So, for those of you interested in a position stalking me, you should be aware that on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at the unreasonable hour of 7 am, I have to go to Cardio Rehab, all because my aorta exploded a few months back. Cardio Rehab is basically just normal cardio-based exercise but they have doctors around and they have you hooked up to sensors while you’re doing it, and it’s in a special section of the hospital-run gym that I think has a big sign above it for the normal gym-goers that reads something like WARNING: AREA FULL OF GEEZERS WHAT MIGHT DIE or something like that. Anyway, since I’m so bad about doing these Cold Starts the night before, I often try to think of what I may want to write about while I’m there. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it ends up like today, where I have some dumb car and other thoughts and decide to share them with you. Lucky you!
The big car-related thing that caught my eye was this early 2000s Jeep Grand Cherokee in the parking lot, positioned just right behind a fire hydrant that it reminded me of something. The position of the hydrant right in front of the headlight – which we know are the eyes of the car, of course – reminded me of something very specific. A periscope! It looks just like that Grand Cherokee is a submarine commander, peering through a periscope, assessing the conditions on the surface, lurking, waiting to arise!
You see it too, don’t you? Look up top there again. Or should I repeat the picture so you don’t have to scroll? Why not, those bytes are already hanging around in your cache memory as it is, after all:
Man, that totally looks like it’s looking through a periscope. Though I also noticed something else as I walked towards it – you can also read the round cover of the hydrant as an alternate headlight design, so if you’re curious how this generation of Grand Cherokee would have looked with big, round lights, that big round hydrant cover kind of gives you an idea, which I’ll duplicate for you on the other side:
Hmm, not bad! I left some red hydrant-metal trim around the edges just for fun, but that’s not necessary. I also like the idea of Jeep selling a car so tough it had manually-removable cast-iron screw-on headlight covers, just like that. Anyway, customizers, take note!
Oh, one other car thing:
This was a car parked next to me, a relatively modern car. Look at all the door handle-area scratches! This is extremely common, which makes me wonder why carmakers haven’t given much of a shit about this issue? Some cars do have little plastic inserts there to absorb the damage of scratchy fingers, but they rarely look that great.
Surely designers can accept that this is a Thing That Happens to cars, and design some integrated, more elegant solution that more gracefully deals with this kind of damage? This feels like a solvable problem, and a worthy challenge.
Okay, one last, car-unrelated thing, though it does involve wheels and motors. It involves treadmills. So, for this cardio rehab thing, part of it is on a treadmill. When I get on the treadmill, I like to imagine the worst possible disaster that can happen on the treadmill, but in, you know, a funny way.
I think the ideal way to get flung off the treadmill is this: it would start with one of the therapists who work there approaching me as I start on the treadmill and asking if I need any help connecting the safety doohickey or whatever, and maybe suggesting I start at an easy pace. I’d respond like an absolute dickhead, because that’s what’s needed to make the soon-too-come disaster really satisfying, snidely saying something like um, I think I know what I’m doing, thanks, but in a really dickish way.
Then – and I think this is key – I’d crank everything up way too high before hitting the start button. I’m not even sure this is possible on the treadmill, but I think for this to work well, that’s what I’d want. Make a big show of setting a high speed, and then hitting START.
Immediately upon hitting start, I’d get flung backward off the treadmill at a fantastic speed. Vwooooosh!
Ideally, my little white earbuds would linger and rotate in the air where my head was before dropping to the ground. Within mere seconds there would be a colossal SMACK sound, and everyone would turn around to the large glass wall that separates Cardio Rehab from the Normal People gym areas. I’m not even certain that wall exists, but I’d like it there for this.
I’d be splayed out on the glass like one of those rubber octopus toys that dentists give to kids, sticky rubbery things you fling at walls and they slowly tumble down. In my case, I’d slowly slide down the glass, accompanied by some loud squeaking sounds, my face smushed up against the glass, eventually falling the last three feet or so to collapse, heavily, into a heap at the base of the wall.
The people in the gym would have been watching this, silently, and once I hit ground, after a pause, they’d all turn back around, turn their music back on, and ignore the panting heap on the gym floor.
Maybe I’d pee myself then? Is that too much?
As a bespectacled one myself, are you wearing your glasses during this workout? Are the “arms” of the glasses frame also flat against the glass, or do they end up at that wonky 45-degree angle to normal on your face with the arms splayed out like the front limbs of a flying squirrel?
The glasses stay with the earbuds, silly.
Not only are the door handle scratches a pain, but the part of the handle you pull is typically painted plastic…no matter how careful you are, that paint is going to look very worn after 15 years or so.
This was a car parked next to me, a relatively modern car. Look at all the door handle-area scratches! This is extremely common, which makes me wonder why carmakers haven’t given much of a shit about this issue?”
Oh, but you can bet that car dealers do – which is why those {language toned down here to keep things family friendly} folks slap on 10 or 20 dollars worth of clear sticky plastic behind the door handles and on the door edges and tack $500 onto the price of the car. Then they act as if they can’t do anything about it on the pricing or if they “discount” it, they act as if they knocked money off the price of the car and gave you a better deal. (Also reference VIN etchings and other dealer add-ons.) When I bought a car for my wife about a month ago I nearly walked the deal over those shenanigans (had the car been for me I would absolutely have negotiated harder and walked but you know, happy wife happy life), and when I bought my new car in 2018 I did in fact walk out of a dealer due to those shenanigans and they lost an easy sale trying to rip me off.
As you can tell, this is a subject I get rather fired up about.
Re the door handle scratches: I notice them a lot on cars, and it does seem like an area that is just being ignored, or for which there is no great solution. But what gets me most is — like in the pic up there — what the heck is going on with the scratches starting four inches or more above the handle?? What are your fingernails made of, and do you have no hand-eye coordination whatsoever? Are you a monkey who drives a car? If so, I’d like to see that in person. From a moderate distance.
Lovingly driven by Wolverine?
Torch, have you by any chance watched Ghostbusters lately?
Thank you.
Is this a teaser trailer for the next Mack Hardigraw article?
If we instead take the Pixar view that the eyes are where the windscreen is, then those shooped-in hydrant plugs are, in fact, that jeep’s proudly erect nipples.
You’re welcome.
Yeah, my first thought was boobs too. Great minds, and all that . . .
This proves that I am not alone in these visioniets running in my brain.
penta-nut.
The lovely cartoonish treadmill-fling seems to have distracted early responders from calling you out on that Burn Notice reference, but you Have Been Seen.
~sips mojito~
You see a Jeep looking through a periscope, I see an evil Grand Cherokee with a monocle trying to decide the best routes for invading the Balkans. All that’s needed is a thin mustache
I assume the cardio staff all refer to you as “that taillight guy”.
They’re not alone.
“I’d be splayed out on the glass like one of those rubber octopus toys that dentists give to kids…”
I, for one, have always wanted to leave a me-shaped hole in a wall.
Hey are you the wizard ?
Once upon a time….
I agree that 7am is ludicrous. The workday begins at 6:30am and ends at 2pm.
I like it this way because I stay ahead of the idiot bell curve on the local highways.
It’s also funny to think of you explaining away your mornings by saying you’re going to rehab and then refusing to elaborate further.
“When I get on the treadmill, I like to imagine the worst possible disaster that can happen on the treadmill, but in, you know, a funny way.”
I think the worst possible disaster would involve you trying to dismantle the treadmill with a chainsaw while running on it.
My vote is for jumping on a treadmill already running at full speed, with a wall immediately behind it. Oh, and every single bolt is about 2 threads away from dislodging, setting the treadmill up for a “rapid, unscheduled disassembly”.
“Oh, and every single bolt is about 2 threads away from dislodging, setting the treadmill up for a “rapid, unscheduled disassembly”.
Does Boeing make treadmills?
I reached out to them to ask, but my contact mysteriously died before getting back to me.
His house burned down… after he shot himself 6 times.
Whew, at first I thought you were going to say something suspicious. Tragic case of a homeowner trying to fight off a house fire with a gun, only to be disarmed and shot by the fire. Open & shut case. Let’s get lunch, boys.
Jesus is my door plug
Can we still involve the chainsaw? Maybe Torch could practice his Jackyl solo skillz?
That Grand Cherokee with the giant bug eyes looks like someone who just saw porn for the first time.
It looks like something out of a horror film with those cold, dead, single-color eyes.
Gave me the jibblies.
By any chance, were there Roadrunner cartoons on the TV in the rehab room?
Also, that looks like a Jeep that’s been assimilated by the Borg.
Jason, only you could put the car in cardio rehab.
I was imagining a mobile rehab unit, partially (or fully) powered by running on the treadmill(s) within.
With a trailer of screw in crimps and spare hoses and belts
I think that at least two of those stalkers he was talking about should consist of the following:
CamerapersonFoley ArtistThe former to document the literal hilarity, and the latter to notch up the antics by a couple orders of magnitude.
That door handlebar area, is what happens if you have bad personal grooming…
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6tukO1QiFZs/UJdHsY0nMHI/AAAAAAAAEPg/R5fxx7ISKfU/s1600/athena_longnails.JPG
I see it now. You too were raised by the Brothers Warner, weren’t you?
Undoubtedly. I imagine that after being flung off, a startled powerlifter drops an anvil on Torch, temporarily turning him into an man-accordion hybrid of sorts.
What about the Warner Sister, Dot?
Now I need to know if Torch says “Helllooo, Nurse!” every time he walks into rehab.
Man I hope so!
Clearly the solution to all door handle problems in this world can be solved by going back to the One True Door Handle ™ which is of course the NA Miata handle. Small, low profile, aerodynamic, metal (no scratches, no paint) sturdy, and stylish. Sure they may be pricier than the standard fare plastic, but surely they’re an order of magnitude less than the overcomplicated motorized nonsense seen today
Well, I’ve never had a plastic or otherwise “traditional” door handle stop returning to its closed position after pulling it, but I have had that experience with my Miata. Took some targeted lubrication to get that thing to stop sticking out after pulling it. Otherwise very cool door handles though. More unique and distinctive than those of the NB that followed.
“Give me a ping, Torchinsky. One ping only, please.”
[contemplates situation]
“We must give this Autopian a wide berth. Let us turn… south.”
Fantasatic movie, and book. Can’t read those lines without hearing the correct voice, but then the correct voice follows it all up with
“The rapist, for 500 please Alex.”
“THE DAY IS MINE!”
“Oh I’ll play your game, you rogue.”
“The sound a dog makes”
“Moo”
“I’m sorry that’s incorrect”
“Well thats the sound your mother made last night!”
Managed to score a second edition a while back, and finally got around to reading it recently (being autismistic I don’t read much fiction). The movie is way, way better than the book, which contains too many identikit characters and plot detours.
Two thoughts.
One: who can identify the car attached to the door handle with all the scratches?
Two: rather than pee yourself when you hit the window, wouldn’t you rather shit yourself? Perhaps, lavishly?
Chrysler uses that style of pull-handle. And you can see what looks like a running board. Durango?
Throw a taillight in there and we have the next Torch article.