// March 19th, 2005 // No Comments » // Blog // Brandon Seekins
Next weekend, I’m going to do what any white boy would do when presented with a snow covered mountain and a plank of wood; I’m going to ride the timber down the mountain. Nine seasons of snowboarding and I’m still not what I would consider a “good” snowboarder. Some might call this a modest move, but I’d say I’m an “okay” snowboarder. I do well enough to have a good time, and I’m occasionally confident enough to push my limits into small jumps and light glade boarding.
So, what do you do when your activities are short of spectacular? You take pictures of people engaging in spectacular activities… it makes you more spectacular by association. In this ruse of greatness, I’ll need a tripod for my camera, so I can set up on the edge of the terrain park and grab shots of people doing things I’m far too sober to do (id est: any attempts to break orbital escape velocity off of a jump, and such endeavors that provide for my feet being further off the ground than my head).
On tuesday, I decide that on my way home from work, I’ll stop at WalMart and buy a simple tripod, provided I can get it very cheap. Nearing the store, I recognize that my fuel gauge is navigating the quarter tank designation, so I arrange a visit to the local BP filling station.
This choice seems obvious, as I’m a sucker for their sign: a bright, pure white deal with the avocado starburst emblazoned dead-center, weighted by the lime green “bp” brand offset in the upper-righthand corner. It inspires a sense of cleanliness and simplicity, but also nascency, as this petrol stop is a late addition to my hometown.
Fringe to my choice, however, is that the attendant at this full service establishment bears a special doubt in my mind as to his national lineage where it, oddly enough, relates to his mental acuity. The situation went down thusly, after the first occasion I patronized the station:
Brandon: Hey, have you been to that new BP?
Steve: No/Yes (at this point it’s unimportant)
Brandon: The guy down there, I’m not really sure about him.
Steve: What do you mean?
Brandon: Well, he could be Turkish… could be retarted.
This isn’t quite as mean-spirited as it sounds. He’s got a full, round face and big lips, and it seems as though his tongue gets in the way when he speaks, however, I do detect a bit of a Turkish accent beneath his mumble and he seemed adroit for the fuel pumping task.
Later I’d come to realize that I had ruled out the chance of him being both Turkish and retarted. There certainly is the presence of mental fault in Turkey, and my lapse in ruling it out is now corrected. Still, this fresh theory didn’t take root with me, and upon subsequent visits to the facility, I’ve ascertained that he is more likely Turkish than retarted, but that he has a slight speech impediment and a problem with the English language.
Certainly proving his aptitude with his craft this tuesday, while filling my tank up with regular octane gasoline, he spotted a nail in my tire. To indicate the discovery, he bent down to my open passenger-side window and began, what I thought, was a poorly stated explanation of tires. He then frames a statement about nails and tires in soft-spoken tone and broken English.
In my curiosity for his lecture, he encouraged me to step out of my vehicle and inspect said tires. I’m a fan of visual aids, so I remove myself and proceed around the back of my car. He then points out, somewhat unnecessarily, the long, thick roofing nail placed deep, but obvious in the sidewall of my rear-passenger side tire. I gingerly touch the head of the spike and then thoughtfully pace back around the car and return to the driver’s seat.
The attendant calls the other workers to witness the integrity of my tire being actively broken. They talk amongst themselves about fixing versus repairing tires in general, then mine specifically, when I inform them that I’ve got a broad warranty policy on my tires, and that I’ll just get it replaced for free. This stunts their debate and they walk off without entertainment. Now I eschew further travel, skip the tripod purchase and head straight home.
The following day, having changed the critical tire out for my donut spare and having spotted a bubble in the sidewall of my front-passenger side, I set off on my twenty mile daily pilgrimage to my office. This, you see, is where the inspiration for the post enters, upstage, with the quickness.
There are three things that are important to note at this point:
1. I take Sunrise Highway to work, where the speed limit is 55 mph.
2. The average speed on Sunrise Highway, I’d guess, is 70 mph.
3. I actively try and maintain my speed as no more than 75 mph at all times.
That day, being conscious of the hobbled state of my car, I remind myself upon setting out that I will, at maximum velocity, obey the speed limit. This is easier said than done. It seems that on Long Island (as I’m sure it is in other places), everyone on the road is mad at two people at all times, those going faster than them and those going slower than them. The fastest and slowest people on the road, having the extreme to themselves, retain an anger towards the police, however, for opposing reasons.
Despite taking me a bit longer than usual to get to work, (and to be honest, it wasn’t that much longer) I noticed that driving the speed limit on Long Island during rush hour isn’t something easily subscribed to. Among many incidents of fear that the truck in my rear-view mirror isn’t going to slow down when he parks in my trunk, were two stand out incidents of absurdity. For the latter half of my commute I was being tailgated. I expected this, and thought myself prepared to ignore such aggressive intimidation tactics.
This proved ineffective when I found that I was being shadowed by an old, yellow short bus. The canary blaze in my rear-view was too much for me ignore and I desparately wanted the bus to go around me in the unoccupied passing lane. This bus wanted blood on the pavement, however, and was not dissuaded from it’s bullying by the availability of the two neighboring lanes for traffic to flow.
It was at the point that I began to fear that the bus was, indeed, a Decepticon involved in a poorly executed attempt to mount my car and make sweet buttlove to it, that the most unexpectedly humorous event transpired. In the passing lane, surely pushing the limits of it’s engineering, came theHybrid of the Opera, Honda’s Insight. Surely it was the most rediculous that any Japanese designer could actively imagine a car; this R/C wedge smoothly and swiftly carried out its lane choice intentions and passed me in my Mitsubishi (Goofus and) Galant. Now as it may not strike you as light enough to bring about laughter, that is exactly what it did. Perhaps to bring you into the joke, you’ll need to be familiar with the Honda Insight’s spec sheet:
Engine: 1 cyl. Vespa-type
Battery: 4 D-cells (NB: my maglite uses 6 of these)
Zero-to-Sixty: Yes (with the wind at your back)
Buttplug/Sneaker On Wheels: Both
Fuel Efficiency: 60 AU* / gal.
*AU (Astronomical Unit) = 9.3×10^7 mi
It’s nice to see something humbling on your way to work, espcially when you find out that the free warranty replacement really involves prorating replacement costs, along with installation factors you neglected to acknowledge. Now, the driver’s side tires on my car are further along in wear than the new passenger side tires (I can’t honestly tell from driving it), but I had a little adventure in humility in the rectification process.
Roofing Nail: $0.05
Tire Replacements: $80.00
New Tire Warranties: $20.00
Having an Insight pwn you: Priceless (more…)
I’ve now spent more time than I’d like to admit to, soaking in the absurdly useless content of 
