Blink Faster

The other night I was sitting at a light (why do all my stories begin this way lately?), waiting to turn left. So, being a responsible driver, I had my blinker on. It was a long light. And I drive an old car. Perhaps I should not have been surprised when, about two minutes into the wait, my blinker … went on the blink. Instead of its usual bink.uh.bink.uh.bink it started blinking at a furious rate. Like it was mad. Or trying to give me a heart attack. One of my pet peeves is frantic blinkers – either in my own car or on the tail end of the car in front of me. They seem unnecessarily stressful. I know you’re turning. You're in the turn lane. No need to get all manic and insistent about it.

Anyway, my left-turn blinker would only blink at warp speed for the rest of the night although the right-turn blinker was fine. And the left-turn blinker had returned to its normal rate by the next day. Apparently it was just having a moment. I'm glad. I'd have hated having to give up indicating left turns.

*

I can hardly believe it’s December already. It seems like only yesterday it was August and 106 degrees here. Now it’s finally cold enough to feel like Christmas. (Thank heaven! I was beginning to worry I wasn’t going to catch up with the holiday until, say, February.) J-Mom is flying in tonight for her annual Christmas visit. Yay! I’ve cleaned up and even decorated for Christmas a little bit.

My one string of plain white fairy lights is a little bit sad. It has to be up way high somewhere, out of reach of my cats. Dickens thinks the little glass bulbs are like popcorn for cats. He loves to chomp on them. He chomped on a couple before I figured this out, which is why only one third of my lights actually shine – the chomping took place about a third of the way down the string. I know I should just get more lights. But I have yet to develop a ceiling-only decorating plan so for now I’m going to use the 33 fairy lights I’ve got and keep an eye on the chomper.

*
I was born in December and Mom tells me that my first Christmas (not when I was a few weeks old but the next year, just after my first birthday), they had a tree with blinking lights. She thought it was very funny that I blinked when the tree blinked. Every time. If you think about it, that means my first Christmas tree was either always twinkly or always dark.

Hope all your blinks are in sync.

Shopping Tips from the Most Insensitive Person Ever

After work tonight I drove around running errands – picking up drycleaning, going to Home Depot. (I always try to visit Home Depot wearing my girliest clothes. The service is much snappier.)

As I was sitting at a light not really listening to the radio I gradually tuned in to what I was hearing. It was a commercial and it started off something like, “Are you having trouble finding Christmas gifts for those friends who have everything?” I thought to myself, ‘Hm, I know a few people like that.’ So I began to pay closer attention. The cheerful radio Voice continued:

“Well, how about getting them a little confidence? Everyone can always use a little more confidence.” Or something cheesy like that. At this point my own initial spike of interest and confidence in the radio Voice was beginning to fade. Rapidly.

The fade turned into a complete black-out when the Voice got to the punch-line:

“Why not give your friend the gift of laser hair removal?”

Um.

Huh.

That idea had never crossed my mind. Not even once, and I’ve been giving gifts to people for YEARS.

I’ve honestly spent some time this evening trying to picture it and I just cannot come up with any conceivable scenario in which giving someone laser hair removal would be okay. Also, I suspect if someone did surprise you with a certificate for laser hair removal, that unwrapping that particular gift might possibly have the most disastrous effect on your self-confidence EVER.

So I’m thinking the radio Voice belongs to a person who may not understand what gift-giving is supposed to be about – also, the Voice seems to be a little unclear on the meaning of the word ‘confidence.’