Problems of Owning a Prius - #3 You CANNOT make a Dramatic Exit.

My last mistake of a boyfriend text me one night and said that he needed the last thing he had left in my house.

"What is it?"

"My laundry basket."

"What? It's missing a handle and is filthy. It's still on the dryer where you left it. Fuck off."

I could explain here why I was so pissed but let me just say this one thing and I think everyone will get it: he started dating my best friend after we broke up.

"I want it."

"No, you are drunk, you broke up with 'the ex-best friend' and want to see me. Piss off."

How did I know this? Everyone in our town thought it important to let me know since they had all taken my side in the drama.

"I don't want to see you. I never want to see you. Where's my laundry basket?"

"Why?"

"Sentimental reasons."

I have to say, that threw me a little.

"What?"

"It was my mom's."

"She's not dead, she just moved to Florida."

"I want it." He growled followed by a hiccup.

Realizing it was the last thing of his in my place and that it would feel good to throw it at him, I agreed to drive it over to his place so we would have nothing else between us.

            As I drove over there, I wondered if maybe his mother had used the basket as a cradle and that was why he was attached to it? I had a vision of his mother swaddling him in towels as an infant, placing him in the basket and like Moses' mother, placing it in the Cape Fear River and watching it float away.  If only that would have happened, I would not have had the misfortune to have met him.

I pulled up in the driveway, honked the horn, rolled down the driver window and tossed the basket out into his yard.

I saw him run out from the front door, tripping on the last step in his drunken state.

"Wait, Mel, let's talk. I just want to talk. I miss you."

I knew it. Rapidly checking my rearview mirror, I pushed the joystick to reverse, leaned out the window, gave him the middle finger and floored it.

            Okay, the Scion I had might have been small but it knew how to spit gravel when asked. Once it even fishtailed a little after one of our first breakups. It was like that petite girl in a bar whose eyes growl and hiss when someone looks at her, and even the biggest guy in the place would not fuck with her because they knew for a fact they would forever in our small town be labeled as "the guy that got his ass handed to him by a little girl."

The Pruis. Well, the battery whirled a little, hesitated, than gracefully, silently went in reverse.

Two black guys sitting on their porch next door, quietly studied my middle finger and the car as it slowly left the driveway.

Dammit. 

Problems of Owning a Prius - Problem #2: It is too damn quiet.

The first day I drove the car to work, feeling like I was in a Hummer, I pulled into the tree-lined street next to our office building. Suddenly, from the trees, a bird flew right in front of my car, turned, looked me right in the eye, gave me one of those "hey, what's up?" bird head tilts and then just sat there.

I tried to slam on the brakes but it was too late. I heard the small "thud". I cringed and tried to not start crying. I hit a cat once when I first started driving and saw it in the rear view mirror twitch and then lay still, a gruesome smear of blood in the brown snow on the road. I quickly turned around and returned to the site of the crime. As I got out of my car and walked towards the cat, I saw out of the corner of my eye a large woman in a housecoat standing on her porch.

I tried to say words but only sobs came out. I had killed, no, murdered this woman's cat.

She casually put on some snow boots, grabbed her snow shovel and waved me away.

            "It's okay, honey, that stupid cat kept crossing that road. I told her this would happen but she never listened. It's my neighbor's cat. I'll tell her. Go on."

As I stumbled back to my car that my father insisted I buy because it had steel bumpers and would be safer for me and was now smeared with feline matter, I saw the woman slowly go out to the road, scoop up the cat and disappear towards the garage.

So, that is why I cry when I hit an animal.  As I pulled up into a parking space at work, I began to feel angry. I had gotten this car to save the fucking planet. It was suppose to be like that commercial on tv where the bunnies and the birds and the deer were all animated and butterflies were flitting around the car and it made you feel like a Disney princess because you were saving their habitat.

No, my Disney moment had turned into a horror movie. Stupid, fucking bird.

I promptly told my office mate about the incident with a good work-up of rage at the car and the bird and the planet itself.

She listened while signing paperwork, waited until I was done and then casually looked up and said, "maybe the bird was just committing suicide."

I decided that was indeed the truth. It had suffered some loss like it's babies falling out of a tree and decided that not just any car would do, it would have to be done with an earth-friendly car driven by an eco-conscious driver. And because the car was so quiet, when it shut it's little bird eyes as I was driving towards it, it wouldn't know when the final moment would come. It would just end.

As I settled into my office chair, I realized that the look I had interpreted as a greeting from the bird that morning was indeed a silent "thank you".

She called me a "Bitch".

Okay, I have to admit that sometimes I am not a nice person. Sometimes people push some inside "sarcastic bitch" button in me and I can't or won't control it.

This weekend, I went down to the neighborhood bar to get a drink with my friend who'd had a bad week at work. I quickly found the place full of the weirdest combo of college kids, middle-aged bleach-blonde drunk women and a few rednecks. I mean, it was usually full of this mix but for once I didn't know them.

Instead of the usual live bluegrass music, a local guy had talked the owner into letting him "spin some 80's, baby". Drunks wandering by had heard Bon Jovi pouring out of the front door followed by some Michael Jackson and soon the place was crazy.

I grabbed a drink and looked around for my friend. My phone buzzed. It was him.

            "Are you fucking kidding me with those people? Went to the other usual place. Meet me there."

I quickly downed my gin and tonic and waved at James, the bartender, to close me out. As I waited for him to run my card, the guy sitting on the stool next to me tried to look up at me but his weaving head and his half-closed eyes made him look like a sleepy wobble head.

"Hey, you like this music?" he asked.

I looked over where they had turned the pool table into a DJ table. The DJ who was pushing over 50, bald, with a gold chain, was fist pumping towards a group of equally old women dancing to "Billy Jean". The majority were wearing white jeans, and revealing wrinkled, sun damaged cleavage while dry-humping each other.

"It's okay."

"Okay? It's the best." He reached over and tugged at my arm to pull me closer to his slurring so I could better understand.

Suddenly, I felt a rather sharper tug on my shoulder. I looked up to see a rather unhappy girl wearing jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt that was equally strained at her bustline and her belly line.

"You talking to my boyfriend, bitch?" Not sure if she had in her equally drunken stupor gotten her point across, she raised her Bud Light bottle eye level and slowly repeated, "Biiiiiiitch."

James was taking forever to get my tab in the crowded bar. So, what the heck.

I turned to the girl, and slowly began to use small words that I hoped even when she was sober, she could understand.

"Bitch? Huh? I guess that is a good choice. I mean, you can't call me 'slut' or 'whore' because you don't know if or how often I have sexual intercourse, oral sex, or just make out with people. So, that wouldn't work. You could have gone with the 'C-word' but let's face it, we girls only use that word for girls who sleep with our boyfriends and—" I pointed down at the apparent love of her life who was now face down on the bar, "—I wouldn't go there. I have too much respect for your relationship."

I could see her trying really hard to hear something I would say that would let her attack me while attempting to keep standing upright.

"So all in all, I would have gone with 'bitch' too. However-oh, sorry, am I using too many big words for you? Good! I'm actually a really nice person, in fact I'm so nice I'm going to buy you another of what you are drinking. Hey, James, add a Bud Light on my tab and I'll come by tomorrow and pay it, cool?" James shook his head and blew me a kiss.

He handed the girl her beer. She looked at it, looked at me and repeated this a few times. Sensing new alcohol near him, the boyfriend suddenly shot up.

As I turned to go, I put a hand on his shoulder and on hers in a kind of barroom blessing.

"You two are so perfect for each other. I can just tell. Absolutely perfect. I wish you the best in the world and that you grow old together and have dozens of children just like you, with the same obvious promise of a full and fulfilling life."

I walked towards the front entrance and knowing that none of my sarcasm had registered in her drunken mind, and that I did not in fact like being called a 'bitch' unless I really deserved it (which sometimes I do), I stopped, turned and saw the couple still watching me, blinking slowly almost in unison.

I stepped into the street, stuck my head back in, looked at the guy, winked at him, and put the "phone" gesture to my ear and mouthed, "Call me."

I could hear the arguing from half a block away.

No, it wasn't right.

Yes, I'm not proud of myself.

Geesh…..that was a really bitchy thing to do.

Prius Problem #1-It's Smarter Than Me

Problems of Owning a Prius - #1 It is indeed Smarter than Me.

I recently leased a new hybrid Prius. My boss wanted us to "go green" as a company and I, not wanting to kill the planet either, found myself signing for a charcoal gray 2011 tank. I call it a tank because it is much bigger then my previous scion xa.

This car is a nice enough car. I average about 3,000 miles a year so I really don't care what I drive but you know….the planet and all.

Example, shortly after I got it, I had an appointment with my therapist, Ellen. I was running a little late and in a bit of a rush. I grabbed my coffee, my purse, and my keys and jumped out. I pushed the little key fob with the keyless entry do-dad on it.

It made a decidedly different "beep-beep" then the usual higher pitched "beep-beep" that announced success with that "thunk-thunk" of the locks slamming down immediately after.

I pushed the button again. Again, the not happy beeping. I looked down and watched my thumb push the button with the lock icon on it again. Maybe I had been rushing and pushed the other unlock icon. Same noise.

I felt frustration rising and a clock ticking in the back of my head. And the usual voice for which I was among other things seeking therapy for began talking in my head.

            "How dumb are you? It's practically idiot-proof. For god's sake, it has pictures on the buttons that you push. You are like one of those stupid people at Wal-mart who insist on walking in the door plainly marked 'exit' that seem stunned to see people walking at them that you silently make fun of.  Geesh, Mel."

I told the voice to shut up and went into this really odd random grabbing of the door handles, looking inside the car, studying the key fob, taking large chugs of coffee and doing it all over again.

I could imagine people in the office next door to my shrink's office talking about the show I was putting on.

            "Hey, Edith, I think you were right. OCD." The two women named Edith and Mary, sitting at their desks with various pictures of cats and an inspirational calendar dispensed diagnosis as often as they answered the phone.

            "She's not as bad as that one before," Edith would reply.  "The one who just sat in her car and cried for 20 minutes." The phone rang. "Hello, thank you for calling Blah, blah and blah, how may I direct your call." Placing her hand over the receiver she would dramatically mouth, "manic depressive." Mary would nod in agreement.

I had had a really bad week and out of frustration, I kicked the front tire and cursed rather loudly followed by "what do you want from me?"

            "Oh, anger issues too.  Poor woman." Edith would say from her fake psychologist window front desk.

            I took a deep breath and stuck my head in one more time to see what the car was trying to tell me.

            Huh. I hadn't turned it off. The battery was on and it had gone still so I thought I had pushed the large black button marked "engine". I had indeed not done that. I pushed it and soon after successfully hearing the happy "beep-beep" gathered my coffee and proceeded to try not to limp in my stiletto heels across the parking lot, oddly feeling people were watching.

My "Twit" Moment

My 'Twit' Moment

I do graphic design for a living and know almost all the Adobe software and about five or six other pieces of software as well. I consider this impressive since I never went to school for design and my first design job, I didn't even know where the "on" switch was on a mac. Equally as impressive is the fact that I was raised with no television or radio, and went to school in the time when we learned to type on manual typewriters.

I had had a myspace page for a couple of years, recently joined LinkedIn and had just finished a fairly good start on my Facebook page. I regularly checked in on my Foursquare account so people would know where I was and realize that I did in fact, have a social life.

Then I kept having people ask me to go onto their "Twitter".  I nodded and agreed to but was beginning to feel technologically overwhelmed about everyone knowing things about me and me finding out too much about them.

My roommate and my oldest friend, Alicia, came home one night carrying groceries. As she set them down on the counter, she patiently moved my dirty dishes to the side. Without words, she had been attempting the last couple weeks to point out that she had drawn an invisible line on the granite countertop that she would really appreciate me not crossing. My therapist says I test people to see how much they love me. This girl must love me like a sister.

"Hey, do you 'twit'?" I asked, swirling my red wine in my glass like a pro attempting to let my $6 bottle of gas station-bought wine "breath".

"Do I what?"

"Twit?"

I saw her hands hesitate for a moment over a jar of red sauce before she answered.

            "Do you mean 'do I tweet'?"

I took a sip of wine and wrinkled up my forehead in confusion. I caught myself in the forehead wrinkle, reminded myself no one looks good with a Shar Pei forehead, furiously rubbed at my skin, and then shook my head.

            "But it's called 'Twitter', so wouldn't you 'twit'?"

I have to give Alicia credit for not bursting into laughter now that I know all about it. However, she understands being raised in a conservative, Bible-believing, you are all wrong and going to hell and we are all right and going to heaven background since she had been in one herself. So there were a lot of things I got wrong.

            "No, you 'tweet', like a bird. You saw their logo? It's a bird."

I did remember something like that.

            "Oh, huh."  I thought for a moment longer.

            "I couldn't feel more ancient."

            "What?"

            "You know, how old people call it 'the Facebook' or 'the MySpace'?"

            "Yeah."

I poured another glass of wine that almost reached to the top of the rim, sighed dramatically, and started to walk out of the room.

            "I'm getting old, Alicia."

            "Yep."

As I left the room, I called back to her, "At least I didn't ask you if you 'twat'."

I heard the cupboard door slowly close.

            "Yep, at least you didn't say that. Good stuff."