To New Mexico #2

Okay, everybody. This week we get to Lyndon Baines Johnson, traffic jams, toxic fogs, mutant margaritas, and, of course, how Martha didn’t whack me with a tire iron, though, God knows, she had reason.

And that’s before we get off the ground…

*

So, anyway, you’ll recall from last time that we were on our way to visit my parents in New Mexico. You may also recall that we’re on a super-tight, super-crunched, super-unforgiving schedule. We absolutely, positively, 200% have to be able to leave on Friday morning and be back on Wednesday so that I could teach on Thursday, and both of us could teach on Friday, and Martha could get to the Tufts graduation on Sunday morning, and both of us could get to our son David’s graduation on Sunday afternoon and if anything, anything AT ALL, should go wrong and delay us…we’re in deep-doo-doo with a side order of Oh-Freaking-Farpdoodles on toast.

Right. So, comes the Thursday before we leave and I have to teach a class in U.S. History at Cambridge College. Which is in … get ready… Cambridge. Surprise, surprise. You didn’t expect that, now did you? Thought not. So, little lesson for you. Next time, be on your toes.

Anyway, it’s in Cambridge. The one in America. Not the other one. Which has punts and guys who wear funny hats. And it’s a kind of boat. I mean the punts. Not the hats. And besides, that other Cambridge is in England. And nobody wants to confuse our Cambridge with their Cambridge. No siree. Because you never know where that kind of thing will stop. Why, next thing you know, you’ve got people with funny accents saying things like “Tally-ho.” Scary, isn’t it?

Where was I? Oh, yes. So, Cambridge College is just up the street from Harvard. But I like Cambridge College better. For one thing, I got a part-time job there. If I sent a vita to Harvard, well, you could hear them laughing clear to Cleveland. Though, truth to be told, I’m not entirely sure I would want to teach at Harvard, even if I could.

You see, Cambridge College teaches people who want to get a degree, gain one or more skills, and actually go out into the world and do something. Where-as Harvard…let’s just say that it is a school with a rather different clientele. I’m not saying that Harvard students aren’t scholarly, or energetic, or intelligent. But, sometimes, on occasion, at least among some of them…I feel that they are not on a journey, precisely. They have already arrived.

Anyway, I was doing a class in American history at Cambridge College. It was a good class and I liked the students, but it met at exactly 4:10 and ran to 6:30 pm. So, Martha and I had a plan. We’d get packed after we got home and then we’d drive down to Cambridge together. We live in a little town called Winchester, which is a really great place if you don’t mind suburban. Which is not to knock suburbs. I mean, hell, John Cheever made a career outta ‘em. If I could only find a bit more blatant corruption and decadence around here I’d be a happy man. So, for heaven’s sake, you guys, come up with a few dozen wife-swapping, Satan-worshipping, drug-using, alcoholic embezzlers. I’m counting on you. There are bestsellers to be written.

But, anyway, so the plan was we’d drive down, she’d drop me off, I’d go teach my class, and she’d park and go have a coffee at a local coffee shop. I’d meet her there and we’d drive over to the hotel near the airport where we would spend the night before catching the plane in the morning.

Great plan. Couldn’t be simpler. Sure fire. Idiot proof. Right?

Well. Er. Ah. Depends on the idiot. I, for instance, am a top of the line idiot. Major. Massive. I mean, the idiot proofing that I can’t unproof hasn’t been invented yet. So there, too.

Martha drops me off and I go teach my class about Lyndon Baines Johnson, the Great Society, Vietnam, and a whole bunch of other stuff that happened in the 1960s and 1970s. (I’m teaching American history from the Revolution to the 1990s. Makes for some symmetry. You got George III on one hand and George W. on the other. Kinda like bookends, you know? Or those salt and pepper shakers in the shape of Tiki Heads you got for your mother when you were eight and didn’t know better. Lot of similarities but with fewer holes in the foreheads. )

Martha, meanwhile, goes off to park.

It’s not easy to park in the area around Harvard University. Technically, it is known as Harvard Square, and it is chock-o-block full of shops and restaurants and other trendy places that attract people with very large checkbooks. This means that there’s also lots of cars there, and they all fight for the relatively limited numbers of spaces available. You can, if you are unlucky, spend a whole evening going around, and around, and around…finding nothing. I regard it as metaphorical. Sort of like my time in that doctorial program. But with fewer chances of road rage.

But, because Martha is Martha, and she finds parking lots while the rest of us are still stuck behind that garbage truck that mysteriously materialized just as we headed up the one way street, she finds spaces just exactly three feet away from the front door of wherever she wants to be. It’s quite obnoxious, really. I tell her to stop showing off. She doesn’t listen. She so rarely does. And a very good thing, too. I mean, considering the source.

And, furthermore, on the day in question she finds a lot in less time than it takes me to sneeze. ‘Course, with a nose like mine, that’s a complex process and tends to take a while longer than for normal people. I mean, just getting the sinus strain gauges up and running can take the better part of fifteen minutes. And we won’t even talk about how long it takes to get the shockwave dampeners and the muzzle flash suppressors screwed onto the nostrils. I mean, heck, I’ve been known to sneeze on Tuesday and not get any results before the following Friday.

So, anyway, Martha is driving in Harvard Square and she sees a guy pulling out of a parking lot. Great, she thinks, and she pulls over and lets him leave the lot. She notices … oh!...that as the guy’s car pulls out, there seems to be a greenish fog behind him. Poor fellow (she thinks), his car is over-heating. He might have a problem. There might be a repair issue. He ought to go to a garage. Because, of course, everyone knows that you should regularly check the oil and coolant in your automobile. And if you don’t do that, well, then, you could get into trouble. And what kind of twit wouldn’t have their car on a Regular Program Of Preventative Maintenance?

And he pulls out. She pulls in. Then, she notices something else. To wit, the fog? It’s still there. In fact, it’s getting thicker. And deeper. And smellier. And it wasn’t coming from the car ahead of her at all.

No.

It was…however… coming from . . . OUR car.

It is at this moment that my beloved wife realized EXACTLY what kind of twit wouldn’t have their car on a Regular Program Of Preventative Maintenance.

My kind.

And now I must (alas) report an unfortunate failing in my wife. I must, with deep sadness, explain that she has the habit of holding me responsible for my own actions. And for no other good reason than that I did them. And at at fault. And thoroughly to blame for the whole situation. Which is very unfair of her, I think. I mean, really, once that sort of thing gets started, where do we stop? We might have to end up holding people accountable. Which heaven knows would be a mistake. Why, if we did that, whole presidential administrations would be unworkable. And several CEOs of large corporations would be in jail instead of on beaches in tax haven countries with underage sexual partners in very little clothing. Why, it would be the end of civilization as we know it.

So, anyway, Martha gets parked and realizes that yes, indeed, my radiator is boiling over. I’d been meaning to flush the thing and/or top it off for quite some time. But. Well. You know. One thing led to another. And then a third. And two the seventh plus or minus the square root of pi. And, er, that is, I never did it.

Right, she says, sitting in the car, watching it boil.

She reaches down and hits the button that supposed to pop the hood. Then she heads out and goes to see if she can fix things. Only, when she gets to the front of the car, the hood doesn’t quiet open. You see, when the designers of this particular vehicle invested their brain cells, they put ‘em in places like the engine and safety. But the hood? Well, that’s another matter. Not a neuron got spent.

So, to open the hood, you actually have to wiggle your fingers in under the lip of the the thing and find a concealed clasp that can only be reached by a mutant orangutan with index fingers the length of a Mashie Niblick. This task is made particularly amusing, for orangutans and others, because, of course, the engine is hot. And, so, you’re having a wonderful time getting scalded while you’re also NOT getting the hood open.

Martha tries, and tries, and tries, but can’t get it open. So, she asks a guy on the street if he can figure it out. He tries, and tries, and tries, but he can’t get it open, so he asks another guy on the street, who tries, and then asks… well, let’s just say it was quite a party when it was all done. I understand they were just getting ready to call out for pizza when the hood got bored and popped open all by itself.

Okay, so now Martha had access to the radiator. The question was what to do about it. As you may or may not have guessed, getting a gallon of anti-freeze in Harvard Yard is not necessarily an easy thing. Oh, tons other stuff you can get. Miniskirts, microbrews, monographs, those, sure. But not anti-freeze. This is because no one in Harvard Square ever has car problems. Just a need for drunken Ph.D.s in miniskirts. Which is a terrifying thought, when you consider it.

The point being that there’s no anti-freeze to be found. But, Martha’s a resourceful woman and shortly discovers a gallon of distilled water at a local shop that offers such items chiefly as a means of cooling high powered, turbo-assisted, fuel-injected hyper-spatial super-bongs (but in a very scholarly way, of course). This she pours into the radiator and it stops steaming. It does go Weeee! and afterwards has a severe attack of the munchies. But it stops steaming.

Martha, however, is only getting started steaming.

Meanwhile, I’m back in my class, blissfully ignorant of the facts. As I am of so many things. It’s a long standing policy of mine. What you know can’t hurt you. Or, rather, it can, but at least you don’t worry about it before hand. And afterwards you can say it was a Learning Experience. I lie a lot.

Where was I? Oh, yes, so I’m finishing my lecture on LBJ and the Great Society and how the most liberal and compassionate president of the second half of the twentieth century yet managed to somehow get involved in the Vietnam War. Truth be told, he only inherited it, but he did keep it, and that made all the difference in this tragic world of ours.

So, I conclude my lecture and all the students go filing out with the looks of vague but total incomprehension that I so often produce in my students. Good to know I inspire them.

Then, I gather up my books and head down to the cafe. Strangely, Martha isn’t there. That’s odd, I think. But, I add, she’s probably just busy shopping and forgot the time. Found something interesting. Time just slips away. You know how women are when they get to shopping. Ha. Ha. Ha.

I look up. She’s coming through the door. I plan to tease her about her shopping. Ha. Hee. Ho.

She looks at me. I look at her. I see her expression.

Ha. Ha. Ha . . . whimper.

“You,” she says, as the comes to the table, “are going to buy me the biggest margarita on the East Coast.”

Oh, I say. Right, I add. Salt or no salt?

“With…freaking … out.”

Okay, I say, in a wee small voice.

Truth to be told, Martha is remarkably controlled about the whole business. She never once suggests what anyone else in such a situation would be perfectly justified in suggesting. Like, where exactly to put the steering wheel and how many degrees to turn it after. Oh, and here’s fun ideas about what to do with the break pedal.

Anyway, we gather up our kith and caboodle, and head off for the hotel.

Which is when the fun part starts.

Yeah. Fun. You betcha. Just a barrel of monkeys.

But that’s for next time.

Onward and upward.








Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker