Diane Henders

Mad Cow!

/ Diane Henders / 54 Comments

No, I’m not referring to myself in the title of this post, even though I have been known to act like a total cow on occasion and I’m more or less permanently barking mad, especially after the past couple of highly-stressful weeks.

Here’s the reason for the madness:  We’re trying to buy a new home and move to Vancouver Island.  We’re in negotiations now, which is both exciting and scary!

All in all, I’ve had little time for laughter this week (although I accidentally typed ‘buy a new homo’ in the previous paragraph, so that was good for a snicker).

But since my laugh-levels were critically low I turned to my joke file for the favourites that are guaranteed to make me laugh, and here’s what generated the title for today’s post:

Remember when Mad Cow Disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) hit the Canadian news around 2003?  I’ve had this video for over 13 years and I still can’t get past the 20-second mark without laughing uncontrollably:

And here’s another giggle:  When I searched for the BSE link above, I had typed as far as ‘bovine s’ when the suggestion pane appeared:

bovine sex club

Say WHAAAAT?!?  I didn’t even know bovine sex clubs were a ‘thing’, let alone a big enough ‘thing’ to come up second on Google’s suggested searches.  I was tempted to follow the link out of sheer prurient curiosity, but I decided against it.  There are some things that just can’t be un-seen, and I suspect that link leads to many of them.

Coincidentally (or perhaps not), I seem to have quite a bit of bovine-sex-related humour in my joke file.  Some of these jokes are so old they’re probably new again, but you know what they say:  “It’s dejà moo – the feeling that you’ve heard this bull before.”

The first one’s just a short pun:

Two cows are standing next to each other in a field. Daisy says to Dolly, “I was artificially inseminated this morning.”

“I don’t believe you,” says Dolly.

And Daisy exclaims, “It’s true, no bull!”

And here’s a longer joke:

Amy, a city girl, marries a Texas rancher. One morning on his way out, the rancher says to Amy, “The artificial insemination man is coming over to impregnate one of our cows today. I drove in a nail above the cow’s stall so you can show him which cow it is.”

The rancher leaves for the fields. When the artificial insemination man arrives, Amy takes him down to the barn. They walk along a long row of cows and when she sees the nail, she tells him, “This is the one.”

Impressed that such an obviously citified girl would know about cattle, the man asks, “How did you know this is the cow to be bred?”

“That’s simple — by the nail over its stall,” Amy explains.

Then the man asks, “What’s the nail for?”

And she says, “I guess it’s to hang your pants on.”

And, in a similar vein, here’s why cows hate winter.

But enough about screwing cows.  Instead, here’s a little video about wooing cows… with jazz.  It always makes me smile!

What’s mooooved you to laughter this week?

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New discussion at the Virtual Backyard Book Club:  Support Or Co-Dependency?  Are Aydan and Hellhound helping or hurting each other?  Click here to have your say!

What Colour Is The Sky In Your World?

/ Diane Henders / 49 Comments

We’re travelling again this week, so my usual routine is off-kilter.  Normally I write the draft for my posts on Monday, but Monday night rolled around and I hadn’t gotten to it yet.  So I said to Hubby, “Tomorrow morning I need to write a draft first thing.”

And he replied, “Ah, leave it.  You can pull it together in a few minutes tomorrow night.”

So I suggested that maybe he’d like to write today’s post for me if he thought it was such a quick and easy task.

“That’s a great idea,” says he.  “Then I can tell everybody how I do all the research for every single one of your books…”

At which point we both burst out laughing and I inquired, “And what colour is the sky in your world?”

Hubby is my go-to guru for the latest weapons and network information, and my trusted sounding board for plausibility whenever I invent new technology.  He’s also my first beta reader, unerringly sniffing out inconsistencies in voice and narrative.  But “doing all the research” may be an ever-so-teeny-tiny exaggeration.  The sky in his world is definitely a different colour than mine.

For instance, in Hubby’s fantasy world:

  • Garlic does not exist, and any attempt to create it or anything that resembles it is punishable by full immersion in a vat of Listerine.
  • There are no speed limits on any road.
  • Raisins are not allowed in butter tarts or cinnamon buns.
  • All mechanical devices are assembled using only common, currently available tools and fasteners.
  • The outside temperature never dips below freezing or rises above 25C/77F. Special exceptions are made for ski hills, which are permitted to maintain a temperature no lower than -5C/23F.

While in my fantasy world:

  • Mosquitos, ticks, and other blood-sucking, disease-bearing creatures do not exist.
  • Our skin is immune to sunburn and cancer.
  • Our bodies select whatever nutrition they need from anything we eat, and flag everything else through the system as ‘recreational calories, not to be absorbed’.
  • Teleporters exist: handy-dandy booths all over the world so we can instantly pop in wherever we want and go home when we’re done.
  • Salespeople who lie to their customers choke on their tongues and die, and go immediately and directly to hell. (No, I’m still not over my car-shopping experience; why do you ask?)
  • Come to think of it, that last one applies to anybody in a position of authority who lies. Gonna be a whole lotta chokin’ goin’ on…

Anyway, I’m hoping Hubby will allow me a special dispensation to exist in his world, but that might be asking too much.  He may decide to prohibit me and my garlic-breath entirely, and just pop over to visit in my world instead.  But as long as he’s still my Hubby, it’s all good – we’ll enjoy the sky in our own little world whatever colour it may be!

What are the rules in your fantasy world?

P.S. My internet access is sporadic today so I might be a little slower than usual responding to comments, but I’ll check in whenever I can.  ‘Talk’ to you soon!

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New discussion over at the Virtual Backyard Book Club:  Found any ‘Easter Eggs’?  Click here to have your say!

Trolling For Cars

/ Diane Henders / 91 Comments

Every twenty years or so, I subject myself to a painful and annoying ordeal.  It’s that time of the vicennium again, and yes, I’m navigating the perilous waters of car shopping.  So far I’ve battled new car dealers sharks, used car salesmen morays, and private sellers bottom-feeders.

I’ve done a ton of research and narrowed my choices down to a shortlist based on my analysis, and now I’m in the process of looking at actual cars.  The research was interesting and enjoyable, but the actual car-shopping is inefficient and irritating as hell.

The problem is that any sort of pressure tactic annoys me to the point where I’ll walk away and go to a different dealership just to look at an identical car.  Salespeople who know less than I do irritate me.  Liars irritate me.  And a large proportion of the salespeople I’ve encountered so far have been ignorant, high-pressure, liars, or some combination thereof.

I’ve only been shopping for two days, and already I’ve encountered these pieces of work:

  • A private seller who bought an accident-insurance write-off, fixed up the body, rolled back the odometer (there was no way that vehicle only had 39,000 kilometres on it), and had his brother the mechanic ‘certify’ it for safety. You know how you just need a shower after dealing with some guys?    Yeah, that.
  • A salesman who asked what I’m looking for and before two words had left my mouth, turned his back on me to talk to my husband instead. No, I didn’t buy a car from him.  Go figure.
  • A saleswoman who demanded my contact information before even letting me get near a car, despite the fact that I’d already told her I only wanted to sit in it to see if the driving position was comfortable enough to remain on my shortlist. She was quite snippy when I refused to give her my phone number and email… but not as ticked off as I was when I finally convinced her to let me sit in the car and the headrests could have qualified as torture devices at Guantanamo Bay.
  • A salesman who, when I told him about the other vehicles I was considering, sagely shook his head and said, “I’m not the kind of guy who’d badmouth the competition, but…” Then he proceeded to badmouth the competition, and all but patted my hand and told me to take his advice and not bother my pretty little head about such complicated things.  Listen, dipshit, I know more about cars than you do.  And it really pisses me off when you lie to me.

So I don’t have a new car yet.  And I’m afraid to even speak the words “new car” within earshot of my good old reliable beater, just in case its feelings are hurt and it decides to break down and dump me in the middle of nowhere.

But I’m still trolling the car-sales waters.  I’m not the chum they think I am.

Anybody else suffered through buying a new vehicle lately?

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New discussion at the Virtual Backyard Book Club:  Sacrifice Or Selfishness?  Considering what John has given up in the name of duty, is he being selfish now? Click here to have your say!

Anti-Ant

/ Diane Henders / 57 Comments

I was enjoying a quiet cup of tea on our back deck the other day when I felt it:  The distinct sensation of six tiny feet scuttling across my skin.  Sure enough, an ant had decided to traverse my mountainous foot instead of going around it like a sensible creature.

That ant achieved low-earth orbit about a second later.

I’m pretty tolerant of most critters.  Snakes and spiders don’t bother me, and I’m actually quite fond of bats and salamanders.  I think mice and skunks are cute, even though I refuse to let them share my abode.  (But if they’re across the street at the neighbour’s house, I’ll ooh and ahh and take pictures:)

Mom and six baby skunks across the street from us - aren’t they adorable?

Mom and six baby skunks across the street from us – aren’t they adorable?

But ants?  Nope.  That’s where I draw the line.

Ants have no redeeming qualities.  They bite, they eat house walls, they kill gardens, they make giant mounds in the lawn, and they multiply like crazy.  Worst of all, ants are organized.  And they outnumber us a million to one.  That just doesn’t seem like a good ratio if they decide to band together and take over.

I thought I was being overly paranoid with that particular speculation, but even the information pages mention the fearsome prospect of being conquered by giant mutated ants and their brutal slave-driving societies.  Yikes.  Thanks for a whole new batch of nightmare-fodder.

And just to feed my worries, lately the ant population seems to have doubled in our yard.  They’re slowly surrounding us, and I doubt their intentions are benign.

I mean, seriously.  Would you trust this face?

creative commons ant(Photo by Steve Jurvetson used under Creative Commons license)

We’ve tried ‘green’ commercial ant-killers with no success, along with all the home remedies ever suggested:  vinegar, boric acid, boiling water, cornmeal; you name it.  One thing we haven’t tried is casting the colony in molten aluminum.  That’s a permanent solution to the problem, but it might be a bit hard on our lawn.

They haven’t invaded our house en masse yet, so we’re maintaining an uneasy détente.  Every now and then one sneaks inside and meets a prompt and messy demise; and every now and then they swarm me in my garden, doubtless hoping to return the favour.  But if they ever mount a determined attack, I’m gonna up the anti-ant ante and get out the really nasty chemicals.

‘Cause the thought of being enslaved by giant mutant ants gives me the heeby-jeebies.  And even heebier and jeebier… they can strip a dead gecko to bare bones in a little over 12 hours.  That’s only a few thousand ants.  Imagine what a million could do.

Did I mention there are approximately one million ants for every human on earth?

Well, I won’t be sleeping tonight.

What critter is your nemesis?

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New discussion over at the Virtual Backyard Book Club:  What’s up with Stemp? Click here to have your say!

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Butt Of The Joke

/ Diane Henders / 91 Comments

…Or maybe ‘joke of the butt’ would be a more appropriate title.  Yes, I had a colonoscopy last week, and an upper GI scope at the same time – I suspect they shook hands in the middle.  But at least the specialist was kind enough to reassure me that they did use different scopes in my butt and my mouth.  Small mercies.

I won’t get into the sordid details of the day-long preparation, partly because I don’t want to gross anybody out, but mostly because Billy Connolly has already gone there in graphic and hilarious detail and I could never compete:  https://vimeo.com/24340828

In any case, the prep didn’t bother me too much.  Mind you, I’m not saying I’d care to do it again in this lifetime, but for me the worst part was not consuming anything but clear fluids for an entire day.  I am not a happy camper when I’m hungry.

I wasn’t too worried about the procedure since I knew they would be giving me conscious sedation, and it worked – I don’t remember a thing between when they started the IV and when I became aware again in the recovery room.

And that creeped me out more than all the prep and procedure combined.

If I’d been fully anesthetized, I wouldn’t have worried; but when other patients returned from their procedures they were fully conscious and (apparently) coherent.  The guy in the bed across from me was acting completely normal – reading his chart and visiting with the nurse while she gave him the recovery-room fare of orange juice and cookies.

I don’t remember a thing until I had orange juice and cookies in my hand.  I don’t even remember the nurse handing them to me.  Suddenly, I was just… there.  Eating cookies.

Uh-oh.

I expend a lot of effort maintaining my verbal filters in public, and if I was sedated enough to eliminate those filters, there’s no telling what I might have said.

Probably something like, “Hey, Doc, if you’re gonna do that, you could at least kiss me first.”

Or I might have recited one (or several) of the classic lines overheard during colonoscopies:

  • “Take it easy, Doc, you’re boldly going where no man has gone before.”
  • “Find Amelia Earhart yet?”
  • “Can you hear me NOW?”
  • “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”
  • “You know, in Arkansas, we’re now legally married.”
  • “Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?”
  • “Now I know how a Muppet feels!”
  • “Hey, Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.”
  • “You used to be an executive at Enron, didn’t you?”
  • “Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not, in fact, up there?”

Worse, apparently you have to expel all the gas that they blow inside you, and I don’t remember doing that, either.  But I know far too many fart jokes and if my inhibitions were down, God only knows what I might have said.

They didn’t treat me any differently when they released me, so I’m hoping I kept my inappropriate sense of humour under control.

But I’ll never know whether I’m now the butt of their jokes…

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New discussion over at the Virtual Backyard Book Club:  What do you think of Tom?  Click here to have your say!

The Closet Reveal

/ Diane Henders / 37 Comments

Thanks to everybody who took at guess at which items weren’t in my closet last week!  It was lots of fun (and occasionally slightly disturbing) to read all the guesses and the reasoning behind them.  So, without further ado, here’s the photographic evidence along with my reasons/excuses for harbouring such oddball items.  (Hubby and I share the closet, but for the sake of fairness I only included items that belong to me.)

But first a disclaimer:  we’re actually not total closet-slobs.  Here’s how our closet normally looks:

closet

And here’s the exploded view with the items numbered according to the original list:

closet inventory1

closet inventory2

closet inventory3

closet inventory4

closet inventory5

And now for the explanations:

1. Umpteen pairs of jeans – Yep.  No explanation required.

2. Bellydance scarves with jingly coins – Remember this post with this video?

3. A bearskin rug – It’s a sleigh rug, left over from the 1930s when my dad used to drive the horse and sleigh to elementary school in Manitoba’s bitter-cold winters.  I’m impressed that almost everybody accepted its presence without question!

4. A bag of cosmetics – Believe me, I was as shocked as you when I discovered this ten-year-old item lurking in the bottom of one of my dusty unused handbags.

5. Books – As @krsmithsite pointed out, the proper place for books is on my giant wall of bookshelves; but I keep my first editions tucked away in a storage bin in my closet.

6. Suitcases – I bought the tiger-print because I thought it would be easy to spot on a baggage carousel… and then I ended up in a wrestling match with some other lady who’d thought the same thing and made off with my suitcase thinking it was her own.

7. A stuffed deer head – Nope, but I’m surprised and flattered by the number of people who thought I might have one in there.  It’s good to be unpredictable. 🙂

8. A white cowboy hat decorated with pearls and silk flowers – From our campy western-themed wedding seventeen years ago.  Neither of us cared about “traditional” so we decided to just have fun with it!

Phill & Diane wedding Aug 13 1999 hi-res9. A stuffed rat – Several years ago, Ikea’s toy designers apparently thought every child should have a cuddly rodent, and my funnybone was so tickled that I had to buy a couple.  (Not Fuzzy Bunny, @ElTea, but close.)  The rats migrate around our house, showing up in odd places and provoking chuckles every time.

10. A heart monitor – For use with my Nike Smartwatch at the gym.

11. Wax crayons – I keep some goodies in my closet for when the little great-nieces-and-nephews come to visit.

12. A plastic flute – See above.

13. A set of knives – The same tub contains items that are awaiting either gifting or re-gifting, and I don’t even remember where this carving set came from.  (Shhh, don’t tell.)

14. 4½” candy-apple red stiletto pumps – Nope.  I’d love to say I own a pair, but I don’t.

15. A backpack – Actually, I have a couple of them in there, plus a couple of duffel bags.

16. Half a dozen waist pouches – Sorry, @jenny_o, I really do have half a dozen.  I buy them in bulk whenever I can find them because they’re hard to come by and I wear them out fast.  (My friend Judy refuses to be seen with me while I’m buying them.  I think she’s afraid my fashion disability might be contagious.)

17. A luggage cart – Yep.

18. Pink cowboy boots – That’s a resounding ‘no’.  I do have several pairs of western boots, but I draw the line at pink.

19.Christmas cards – Gotta store ‘em somewhere.

20. A camera tripod – See above.

21. Dusty business clothes – It’s probably about time to vacuum them again…

22. A Frisbee – Nope, the Frisbees live in the garage.

23. 4½” leopard-print satin stiletto pumps – I got them for ten bucks at Payless, intending to use them for a photo shoot that never happened.  But they give me a giggle because they make me think of the scene with Lurene and her zebra stilettos in Book 5, so I’m keeping them.  After all, who knows when one might need satin animal-print stilettos?

24. A sequined evening gown – Believe it or not I have one, and it still fits.  It’s a classic design, so I might even wear it again.  Someday.  Maybe.  But not with Item 23.

25. A dead plant – No.  Usually my plants flourish and take over, but if one actually dies I commend its remains to my backyard garden, not my closet.

26. A soap dispenser – Yep, it’s another item in the gift tub.

27. Dust bunnies – I’d love to say no, but the embarrassing truth is that I found a flock of them happily reproducing behind my storage bins.

28. Boxing gloves – One pair 14-oz. boxing gloves; one pair muay thai gloves.

29. Scented candles – These live in the gift tub, too, waiting for their scent to dissipate enough that I can stand to have them in the house.  It’s been about five years so far.

30. A clothes shaver – For some reason I have two.  Never been used.

And… drum roll, please…

As you’ve probably noticed, nobody correctly guessed all five items; but Lois and el Tea were closest with three each.  So, as a tie-breaker I’ll use a random number generator to select a number between 1 and 100 – whoever guesses closest gets an appearance in Book 12!  Ladies, please post your guess in the comments below.

Thanks for playing, everybody!  And now, inquiring minds want to know:  What’s the oddest thing in your closet?

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New discussion over at the Virtual Backyard Book Club:  Watch Your Language, Young Lady!  How do you feel about Aydan’s swearing?  Click here to have your say!

Peek Into My Closet

/ Diane Henders / 89 Comments

A few months ago I mentioned I had run across a list of impromptu speech topics for kids.  It amused me, so I hung onto it for potential inspiration.  One of the topics that caught my eye was “What you would find in my closet”.  Prosaic, yes?  But the part that tickled my funnybone was the addendum:  “Make something up”.

Well.

Let’s have a peek into my imaginary closet, shall we?

First off, don’t step into that human-sized glass cylinder with the Google Maps interface displayed on the outside.  That’s my teleportation chamber, and it’ll send me anywhere on earth in the blink of an eye.  (And it gets me there and back intact, too, unlike the Galaxyquest version.)

Next to that is a safe containing several million dollars in untraceable cash.

Why are you looking at me like that?  Of course I’d never use my teleporter to pop into bank vaults in the dark of night!  I won that money fair and square with the lottery ticket that’s framed on the wall right over the vault.  Honest.

At the back is a TARDIS – not because I want to travel through time, but because it’s bigger on the inside.  One can never have too much closet space.

Inside the TARDIS is a giant toolbox full of high quality tools, all clean and organized and ready for use.  (And it’s got a Hubby-proof lock on it so the tools stay clean and organized and ready to use.)

There’s also a gourmet kitchen stocked with the latest tools and appliances, fresh delicious ingredients, and that all-important cooking gadget: a top-notch personal chef.  And a trap/skeet and rifle range; and a fully-equipped gym.

That’s where my flight of fancy ends, but I’m harbouring quite a few oddball items in reality, too.  If you can correctly guess which five items aren’t currently residing in my closet, I’ll write you into Book 12 in a cameo appearance!

  1. Umpteen pairs of jeans
  2. Bellydance scarves with jingly coins
  3. A bearskin rug
  4. A bag of cosmetics
  5. Books
  6. Suitcases
  7. A stuffed deer head
  8. A white cowboy hat decorated with pearls and silk flowers
  9. A stuffed rat
  10. A heart monitor
  11. Wax crayons
  12. A plastic flute
  13. A set of knives
  14. 4½” candy-apple red stiletto pumps
  15. A backpack
  16. Half a dozen waist pouches
  17. A luggage cart
  18. Pink cowboy boots
  19. Christmas cards
  20. A camera tripod
  21. Dusty business clothes
  22. A Frisbee
  23. 4½” leopard-print satin stiletto pumps
  24. A sequined evening gown
  25. A dead plant
  26. A soap dispenser
  27. Dust bunnies
  28. Boxing gloves
  29. Scented candles
  30. A clothes shaver

Which five of these things are not in my closet at the time of writing?  Make your guess before next Tuesday July 19th at midnight MDT!  And yes, I promise I’ll explain the presence of some of the strange items next week.

What’s in your imaginary closet?

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New discussion over at the Virtual Backyard Book Club:  How Do You Like That Setting?  Click here to have your say!

Disgusting Butt Mounds

/ Diane Henders / 57 Comments

So tell me:  When you read the title of this post, what was your mental image?

Okay, maybe that isn’t a fair question.  After all, if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, I’d be shocked if you didn’t immediately leap to an off-colour interpretation just because you know me too well.

So let’s keep this scientific and unbiased.  I’ll rephrase the question:  What would you have envisioned if you’d seen that title on the page of a serious and established online newspaper?

At this point you may be shaking your head and saying, “Get a grip.  It’s just another one of your twisted misreads.”

You’d be completely justified in thinking that, but no; this time I had read the headline correctly.  In its entirety, it read: “Will Timmins council get rid of downtown’s disgusting butt mounds?”

I read it once; then again.  Triple-checked to be sure I wasn’t misreading it.

Stared at it, wondering, “What the hell can they possibly be talking about?”

And then my brain exploded with speculations and vile mental images:

Speculation 1:  Maybe the denizens of downtown Timmins have frequent and/or intentional wardrobe malfunctions that expose their disgusting butt mounds, and everybody’s sick of seeing them.  (I visualize the follow-up headline: “Timmins eyes buttcrack bylaw”.)

wardrobe malfunction

Speculation 2:  Perhaps people are reacting to one of those ill-conceived investments in Downtown Art that leaves everybody questioning the sanity of both the city council and the artist.  (New headline:  “Timmins makes cracks about butt-ugly sculpture”.)

kiss this

Speculation 3:  Or maybe the Butt Mounds are some sort of natural landscape feature that the citizens of Timmins find offensive and their city council is coming under pressure to raze the eyesore.  (New headline:  “Environmentalists implore: ‘Timmins, support your Butt Mounds!’”)

butt mounds

Sad to say, I wasn’t even close with any of my speculations.  Nope, they were talking about mounds of cigarette butts in the outdoor smoking areas:  https://www.sudbury.com/around-the-north/will-timmins-council-get-rid-of-downtowns-disgusting-butt-mounds-328274

Well, shit.  Talk about anticlimactic.  But at least it gave me a giggle or three.

What’s funny in your world this week?

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New discussion at the Virtual Backyard Book Club:  Two Guys, One Girl – What Do You Think?  Click here to have your say!

Self-Driving Auto-Paranoia

/ Diane Henders / 50 Comments

A couple of days ago I discovered an article about how and when a self-driving car should be programmed to injure or kill its passengers.  It’s an alarming proposition, but it’s actually a valid point:  if the car has to choose between wiping out ten pedestrians or only its driver, simple logic says it should choose the lesser number of casualties.

But the realization that my future vehicle may be plotting to kill me makes me just a wee bit mistrustful of technology.

Or, in my case, more mistrustful of technology.  I’ve never been good at leaving my safety in the hands (circuits?) of inanimate objects.  (Or even animate objects, for that matter.  I’m a lousy passenger even with a human driver – I spend as much time watching the road as the driver does.  But that’s another story.)

My point is, I’m suspicious of any electronic device that wants to make decisions for me.

Take my GPS, for instance.  The lady inside my GPS can usually get me where I want to go, but she’s not always good at it.  When we’re in unfamiliar territory, Hubby usually drives while I navigate.  Theoretically the GPS should be all we need, but I never go anywhere without a paper map; partly because my GPS has a tendency to announce “Low battery!” and/or lose its satellite connection at critical moments, but mostly because I don’t trust it to choose the best route.

I can set it to ‘faster time’ (which is usually dog-slow) or ‘shortest distance’ (synonymous for ‘via goat-paths and dodgy neighbourhoods’), but there’s no setting for ‘common sense’.  So, after a few forays through dense forest on steep roads no wider than our car (though, as the GPS insisted, that road was technically ‘paved’) our trips have become a power struggle between the GPS and me.

The GPS lady says, “In… two hundred metres… turn left.”

And I say, “Ignore that.  It doesn’t know what it’s doing.  Keep going straight.”

Hubby, like all husbands with a modicum of self-preservation, silently follows my directions while the GPS says in snotty tones, “Recalculating.  In… one hundred metres… make a U-turn.”

Me:  “Ignore that.  Keep going.”

GPS (getting cranky):  “Recalculating.  In… three kilometres… TURN LEFT, IDIOT!”

Me:  “Ignore that…”

Given the choice, I’d rather have an up-to-date paper map and only use the GPS to pinpoint the location of the nearest Dairy Queen.  (And don’t get me wrong; that’s a critical function.  I need frequent ice cream breaks when I’m on the road.)

But antagonizing my GPS is probably a bad idea, because the new cars will have them built in.  And if a hostile GPS triggers the ‘kill-the-driver’ algorithm, I could be in serious trouble.

On the surface, the self-driving car seems utopian:  I could be snoozing or reading or snacking while my car takes me safely and efficiently to my destination.  But in reality I’d probably end up sitting in the driver’s seat with both hands on the wheel, simultaneously watching the road and keeping a wary eye on the car in case it tries to kill me.

But maybe I’m just paranoid.

Or maybe that’s not a ‘maybe’…

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And speaking of technology… there’s a new discussion over at the Virtual Backyard Book Club:  Aydan’s Tech Gadgets – Love ‘Em Or Hate ‘Em?  Click here to have your say!

Give Me Air!

/ Diane Henders / 29 Comments

I used to be much tougher; but the older I get, the more I enjoy the comfort of modern conveniences.  Yep, I’m turning into an elderly wimp.

When I was a kid there was no such thing as sunscreen; or if there was, the news of it hadn’t filtered through to our little rural backwater.  As a fair-skinned redhead, sunburns were inevitable unless I wanted to stay indoors all my life.

I didn’t.  I was out all day long in my shorts and T-shirt, playing in haystacks and crawling through tall grass and wading in ditches; putting cool compresses on the sunburn at night and peeling the skin off a few days later until I was one big freckle that lasted until winter.

Our little farmhouse didn’t have air conditioning in the early days, and there was no escape from the muggy heat of a Manitoba summer.  Even with all the windows open, the house was airless.  Clothing and bedding were perpetually damp and clammy from the humidity.

Big black crickets infiltrated the house in summer.  I’ll never forget the first time my brother brought one of his girlfriends home for the first time.  We were sitting at the dinner table when, in a momentary lull in the conversation, there was an audible *plop*.  Yep, a giant cricket had crawled out from behind the wall clock and fallen to the floor before scuttling into the safety of a nearby air vent.  The memory of the look on that girl’s face still makes me snicker.  (Their relationship didn’t last, oddly enough.)

But…

These days I don’t venture outdoors without slathering on sunscreen, swaddling myself in long sleeves and long pants, and donning a hat and sunglasses.

My skin is now sensitive to some invisible critter that lives in grass and dirt, so anytime I’m working or playing outside I have to tuck my pant legs into my socks to prevent giant red welts on my legs.  (This has the added bonus of making me look like a complete doofus.)

If even a single bug ventures into my house I instantly swoop down and annihilate it.  (Unless it’s a spider or a ladybug, in which case I gently pick it up and put it outside unharmed. But all others get heartlessly squished.)

And a couple of years ago we had central air installed.

Here in Calgary, air conditioning is viewed with a hint of condescension (until the temperature tops +30C/86F, at which point it’s regarded with envy).  We usually only get a couple of weeks of hot weather and even then the temperature rarely exceeds +15C/59F at night.  Most people just open the windows when it’s cool and close them during the day.  Air conditioning is for wussies.

So when I sit in my cool, comfortable living room while everybody else bakes… instead of feeling smug, I feel a bit embarrassed.

That is, until a few days ago when the air conditioner inexplicably quit.  And the temperature rose one degree inside the house.

Well.

The way I rushed off to phone the service line, you’d think the fires of hell were licking at the crack of my ass.  “OMG, the temperature’s gone up a degree and the air conditioner isn’t running!  What will I DO?!?”

Um… take a pill, that’s what.  A couple of years ago the temperature in our bedroom regularly topped +30C in the summer.  It didn’t kill me.

But apparently now it will.

‘Scuse me while I totter off to my rocking chair now…

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