Neanderpundit

Back in the 80’s, a friend of mine had been driving his Renault Le Car for over 100,000 miles when the frame- such as it was, allowed the front of the car to partially detach from the rear of the car, leaving him with the front end of the driver’s seat scraping the ground like a bizzarre french earth grader.

We managed to screw enough plywood to it to get it on the road again- it still ran pretty well- but there was no way it would ever do any expressway driving again.

This guy- we’ll call him Chuck- had a penchant for the cheap like nobody I’ve ever known. I swear to god, he’d make his kids line up on bath day from cleanest to dirtiest and bathe in that order.

Anyway, he lamented the loss of his beloved Le Car, and bitched that he was going to have to buy some piece of shit gas guzzler escort (Imagine that!) when he stumbled onto his dream car. A Yugo GT.

It had a .9 liter (or thereabouts) engine, and it had the acceleration of a turtle with weak knees. And he was in love. it was cheap, used, and moderately well cared for. he brought it to the house and gleamed with pride. He handmade a stainless exhaust for it. He built a special stand that would allow him to drop the (60 lb) transmission and change the clutch himself. he handsewed himself some vinyl seat covers and babied the little bastard.

he was most especially proud of the GT stripe decals. Even going so far as to buy a special dressing to keep them shiny and black against the goat’s vomit green of the sheet metal.

I helped him weatherproof and undercoat it, he wasn’t going to let it die.

And, excited as hell about his new “sporty” car, he even let me drive it.

Words alone cannot express how underwhelming it was. Nuff said.

My nephiew, my wife’s middle brother’s son. A decent kid, 30, has a clear head on his shoulders. Waited long enough to get married that his stupid is mostly behind him. Good looking, crooked grin that endears him to everyone he meets.

New wife is a willowy brunette, couple years his junior, very easy on the eyes.

They can dance, too- you can see him put a little pressure on her back and lead and she follows as effortlesly as can be. Not astaire, but hell- everything Astaire did, Rogers did backwards in high heels.

Anyway. Nephew and his new wife are forest rangers. They live in a cottage in the woods miles from civilization. He hunts and fishes for a living. She hunts and fishes by his side.

I took him aside and told him what I did. How I dealt with idiots all day long. How I crawl through slime and shit trying to get from A to B for 50 weeks a year.

How I do that so that a couple weeks a year, I can put on my good boots, sling a rifle over my shoulder, and go out and feel the dry leaves under my feet, in search of bambi- or squirrel, or whatever. How I put up with the foulest shit on earth so for a little while, I can do what he does every day. I reminded him that he is living the dream. I made him promise that any day he felt put upon he’d remember how I live, and why. he grinned that crooked grin and promised he would.

Please go to the sidebar and click on “Get On The Bus” which is a blog belonging to my old friend and serial whiner Leslie.

She comes here about once a year, apparentlly. She forgets that the URL of her OWN BLOG is “GETONTHE” as in GET ON THE BUS. Which is the name I link her blog under. And each time she comes here I have to explain to her that I have not deleted her blog, but that it has been right there on the sidebar from the very first day. And each time she comes back it’s the same thing. “What am I, chopped liver?” No, Leslie, you’re just a little slow on the uptake. I think it’s those big knockers- they’re robbing the blood from your brain.

So go click, for God’s sake, so she has some neanderpundit referrals. You should be reading her every day anyway, she has the bestest links. Except for the cat stuff, which gives me a hairball. or a haemmoroid, whichever comes first.