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Not this one:
It is a pretty damn cool t-shirt, though, wot I bought. On the back, their concert history just in the county of their Maniacal birth 40 years ago:
Of those, I have now seen them play at two of those venues, and been by the sites of at least another four passed on our earlier Saturday walking tour.
Nor is that a reference to perhaps the most frequent use of the term "elephant in the room" to refer to a drinking problem. Not mine, not Eleanor's. Okay, there were plenty of stories of drunken exploits throughout the day, but they were long ago if not far, far away from where we were.
For I, sober since Halloween, did not fall off the wagon.
I simply lost the keys to it. And that's something that the elephant in me is trying to never forget.
----
My car was possessed for the entire trip there. On arriving before the walk, I got out to discover that my front license plate was hanging from the front bumper at a 90 degree angle by a single screw. I don't recall any bumps or potholes that might have caused that, but there it was. Since the car was parked for the whole time on the walk and while I comedied, I wasn't worried. I had some downtime before dinner, so I got the remaining screw and the plate off, planted my ass in a Starbucks across Fairmount Avenue from their outskirts-of-downtown Wegmans, and ordered a caramel frappucino and a screwdriver. The Phillips kind, not the drink kind. It was re-secured and remains so. I then drove back downtown, picking a spot closer to the theater. It was well before 5, so I had no trouble scoring the space. After a quick trip inside to purchase the abovedescribed shirt (the center's director of events, Heather, was kind about letting me in before official "doors" to do so; as with other things, she will be important later), I started walking toward the restaurant about three blocks away....
whereupon my car decided to go psycho for the first time in months.
----
This is what tech people refer to as a "known issue." JARVIS's key buttons (to lock and unlock the car, open the trunk and sound the panic alarm) have been hinky since at least the second year I've had him. The lock/unlock function works, but the lights don't always blink and the beep rarely beeps when it locks. I never use the trunk or panic buttons, so the latter feels left out and has had a history of going off by itself. It's been to the dealer, who is obligated to fix it for free if they can get it to do it when it's there, which of course it never does.
It typically does it right after a weather change where the temperature has gone significantly down or, in this case, up. Saturday was one of the warmest days all year, the humidity was relatively high, and the sky would eventually break into a downpour with thunder and lightning.
After Starbucks, I parked right outside the restaurant next to the theater- the one formerly owned by Steve, now booked to the gills with soon to be concert-goers. So I was embarrassed when I heard the BEEEEEEPing from my own little car, and quickly pulled out my remote on my key ring to shut it up. Which it did. I then walked the three blocks, changed into the elephant t-shirt in our chosen restaurant's loo, met Ken and Ellen, had a Mexican dinner that couldn't be beat, looked outside and saw the deluge had arrived. I went back to los hombres, changed back into my original shirt, grabbed the new one and my phone, piled into the back seat of their Hyundai, drove downtown in the rain, 6:30 on a Saturday night, and got out to retrieve my ticket from my car.
No keys.
Note the plural. For not only had I brought the one that unlocked and started my car, but my entire entourage of keys for two offices, one house, a side fence padlock, the duplicate to a 2001 Cavalier (the one I bought for Emily that she totaled but I kept on there as a good luck charm because that car saved their lives), and a flash drive I use when networks at home and office don't believe in wireless communication. Bad news? That's a lot of locks. Good news? It's a big sucker with a bright orange tag on it, and the locks, other than my car's, were all 70 to over 100 miles away.
Also good news? I rarely lock my car, and didn't this time, so I was able to get my concert ticket out. Meanwhile, Ken, bless his heart, left his seat and missed part of the opening act to check the back seat of their car. Twice. No luck. I also missed part of the opening act to walk back those three blocks to comb through the restaurant's loo to see if it had fallen out in there. No, or as they say in Spanish, no.
Now I was back in Row H and it was Maniac time. I was absolutely determined not to let this momentary lapse spoil an event I'd planned on for weeks and, in a sense, had been destined to be at for 40 years. This happened to me once before under even worse logistical circumstances at an outdoor Chicago concert in 2018, a few months before I finally broke my Maniac drought. That time, I again resolved to sit back, relax and enjoy the show until it was done (or until a syrupy Peter Cetera ballad came on); and that time, my keys showed up exactly where I expected them to. Plus, there was enough weed in that outdoor air to make me not give a shit if I had to walk home 40 miles. This show, not so much. Must not be nearly as fun when it's legal.
So when the band came out, this problem was forgotten (there's that word again) and all the previous words I've written about it being touching, funny, kind and amazing? Not a hint of regret or worry. I would work it out.
Just not the way I would have liked.
----
After the final encore, we resumed our efforts. I'd called the restaurant repeatedly both before and after our band's performance, and never got an answer. (When I finally walked back there before curtain, the owner told me she's too busy cooking and serving to answer her phone. She hasn't answered it several times since, but she does have my number.)
Smart cars are made by Mercedes Benz, and even though they no longer sell the brand in the US, they're Mercedes. They have a reputation to maintain UND YOU VILL LIKE IT! I called the 800 number for roadside assistance that has previously been blitzkrieg fast in responding to a flat tire or dead battery. Not this time. Never did get an answer to any of about a half dozen calls to that number. Finally, I texted Eleanor to tell her I was having car trouble and might be late, but I was determined that come hell or high Uber I would be back home by the next morning.
Heather from the theater staff (remember her?) was a living doll. I'd checked in with the box office several times in case they got turned in there, because after all, where else would anybody be going in downtown Jamestown on a rainy Saturday night? No luck there, either, but she was amazingly kind in letting both Ken and me re-enter the theater after going on our searches despite the NO RE-ENTRY sign, and she set me up with a couch and AC outlet to make my calls and recharge my near-dead phone and my 16,000-step legs. I was able to charge the phone, again thanks to not locking the car- the charging cable and AC adapter would have been locked in with the ticket otherwise. The theater staff members were tossing bags of programs, beer cups and, yes, confetti as I lay on a sofa. I even offered to help move things for them and they declined. Heather is getting one of the many thank yous that will be going out on account of all this. (Also on account of them letting me stay, I got to shake Steve's hand one last time and met and chatted a bit with their amazing keyboardist Dennis Drew and his son Dennis IV on the merch beat. They offered sympathies for my predicament.)
Ken, Ellen and I discussed the alternatives. Lowest on the list: making Eleanor drive down in the dark and fog to a place she'd never been to hand me the AREYOUKIDDINGMEKEY. The Uforementioned Uber was a close and expensive second to last. Since my friends were staying overnight down there and had been upgraded at their Hampton Inn just off the Route 17 Jamestown exit, they offered me their couch so I could resume the search in the morning. In the end, though, there was only one plan that would and did work: borrowing their car for the hour-plus trip home, slinking in without waking anyone or anypup to retrieve the key, then doing an entire second round trip while hoping the whole way back down that the car wouldn't be stolen or towed.
I mentioned they took their Hyundai. This was an added blessing, because almost all of its controls were identical to the ones on Eleanor's hybrid Hyundai. Only extra thing was needing to put gas in it, since they had only enough to get home one way. That was the least I could do, considering. I was on the road just after midnight, grabbed the key a bit past 1:30 after a petrol stop, made it back to their hotel by 2:40 or so, was back behind my own started car's wheel just after 3, and back in my driveway moments past 4. As a longlost bumper sticker once put it, I may be lost, but I'm making record time!
----
Then, après le déluge, le déluge.
Eleanor had slept badly in my absence, assumed the worst when she didn't hear me come in the first time and was stupidly late coming in the second, and was as worried as much about the condition of my brain as the inconvenience of it all. She was not alone: I've wondered myself about whether there's a section of cognition that's starting to go on me. It's not verbal (see 1,700-odd words above) or fact memory (I know my name, I know it's May 2022 and I know Richard Nixon is our President and the best ever). It's autonomic shit. Not remembering where the car's parked in the Wegmans lot unless I pay attention to the number sign; THAT, I always remember. The lost wallet (now has an airtag), missing glasses, forgotten file. My keys, when they return to a set one way or another, will be getting their own Apple tag so this won't happen again unless I lose my phone. And you can still use their find my feature from any PC or mobile device as long as you remember your Apple ID and password.
Shit like passwords, I have no trouble with. To be on the safe side, though, I am reaching out to a neurologist recommended by one of my doctors. Even if this is just routine CRS setting in (can't remember shit), she thought it would be a good idea to get some baseline readings. I reached out Monday to the referred MD, and was shunted to a "patient experience representative" which is docspeak for "voicemail." Eleanor picked up the gauntlet yesterday and made some headway, with a call to schedule an appointment promised within 24 hours. It's now 36 hours later and change, and no call.
Maybe they forgot.
I will follow up, though.
----
As for the others of life's little annoyances? Airtags for sets of keys to both cars? On order. Replacing Rochester office keys? Easy, done in house. Office keys here? Trickier, as there's a commercial landlord to go through, but that's on the Next Week List. As is checking into the replacement for the second key for my car. Those are ridik expensive through the dealer because of their security codings. I looked into just getting JARVIS wired to remote-start through a phone app like our hybrid can be started. A client in that business tossed cold rainwater on that, since apparently these apps are not designed for routine use and have to work in concert with a real key. However, he does Know A Guy who can supposedly cut a replacement and functioning key for a lot less than Mercedes would charge. Unless it's too goddamn proprietary like everything else on that Mini Panzer is.
We still hold out hope that they'll just turn up. In addition to getting a thank-you and gift card to my friends who loaned me their coach even after it turned back into a Hyundai Pumpkin at midnight, I'm going to get them a full-on car wash and interior cleaning, in hopes the damn things might have fallen into innards there and Delta Sonic can get it out. The restaurant remains another option if I can ever get the phone answered, and I will check one more time with the local constabulary to see if some good citizen might have turned them in.
Worst case, someone will hack files on the flash drive, get our address from that, steal the car and break into my offices. At least I'll know they're safe then. And they'll probably set off the panic button when they show up, so I'll catch the bastards.
As for one of the earliest, and most quickly rejected of my options here? Moments after my chat with the desk sergeant, thinking that there were probably at least a dozen people in that auditorium who could have hotwired my Smart car. And of those, I'm pretty sure two or three are in the band;) The road not taken....
----
And that concludes our long strange trip through one day, four days ago. Now to get caught up on all the good (lots of progress round the house by both of us), the bad (a COVID scare in my office I got through without catching it), and the ugly (Texas) that has transpired since.
It is a pretty damn cool t-shirt, though, wot I bought. On the back, their concert history just in the county of their Maniacal birth 40 years ago:
Of those, I have now seen them play at two of those venues, and been by the sites of at least another four passed on our earlier Saturday walking tour.
Nor is that a reference to perhaps the most frequent use of the term "elephant in the room" to refer to a drinking problem. Not mine, not Eleanor's. Okay, there were plenty of stories of drunken exploits throughout the day, but they were long ago if not far, far away from where we were.
For I, sober since Halloween, did not fall off the wagon.
I simply lost the keys to it. And that's something that the elephant in me is trying to never forget.
----
My car was possessed for the entire trip there. On arriving before the walk, I got out to discover that my front license plate was hanging from the front bumper at a 90 degree angle by a single screw. I don't recall any bumps or potholes that might have caused that, but there it was. Since the car was parked for the whole time on the walk and while I comedied, I wasn't worried. I had some downtime before dinner, so I got the remaining screw and the plate off, planted my ass in a Starbucks across Fairmount Avenue from their outskirts-of-downtown Wegmans, and ordered a caramel frappucino and a screwdriver. The Phillips kind, not the drink kind. It was re-secured and remains so. I then drove back downtown, picking a spot closer to the theater. It was well before 5, so I had no trouble scoring the space. After a quick trip inside to purchase the abovedescribed shirt (the center's director of events, Heather, was kind about letting me in before official "doors" to do so; as with other things, she will be important later), I started walking toward the restaurant about three blocks away....
whereupon my car decided to go psycho for the first time in months.
----
This is what tech people refer to as a "known issue." JARVIS's key buttons (to lock and unlock the car, open the trunk and sound the panic alarm) have been hinky since at least the second year I've had him. The lock/unlock function works, but the lights don't always blink and the beep rarely beeps when it locks. I never use the trunk or panic buttons, so the latter feels left out and has had a history of going off by itself. It's been to the dealer, who is obligated to fix it for free if they can get it to do it when it's there, which of course it never does.
It typically does it right after a weather change where the temperature has gone significantly down or, in this case, up. Saturday was one of the warmest days all year, the humidity was relatively high, and the sky would eventually break into a downpour with thunder and lightning.
After Starbucks, I parked right outside the restaurant next to the theater- the one formerly owned by Steve, now booked to the gills with soon to be concert-goers. So I was embarrassed when I heard the BEEEEEEPing from my own little car, and quickly pulled out my remote on my key ring to shut it up. Which it did. I then walked the three blocks, changed into the elephant t-shirt in our chosen restaurant's loo, met Ken and Ellen, had a Mexican dinner that couldn't be beat, looked outside and saw the deluge had arrived. I went back to los hombres, changed back into my original shirt, grabbed the new one and my phone, piled into the back seat of their Hyundai, drove downtown in the rain, 6:30 on a Saturday night, and got out to retrieve my ticket from my car.
No keys.
Note the plural. For not only had I brought the one that unlocked and started my car, but my entire entourage of keys for two offices, one house, a side fence padlock, the duplicate to a 2001 Cavalier (the one I bought for Emily that she totaled but I kept on there as a good luck charm because that car saved their lives), and a flash drive I use when networks at home and office don't believe in wireless communication. Bad news? That's a lot of locks. Good news? It's a big sucker with a bright orange tag on it, and the locks, other than my car's, were all 70 to over 100 miles away.
Also good news? I rarely lock my car, and didn't this time, so I was able to get my concert ticket out. Meanwhile, Ken, bless his heart, left his seat and missed part of the opening act to check the back seat of their car. Twice. No luck. I also missed part of the opening act to walk back those three blocks to comb through the restaurant's loo to see if it had fallen out in there. No, or as they say in Spanish, no.
Now I was back in Row H and it was Maniac time. I was absolutely determined not to let this momentary lapse spoil an event I'd planned on for weeks and, in a sense, had been destined to be at for 40 years. This happened to me once before under even worse logistical circumstances at an outdoor Chicago concert in 2018, a few months before I finally broke my Maniac drought. That time, I again resolved to sit back, relax and enjoy the show until it was done (or until a syrupy Peter Cetera ballad came on); and that time, my keys showed up exactly where I expected them to. Plus, there was enough weed in that outdoor air to make me not give a shit if I had to walk home 40 miles. This show, not so much. Must not be nearly as fun when it's legal.
So when the band came out, this problem was forgotten (there's that word again) and all the previous words I've written about it being touching, funny, kind and amazing? Not a hint of regret or worry. I would work it out.
Just not the way I would have liked.
----
After the final encore, we resumed our efforts. I'd called the restaurant repeatedly both before and after our band's performance, and never got an answer. (When I finally walked back there before curtain, the owner told me she's too busy cooking and serving to answer her phone. She hasn't answered it several times since, but she does have my number.)
Smart cars are made by Mercedes Benz, and even though they no longer sell the brand in the US, they're Mercedes. They have a reputation to maintain UND YOU VILL LIKE IT! I called the 800 number for roadside assistance that has previously been blitzkrieg fast in responding to a flat tire or dead battery. Not this time. Never did get an answer to any of about a half dozen calls to that number. Finally, I texted Eleanor to tell her I was having car trouble and might be late, but I was determined that come hell or high Uber I would be back home by the next morning.
Heather from the theater staff (remember her?) was a living doll. I'd checked in with the box office several times in case they got turned in there, because after all, where else would anybody be going in downtown Jamestown on a rainy Saturday night? No luck there, either, but she was amazingly kind in letting both Ken and me re-enter the theater after going on our searches despite the NO RE-ENTRY sign, and she set me up with a couch and AC outlet to make my calls and recharge my near-dead phone and my 16,000-step legs. I was able to charge the phone, again thanks to not locking the car- the charging cable and AC adapter would have been locked in with the ticket otherwise. The theater staff members were tossing bags of programs, beer cups and, yes, confetti as I lay on a sofa. I even offered to help move things for them and they declined. Heather is getting one of the many thank yous that will be going out on account of all this. (Also on account of them letting me stay, I got to shake Steve's hand one last time and met and chatted a bit with their amazing keyboardist Dennis Drew and his son Dennis IV on the merch beat. They offered sympathies for my predicament.)
Ken, Ellen and I discussed the alternatives. Lowest on the list: making Eleanor drive down in the dark and fog to a place she'd never been to hand me the AREYOUKIDDINGMEKEY. The Uforementioned Uber was a close and expensive second to last. Since my friends were staying overnight down there and had been upgraded at their Hampton Inn just off the Route 17 Jamestown exit, they offered me their couch so I could resume the search in the morning. In the end, though, there was only one plan that would and did work: borrowing their car for the hour-plus trip home, slinking in without waking anyone or anypup to retrieve the key, then doing an entire second round trip while hoping the whole way back down that the car wouldn't be stolen or towed.
I mentioned they took their Hyundai. This was an added blessing, because almost all of its controls were identical to the ones on Eleanor's hybrid Hyundai. Only extra thing was needing to put gas in it, since they had only enough to get home one way. That was the least I could do, considering. I was on the road just after midnight, grabbed the key a bit past 1:30 after a petrol stop, made it back to their hotel by 2:40 or so, was back behind my own started car's wheel just after 3, and back in my driveway moments past 4. As a longlost bumper sticker once put it, I may be lost, but I'm making record time!
----
Then, après le déluge, le déluge.
Eleanor had slept badly in my absence, assumed the worst when she didn't hear me come in the first time and was stupidly late coming in the second, and was as worried as much about the condition of my brain as the inconvenience of it all. She was not alone: I've wondered myself about whether there's a section of cognition that's starting to go on me. It's not verbal (see 1,700-odd words above) or fact memory (I know my name, I know it's May 2022 and I know Richard Nixon is our President and the best ever). It's autonomic shit. Not remembering where the car's parked in the Wegmans lot unless I pay attention to the number sign; THAT, I always remember. The lost wallet (now has an airtag), missing glasses, forgotten file. My keys, when they return to a set one way or another, will be getting their own Apple tag so this won't happen again unless I lose my phone. And you can still use their find my feature from any PC or mobile device as long as you remember your Apple ID and password.
Shit like passwords, I have no trouble with. To be on the safe side, though, I am reaching out to a neurologist recommended by one of my doctors. Even if this is just routine CRS setting in (can't remember shit), she thought it would be a good idea to get some baseline readings. I reached out Monday to the referred MD, and was shunted to a "patient experience representative" which is docspeak for "voicemail." Eleanor picked up the gauntlet yesterday and made some headway, with a call to schedule an appointment promised within 24 hours. It's now 36 hours later and change, and no call.
Maybe they forgot.
I will follow up, though.
----
As for the others of life's little annoyances? Airtags for sets of keys to both cars? On order. Replacing Rochester office keys? Easy, done in house. Office keys here? Trickier, as there's a commercial landlord to go through, but that's on the Next Week List. As is checking into the replacement for the second key for my car. Those are ridik expensive through the dealer because of their security codings. I looked into just getting JARVIS wired to remote-start through a phone app like our hybrid can be started. A client in that business tossed cold rainwater on that, since apparently these apps are not designed for routine use and have to work in concert with a real key. However, he does Know A Guy who can supposedly cut a replacement and functioning key for a lot less than Mercedes would charge. Unless it's too goddamn proprietary like everything else on that Mini Panzer is.
We still hold out hope that they'll just turn up. In addition to getting a thank-you and gift card to my friends who loaned me their coach even after it turned back into a Hyundai Pumpkin at midnight, I'm going to get them a full-on car wash and interior cleaning, in hopes the damn things might have fallen into innards there and Delta Sonic can get it out. The restaurant remains another option if I can ever get the phone answered, and I will check one more time with the local constabulary to see if some good citizen might have turned them in.
Worst case, someone will hack files on the flash drive, get our address from that, steal the car and break into my offices. At least I'll know they're safe then. And they'll probably set off the panic button when they show up, so I'll catch the bastards.
As for one of the earliest, and most quickly rejected of my options here? Moments after my chat with the desk sergeant, thinking that there were probably at least a dozen people in that auditorium who could have hotwired my Smart car. And of those, I'm pretty sure two or three are in the band;) The road not taken....
----
And that concludes our long strange trip through one day, four days ago. Now to get caught up on all the good (lots of progress round the house by both of us), the bad (a COVID scare in my office I got through without catching it), and the ugly (Texas) that has transpired since.