I don't know what it is with me and windshield wipers. I guess we just don't get along. That's all I can figure. It's not a mutual thing. I don't hate them. But maybe I should.
When I was poor and in school I would buy the cheapest wipers because I needed to have wipers for the long, rainy drive across town to class, but I couldn't afford the best ones.
Now I'm older and richer and I am tired of having to replace my wipers every year, so I buy the best. I buy the lifetime guaranteed, these will never fail you, made of solid gold, this is a shitload of money for a strip of rubber, good God they're pretty, wiper blades.
And every year, just like before, I end up having to replace them.
Oh sure, I try to take care of them. I try to never abuse them. I try to be nice. But when the cold comes the destruction is inevitable.
Just this morning I went out to my truck, which I just got back from my newest mechanic, having dumped the previous mechanic for screwing up my clutch job and having screwed up the previous job before that one. It was sitting in my driveway all pretty and frosted. I saw the hazy dew on the windshield. Yes, it was cool, but it was well above freezing. Hell, it's in the 40s. So I got in my truck, started it up, cursed the mechanic for adjusting my cold idle too low, and backed out. My windshied was frosted and wet so I turned on the wipers.
SCRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPE!
Shit, that's solid ice! Oh fuck, I just wrecked another set of wipers.
Yeah, they SAY these wipers can handle being scrapey scrapeyed across ice (sorry, this whole "scrapey scrapey" thing is an inside joke referring to a movie some friends made back in college and odds are none of them will even come here to see it, so my mentioning it is rather pointless and stupid) but we all know how that works. You scrape them across the frozen razorblades on your windshield and then the next time you need them they leave big streaks. Pretty soon they don't wipe anything at all. They just make noise and move back and forth. Then you end up buying new ones and installing them in the pouring rain out in the parking lot at AutoSuck.
You know it's true. You ladies always get the fat old guy who works there to do it for you, don't you? Yeah, but he doesn't mind because your smile and pretending to like him is the highlight of his lonely, gray day, believe me. I know him. He isn't getting paid well and he mostly has to deal with ghetto pimps and non-English-speaking Mexicans all day. He'd crawl under your car in the soaking wet and change your oil for you if you'd just smile at him for a moment longer. You don't realize the power you have. Your smile is a beam of sunlight and hope in a dark old man's world.
So I've just wrecked my wipers. And I know better than to go ahead and replace them now, because in about a month or two more I'm going to go out to my car, turn on the wipers to clear off the frost, and find that the wipers are literally glued to the glass, causing them to rip free before they scrapey, scrapey across the frozen windshield, accomplishing exactly nothing.
It happens every year.
And am I the only person who always, ALWAYS has the driver's side wiper go out first? It never fails that when I first notice a problem with my wipers it's because the driver's side wiper is doing absolutely nothing, while the passenger's side is free and clear, as if the wipers were installed at two different times and came from two different manufacturers, one bad and one good, which they weren't and didn't.
Yeah, I know this has very little to do with Friday the 13th. My day started off with me waking to a block of frozen ice in the bed, which turned out to be my own body, as My Wife had stolen ALL the covers and pulled them over to the point that most of them are on the floor. I don't think it was an accident. She started another fight last night. So that was the real start to my Friday the 13th.
Also, I need to ask for some input from you about my blog. I don't know what to do about Fuck You Friday. The first time I did it I was in a weird mood. I was just numb and genuinely didn't care about anything I said. I was SO afraid no one would like it, and then people loved it. So then I was encouraged to do another. So I did. Again, I was afraid no one would like it. The next week I tried to just drop it, figuring the joke was over and no one really wanted to see it again. But then I got emails asking where it was. Each time I do another I feel the same way, as if people don't really like it and I should drop it. But then someone will ask for it. Sometimes I'm really surprised by who is asking, because it will be someone I would have expected to be especially annoyed by what I said last time. To be honest, I'm confused. I can keep doing them, but I need to know who wants to see more and who would rather never see it again ever.
To be honest, I was going to do a Fantastic Friday post the second week instead of another Fuck You Friday, just to be more upbeat. But right before I did, I got another email asking for Fuck You Friday. And then this week is Friday the 13th, so a Fabulous Friday, Smile God Loves You, Smell the Flowers post on this particular Friday would seem out of place.
So let me know. What are your thoughts on this? Should I drop it, scale it back, or keep doing it? It's one of the few posts that I never feel comfortable with and never know what to expect from.
You have read this article with the title Friday the 13th - Curse of the Windshield Wipers. You can bookmark this page URL http://thebohemianbunny.blogspot.com/2006/10/friday-13th-curse-of-windshield-wipers.html. Thanks!
