it had to be replaced. This led to the conversation that I had been avoiding. I took Hubert (I drive a mid-90's Buick ... it's an old man's car, it needs an old man's name!) to the local dealership and asked for an estimate.

I know what you're thinking at this point. First, I don't know why, oh why, you are still reading this. Second, you are getting ready to point the lazy finger at me for not getting an estimate sooner.

But you see, I already had an estimate; I just needed one from the dealer. And as I had estimated, the dealer's estimate was indeed higher than my estimate of the dealer's estimate. See, I hadn't been putting this off out of laziness, I had been putting this off because I'm cheap.

Fortunately for me, the service manager on duty that day was also cheap. He suggested I check with salvage yards to see if I could track down a new, er, replacement seat that way.

(One good thing about driving an old man's car is there are always plenty of parts available from salvage yards. Many old men drive either too slow or too fast, which means there are a lot of cars out there that are OK except for the tremendous front-end or rear-end damage. As they used to say about chicken nuggets, parts is parts.)

Sure enough, I found a seat.

All it took was a couple hours of work, a trip to the local auto parts store to find the special ratchet attachment for the one freaking star-shaped bolt, and some colorful metaphors and voila! I had replacement seat in my car for a good $1,000 less than it would have been to have the dealer do it.

And to prove laziness was not the issue, the next day I uninstalled and reinstalled the seat again.

(That aforementioned one freaking star-shaped bolt is used to attach the seat belt to the frame of the car. The seat belt receptacle on the replacement seat was incompatible with the seat belt on the car. I didn't realize this until Saturday night when we drove to the store. As I was driving, my seat belt, which I had clicked into the receptacle, started retracting. It clicked, it just didn't latch.)

I'm actually going to have to uninstall and reinstall the seat one more time. The upholstery on the seats don't match, so there is a slight deviation between the fabric on the various seats.

(By slight deviation, I mean the back and passenger seats are maroon, the driver's seat is beige.)

That's a repair for a different day, however. Perhaps even a different month.

Imagine That

My son leads a secret double life. Typical third-grade boy by day, once school is out (and if there’s nothing good on TV) he sheds his cover and becomes Super Terrific Imaginary Action Hero Boy.

The life of a super terrific imaginary action hero boy can be an arduous one, fraught with danger, destruction, and, of course, lots of explosions. One day he might have to save the world from imaginary mutant dinosaurs, the next he may have to rally the good, ahem, metamorphing robots to repel an attack from the bad ones. The following day he may be an imaginary mutant dinosaur out to destroy the world. And of course there are the standard battles to wage that only involve humans ... who happen to be armed to the teeth with automatic weapons and laser guns.

Whatever the nature of the task facing a super terrific imaginary action hero boy, there are always two common elements: automatic weapon fire and mass destruction. The automatic weapon fire is essential because of the need for cool sound effects. That telltale tshtshtshtshtsht sound of an imaginary machine gun can be heard no matter what a boy is playing. "OK, Billy, you be the Pope and I'll be Buddha. Tshtshtshtshtsht!"

Incidentally, not every boy grows out of the sound-effects stage. Ms N gives me guff every time I pick up one of our cats. It's not a conscious act, but every time I hoist them off the ground I make a "Tshew" sound.

As for mass destruction, well, every third-grade boy worth his fruit snacks is a walking mass of destruction. Whether he's causing it or trying to prevent it, a super terrific imaginary action hero boy faces destruction of Biblical proportions every day.

It's a thankless imaginary job, but with great imaginary power comes great imaginary responsibility.

As I was getting ready to work on a household project, I heard my son downstairs. He was engaged in an epic battle that stretched from the living room to the dining room. There was even a sneak attack against the enemy’s flank in the hallway. Before long, the imaginary battle worked its way up the stairs and right to the edge of the room I was in.

"So how's the battle going?" I asked.

"Good," he replied, before unloading another imaginary clip into his surging imaginary foes.

"Are you winning?"

"No," he answered. He switched to a more laser-sounding weapon.

"Oh," I replied. Sensing a fatherly advice type moment, I figured I'd dispense some fatherly advice. "Well, keep fighting the good fight and I'm sure you'll prevail."

"Yeah," he answered, firing a few more rounds. "That's the way it usually works out."