Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Shattered Ideals and Dirtsicles

When you picture a man who likes classical music, what do you picture? Personally, I picture an educated, refined man dressed in a well tailored Brooks Brothers suit driving at least a Volvo, if not a BMW (Benz men don't do classical). So there you have it--my imaginary picture of a man who can appreciate the finer qualities of classical music. It is, indeed, imaginary.

This morning I climbed into a moving anomaly. Mr. Mozart drove up in his late-model Japanese special, drab and generic, and he lazily called out his destination in a voice hardly perceptible by human ears. I mosied on over to the passenger side of the car. The second I opened the car door, the FRONT door much to my dismay, I saw the condition of the interior of his car and almost changed my mind. Had it not been for the fact that I already had to wait for SO long to get a ride post-Memorial Day, I would have bolted for a much cleaner ride.

So I stepped into his glorious garbage heap, thankful that I chose an all black ensemble today, and decided that I would just sleep and try not to think about the possibilities. As I was settling in, I looked on the dashboard and noticed actual clumps of dirt. Not just a layer of dust my friends...D-I-R-T--actual clumps of loose earth on the dash. Just stop for a minute and ask yourself how that got there....

Welcome back.

If you are anything like me, you are picturing shovels and dead bodies. But I digress.

So I resigned myself to riding in the dirt-hearse, but my imagination kept playing tricks on me. I have a thing about spiders and ticks and fleas and such, and I kept imagining them crawling on my legs and in my hair. My napping opportunity was out the window already, but ironically it gets worse.

Once he had us trapped, he changed from the local news and weather station to ...you guessed it...the classical station. But he didn't just put on some low-volume Tchaikovsky. No, no. He decided that it needed to be played at a Kanye West concert level. Seriously, can you see us cruising down I95 pimped out in our business suits swaying to the crankin' sounds of Rachmaninoff? It was LOUD. Who needs classical music that loud? He kept turning it up too, like it wasn't already loud enough! He was oscillating between tweaking the obnoxiously loud classical music and cranking the arctic blasts of air conditioning that were aimed at my one patch of flesh exposed.

I sat there, depressed, cold, and itchy. Why had he worked so hard to ruin my picture of the perfect classical-loving, wine drinking, non-dirt car owning man? It was as if I had learned that gravity doesn't actually exist. Next I'll find out that Patrick Dempsey can't actually grow a 5 o'clock shadow!

All in all, I arrived at work and catapulted myself from his car and quickly wiped my pants and jacket off. Even if nothing truly transferred from his car to my clothes, I wasn't going to take the chance. I quickly examined myself for creepy crawlies and praised the warm breezes of late May. I was left with one lingering thought that has carried me through my entire day.

I need a shower!

1 comment:

akorn said...

Hi, great blog. I am a photographer interested in doing a story on slugging in DC. Would you be interested in being my guide for a day? Please contact me at akornylak@gmail.com