She Went There

Yesterday was spent running errands to help Brad get ready for his road trip with his mom. They left this morning for Primm, Nevada which I'm not sure is really a town. It's mainly a large outlet mall a few miles from Las Vegas that has two or three casino hotels. Something for each of them.

The most important errand was to get an oil and filter change in Brad's Jeep. Second to that was a trip to the car wash although now I'm wondering how different the day might have turned out if I'd done things in a different order.

To digress for a moment, I need to mention that I've had situations in the past when I've gone to pick up my car after having it serviced only to find that the presents on my radio have been erased (explained by the disconnection of the battery during service) and the unexpected jolt of having music not to my liking come blaring out of the stereo upon start-up. The latter was the case when the car was supposed to have been road tested to find the origin of a squeaky rattle. And it was then that I exploded like a microwaved egg at the service manager. I leave my radio OFF and expect it to be OFF when I pick it up. Anyway, back to the story:

And so was the case yesterday. I really didn't expect to get back to the car, start it up and hear hip-hop rap come blasting out of the stereo. The people at the new Wal-Mart at Hegenberger Road in Oakland are all pretty nice and so I was very surprised. I was also surprised that it smelled like french fries inside the car too.

I comtemplated going back inside to complain but just blew it off because I had to keep moving. Brad was leaving work early and I still had to go to the car wash, pick up clothes from the cleaners and get back to San Leandro BART to fetch him.

I adjusted the volume, scanned for a better radio station and drove off. And I guess the woman in the photo above pulled out of her parking spot at about the same time.

As we approached the same intersection, she asserted her right-of-way by laying on the horn as she passed through. At the light I leaned out of my window and asked her why she honked at me like that. (It was NOT necessary.) She accused me of not paying attention and said she "had to protect her family."

I said "Your horn isn't going to save your life but some better driving skills might come in handy," thinking back to the days when driver's education was taught in public schools. I had no idea at the time what condition her car was in, other than the oxidized paint, because we were parallel.

She shouted a couple of other ignorant things at me and added "..besides, your need to wash your car." The insults! As a matter of fact, I was on my way to South Shore Car Wash in Alameda.

So I said "As a matter of fact I'm on my way to the car wash right now - and I suppose you're on your way to get yours painted?" And that's when she told me to have a good day. At the next light I remembered that my camera was in the car and took a quick shot of them before we went our separate ways.

When I viewed this online and saw the cracked lights, cracked windshield, missing chrome, variety of wheel covers (I think only one was a "spinner") I laughed out loud. I doubt seriously this car is even registered. You really must click ont he photo to see a larger version. It's a total mess. And late last night, a fellow Flickr photographer pointed out that the impound marks are still visible on the windshield.

Since I'm writing a story I might just as well keep going.

At the car wash, another strange thing happened. I walked around taking photos when I noticed Brad's Jeep coming out of the mechanized part of the wash. A worker got in and instead of driving it to the finishing area he drove it off the lot, out to Shoreline Drive and headed East out of sight!

When I went inside to ask what was going on I was told to relax. "We haven't lost a car in 40 years," she said. But I couldn't help but wonder how many had been stolen. Still, it wasn't my car so I'd really have hated to have to come home and tell Brad his car had been stolen from the car wash.

It turns out that the alleged car thief was simply putting it through the wash a second time. When it was done, though, I didn't give him a tip. I was still unnerved by witnessing Brad's car disappear right before my eyes.

After picking up his shirts from the cleaners I headed back to San Leandro, driving on a street I don't usually take. That's when I noticed something new in the neighborhood: Speed Lumps. And here's the photo to prove it.

Was jumping out of the car and snapping photos of this worth losing a lens cap? I don't know but I think this is where I last saw it.

Now, back to the main story, it was also about this time that I realized that there was something wrong with the radio preset buttons. I know for certain Brad doesn't listen to hip-hop or rap but his first two presets had been changed to exactly that.

And he hit the roof when I told him about it. He was on the phone talking to a store manager within minutes. That's when we found out that the clerk failed to give me a detailed invoice of the service performed which included the names of the people who worked on the car. (Something else to complain about.)

It was obvious I needed to make one more trip so I drove to Alameda to search for my lens cap (no luck) and back to Wal-Mart (store #5457 8400 Edgewater Drive Oakland CA 94612 (510)430-9606 Manager David George) to get the invoice.

I also had a chat with some people in the service department about the complaint. I spoke with Daryl (1120) to make sure that:

1- Listening to the customer's radio is not part of the oil change package and 2- There was no need for a road test afterward requiring the stereo to be tested as well 3- It was against store policy to re-program the customer's radio presets during any type of service order.

I think he got the message that Steven (1179) and the rest of the crew are going to be keel-hauled for this in a letter with copies going to just about every level.

And just to show that a cranky old man can still be benevolent, I'm not going to mention the smell of french fries.

After, before and during all of this I've found myself wondering why I'm doing business with Wal-Mart anyway. Fortunately the day ended well. Nothing else happened.

Freak Magnet

Public transportation makes me nervous. Very nervous. I don't know all those people and they don't know me. We can see each other and there isn't anything I can do about it.

People cough, talk, listen to music, stink, eat and do all sorts of things other than sit or stand politely and try to remain invisible or otherwise unobtrusive.

BART is particularly heinous. The trains go through all kinds of neighborhoods. When the doors open an exchange of hostages takes place.

I've hated BART since my first ride on it back in the late '70's. It was a bad experience not because of the trip to San Francisco but the trip home.

Going to the city I was appalled by the extreme scenes of poverty, decay and filth below. I'd never seen anything like it inside the U.S. and didn't expect to see it in the bay area.

On the way home later that night, after seeing a play at the Curran Theater, we witnessed a fight in the station while waiting for our train back to Oakland. Two guys beat up a presumably queer black man, throwing him down onto the tracks. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know whether to go to his defense or stay put in case I had to defend my "date." Neither option settled well with me and I've thought about my decision ever since.

Fortunately my trips on BART are now very rare even though I go to the San Leandro station every morning and evening to deliver and retrieve Brad to and from his commute to San Francisco.

The photo above was taken on my last trip. I met up with Brad in SF to go see the new Bloomingdale's store which was about to open to the public.

I didn't want to schlep around inside a nice store like that looking like a hobo so I put on some of my better clothes, shaved, combed my hair and wore a sport coat. It was called "dressing for success" back in the late '80's at my job in the reservation center. (Which made little sense since people on the phone had no idea what you were wearing.) I, for one, never dressed for success.

Wearing three layers always makes me feel hot and being on BART makes me nervous. So I start to perspire shortly after getting dressed. It's very uncomfortable. And that day turned out to be warmer than expected making things even worse.

Before even leaving the San Leandro station, I had to pee. Bad. So I cautiously approached the station agent and politely asked her how one goes about getting access to the toilets, fearing I might get my head snapped off or be told that they weren't working and I'd have to go back to the car and pee in a cup; a particularly delicate and dangerous thing to do. She was incredibly nice and called me "sir" more than once. "It's the jacket," I thought to myself. "I look nice."

Maybe it was the camera. It's big. Or maybe a combination of both the camera and the jacket. Because what happened next really perplexed Brad when I told him about it later because, he said, people don't usually strike up conversations on BART.

Right. Maybe not during commute hours. But during off hours, the freaks ride the trains.

So I was pleased to find that the train was quite empty. There was plenty of room for everyone to have their own personal space. I fidgeted, looked out the window, read part of an abandoned newspaper and then put its pages back into sequence when I was done. I whipped out my camera and pointed it all around, looking for a good shot. And then I heard a voice coming from someone who had entered my personal space without an invitation.

"Aren't you afraid of getting into trouble for taking photos on BART?"

For a split second I thought it was BART Police. But it wasn't. It was a guy, younger than me, who looked and sounded like he might have been from Thailand.

Puh-leeze, I thought, and just shook my head.

"Are you freelance?"

"No," I said, wanting the conversation to end there.

"Oh, so you work for someone!"

"No." I thought maybe he'd think I didn't understand English when really I just didn't want to breathe his used air.

"I know," he said, "you're pa-pa-rot-zee!" (That was just plain stupid.) He was acting like he'd just met a celebrity and it was making me extra nervous.

I said "What? No." before I remembered that I didn't know English.

"That looks like the kind of camera they use. Is it?"

Of course my camera isn't the kind they use. The guy was a moron. And he kept warning me about getting into trouble for taking photos. So I got out my cell phone and pretended to listen to voice messages, just to end our weird conversation.

We were in the transbay tube where there's no signal at all. But it's the only thing I could think of. I was nervous, sweating and irritated and, for all he knew, was about to detonate a bomb using my new VirginMobile cell phone. I have to admit that I toyed with that idea (the false impression) just to mess with him a little bit. He did watch me the whole time.

So I was rather pleased with myself when he asked me which station I was going to. Mayybe he didn't like the way I was fidgeting with my cell phone and wiping the sweat off my brow. Maybe I looked nervous and it made him nervous. Maybe he wanted to ask me out for a drink. In any event, he got off the train one stop before mine, not bothering to say goodbye. And I was left to wonder what he was really thinking but very glad to be rid of him.

It seeme like most of the time I'm totally invisible when I'm in public. People walk straight into me. But for some reason that day was different. And since I always have my camera with me, I'm guessing it was the sport coat.

If it's going to turn me into a freak magnet, I'll remain unshaven with jeans and T-shirt and regular bed-hair (without gel) like every other hobo on BART.